I just receieved a message from my lawyer that the Oregon Supreme
Court has declined to hear my case, thus leaving the unfavorable
Oregon Appeals Court decision as the final authority.

While I haven't discussed further options with my legal team yet, my
recollection is that at this point, the options were all extremely
expensive and unlikely to be fruitful.

In other words, I'm a felon for life, the restitution order stands,
and the statute used to convict me remains in place to be used to
prosecute future cases, with my court history available to assist.
I'm also higher at risk constantly, since any future conviction would
be on top of these three felonies, and I'm on the short list of
suspects for related crimes. No chance of a civil disobedience act
for me. Ever.

I'm greatly saddened by this news.

To those of you that have stood by me since the beginning, I thank you
deeply for your support and trust, and belief that this thing should
make sense at its conclusion. I'm sorry it didn't. I made my best
run at it, and got this.

To those of you who joined my side as the battle progressed, I thank
you as well.

To those of you who contributed to me financially, my banker thanks
you.

To those of you that have helped spread the word, thank you for
helping to prevent others from suffering similarly. Please continue
to do so. Now more than ever, apparently.

To those of you that have challenged me, I thank you for keeping me
honest.

I will continue to be available to groups to speak about my case, and
I will continue to work to change the laws that permitted my
prosecution. A law that makes a person a felon for changing the
background color of a screen, or trying to be a good samaritan to help
the people who had paid the bills for five years, just doesn't make
sense.

But the battle for my personal legal case appears to be over, and I'm
saddened by this apparently final outcome. I have lived for the past
eight years in the hope that the legal system was truly a justice
system, but that hope has now faded, and I'm older and wiser, but
permanently battle-scarred.

Thank you.

--
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<merlyn@...> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
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