A district attorney ignored child porn laws and punished sexting children sensibly for gross misdemeanor of telephone harassment instead of following the law and seeking felony convictions for child porn with life long sex offender registration. It would be better if sexting laws were changed for good, as suggested by legal scholars.
LACEY, Wash. — One day last winter Margarite posed naked before her bathroom mirror, held up her cellphone and took a picture. Then she sent the full-length frontal photo to Isaiah, her new boyfriend.
A Girl’s Nude Photo, and Altered Lives | New York Times
She produced and distributed child pornography. This is what the law says.
They broke up soon after. A few weeks later, Isaiah forwarded the photo to another eighth-grade girl, once a friend of Margarite’s. Around 11 o’clock at night, that girl slapped a text message on it.
“Ho Alert!” she typed. “If you think this girl is a whore, then text this to all your friends.” Then she clicked open the long list of contacts on her phone and pressed “send.”
Rude, inconsiderate, bad character, worthy of punishment. But grounding a few days for rude and inconsiderate behavior. What is the punishment for adults for re-distributing nude photos without a model release? Not jailing a few years for distributing child pornography! But, remember, it’s the law!
In a world without child porn laws, by regular laws about adult photos, these guys should get a serious slap on the wrist, and Margarite should go unpunished. But, according to our laws, she is a felon. Compare: In the brave new world of ‘sexting,’ females are ‘victims’ of the very crime they commit
But when that sexually explicit image includes a participant — subject, photographer, distributor or recipient — who is under 18, child pornography laws may apply.
“I didn’t know it was against the law,” Isaiah said.
That is because culturally, such a fine distinction eludes most teenagers. Their world is steeped in highly sexualized messages. Extreme pornography is easily available on the Internet. Hit songs and music videos promote stripping and sexting. A Girl’s Nude Photo, and Altered Lives | New York Times
Human-Stupidity keeps pointing out: the consequences of such dumb laws are that we adults have the obligation to teach children the law.
After all, the poor children get punished for infractions they don’t even know about!? And they can not know, they are not normal natural infractions like lying, stealing, hurting people. That means that we have to tell 8 year olds that they go to jail or face other serious legal consequences if they do sexual touching when they are 10 or 12. And we need to explain exactly what type of photos are illegal. And we have to face the children’s questions: "why do I go to jail for photographing myself?" "Oh, I go to jail so I don’t abuse myself? I go to jail for my own protection?" Of course, it does not make sense. (Jailed for possession of video of himself masturbating when he was 12.)
Of course, this way we inoculate sexual thoughts into the 99% of the children who would never have thought any sexual thoughts.
Note that adult sexting is legal! Holding our children up to higher standards then ourselves. Ridiculous!
The most troubling behavior in this story is that by the non-parental authority figures. Charging 12- and 13-year-olds with dissemination of child pornography? Authorizing principals to search cellphones at will to root out sexts? Someone please explain to me how society was served and justice done by hauling at eighth grader to jail in this instance? What a great way to teach young people to become citizens – show them that the 4th Amendment doesn’t count if the Principal says so.reader’s comment
Very true. This happens all the time. Violating profound constitutional principles to prosecute alleged sex crimes. No due process in rape prosecutions, criminalizing thought crimes in child pornography prosecutions. Draconian punishment under the guise of protecting victims. In this case there was a real victim, but she was partially to blame for her innocent stupid trust.
I have special contempt for the prosecuting attorney, Rick Peters. Charging eighth graders with sex crimes is a good way to ‘send a scared straight message’? I would wager that these childrens’ contact with the criminal justice system will prove far more harmful than the act that brought the prosecutor’s attention in the first place. If not for the publicity of taking a child out of school in handcuffs, these young people would likely have been able to put this whole thing behind them much sooner.
Here I need to defend the DA. The laws and the child porn witch hunt are not his fault. Even though he probably is in favor of these laws, like most of the misguided population. He violated the law by not prosecuting for child pornography.
He was actually extremely moderate by not prosecuting Margarite at all and by not applying child porn felony laws to the bullies that forwarded the photos. Not the DA is to blame, our ridiculous child porn witch hunt laws are at fault. And the general tendency of overcriminalization. The DA actually broke the law by not prosecuting in full force.
Eventually a deal was brokered for the three teenagers who were charged. The offense would be amended from the child pornography felony to a gross misdemeanor of telephone harassment. Isaiah and the two girls who had initially forwarded Margarite’s photo would be eligible for a community service program that would keep them out of court, and the case could be dismissed.
A Girl’s Nude Photo, and Altered Lives | New York Times
This is about the maximum penalty teenagers should get for their rude breach of privacy. But this penalty was only due to the kindness of the District Attorney.
While many sensible people agree that adolescents should not be handcuffed and jailed for adolescent nude photos, human-stupidity always goes a few steps further and questions the necessity of jailing adults for 15 years for mere possession of such pictures. (see University researcher Milton Diamond abour child pornography reducing sex crimes, and Judge Weinstein about cruel child porn laws).
And of course, Margarite did not get victimized by anonymous people getting their rocks of when watching her photos in another continent (as insane child porn CP victimization theory holds). Rather she got victimized by actions of people she physically meets.
This article states that anywhere from 1/5 to 1/4 of 14-to-17-year olds have engaged in sexting. In the interests of justice, should they all be charged with disseminating or possessing child pornography? If so, Mr. Peters is going to need a much bigger juvenile hall.
Very true. Most of our children should go to jail. And most adult males too. According to child porn laws, almost any male that visits pornographic sites has, inadvertently, doubtful pictures that warrant his arrest and prosecution. Especially in Australia and Europe where "apparently underage" 22 year old small breasted girls with pony tails constitute child pornography. If people were aware of the law, they would be terrified at any border crossing, every time they send family photos to WalMart or their computer for repair.
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