A lawyer for a man once considered one of the world’s most prolific e-mail spammers urged the Virginia Supreme Court on Wednesday to strike down a state anti-spam law, arguing it violates free speech protections under the U.S. constitution.

Lawyer Thomas M. Wolf said the state law that makes bulk e-mailing a felony is unconstitutional considering it fails to distinguish amidst commercial messages, which are not covered by the constitution, and protected political and religious speech.

The high court was hearing arguments on whether convicted spammer Jeremy Jaynes can challenge the state law based on free-speech issues despite the fact that his conviction was for sending commercial e-mails, not religious or political messages.

Wolf urged the court to reverse a previous ruling that Jaynes has no standing to build the appeal.

State Solicitor General William Thro countered that the high court was unmistaken when it ruled 4-3 in February against Jaynes. The state additionally argued that even whether Jaynes is

allowed to pursue the free-speech claim, the law should be upheld.

Jaynes in 2004 became the first person in the United States to be convicted of a felony for sending unsolicited bulk e-mail. Authorities claimed Jaynes churned out up to 10 million e-mails a day from his home in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was sentenced to nine years in prison.

Jaynes was charged in Virginia considering the e-mails went through an AOL server in Loudoun County, where America Online is based.

Jaynes appealed his conviction on several grounds, but the Virginia Supreme Court affirmed his conviction. The justices later agreed, without explanation, to reconsider just the free speech issue.

The court must first decide whether Jaynes can act as a surrogate for others whose free-speech rights might be violated by the anti-spam law.

The stakes are high, Wolf said.

“This case is bigger than one criminal defendant, one state statute,”…

Orginal post by Top Tech News