Slashdot Mirror
6 Pennsylvania Teens Face Child Porn Charges For Pics of Selves
mikesd81 writes "MSNBC reports six Pennsylvania high school students are facing child pornography charges after three teenage girls allegedly took nude or semi-nude photos of themselves and shared them with male classmates via their cell phones. Apparently, female students at Greensburg Salem High School in Greensburg, Pa., all 14 or 15 years old, face charges of manufacturing, disseminating or possessing child pornography while the boys, who are 16 and 17, face charges of possession. Police told the station that the photos were discovered in October, after school officials seized a cell phone from a male student who was using it in violation against school policy and the photos were discovered at that time. Police Capt. George Seranko was quoted as saying that the first photograph was 'a self portrait taken of a juvenile female taking pictures of her body, nude.' The school district issued a statement Tuesday saying that the investigation turned up 'no evidence of inappropriate activity on school grounds ... other than the violation of the electronic devices policy.'"
Most notably did the school have the right to search the student's phone/does a student have the expectation of privacy. There have been varying rulings over whether the police can search a cell phone or PDA of an individual placed under arrest. In the case of a school, they are not the police and do not have the authority of the police (despite some administrators thinking that they do).
Similar cases like this are popping up all over the country. I did some research awhile ago and found a case in Pennsylvania, Klump vs. Nazareth, and the courts actually found the school guilty of violating the students' privacy and constitutional rights by looking at the contents of their phone. This case basically stated that although the school can have a no cell phone use policy, it does not give the school or school officials the privilege to search the contents of the phone at will unless it is believed that the student is using the phone to violate another policy (IE: using the phone to cheat). The point is, in order for any school official to search cell phone contents, the student would have to be violating another policy other than the no cell phone use policy. Being that this case is also in PA, it could be used as case law and charges would most likely be thrown out. PDF here: http://www.paed.uscourts.gov/documents/opinions/06D0400P.pdf
How the fuck is this a troll?
Charging a child with taking their own picture is punishing the victim!
Jesus people.
Charges coming in Davis County over nude photos
"It's out there and it's happening," Dunn said. "It's felonies, potentially federal felonies, and kids are clueless. They think that because the person is across the room and you're sending it across the room that it isn't a big deal. It's not the case."
These kids could end up on the sex-offender registry, which would further deflate its usefulness and also deny a whole host of opportunities from these kids. What they did amounts to "show me yours, I'll show you mine" in my opinion -- but our culture is so wrapped up in sex offender mania that we're conflating rapists with innocent behavior.
When we bought our house close to the University of Utah, we looked on the state's sex offender registry and were alarmed by all the incidents around. After drilling down to specific cases, however, it turns out that most of them were of the drunken-college-student variety. Now, when I hear that someone is a "sex offender", I'm not certain if they are a violent rapist, or if they took a dare to run down the block naked.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Unfortunately, most of the unlawful search and other illegal evidence laws apply primarily to the police, not to actions taken by others. Often times, if somebody else obtains the evidence, even illegally it can be used by the prosecution in the case. The party that obtained the evidence illegally could potentially be subject to prosecution as well, but that is not surprising.
Now not all evidence works like this. For example phone recordings in some states may be inadmissible as evidence if the state's rules regarding it are not met, even when neither party is the police. But in most cases, as long as it was not the police (or prosecution) that obtained the evidence illegally it is admissible.
Now in this case, this is moot. No warrant was necessary. Anybody (police or otherwise) may search property without any warrant if the owner of said property agrees to the search, and any evidence obtained is admissible. In general, although there are exceptions such as probable cause, law enforcement requires warrants to search a person's property against his/her will. Private individuals never need a warrant to do this, although usually searching of property by a private individual against the property owners will is a crime. However, school officials generally have the legal right to search any property on school grounds. Thus the evidence was lawful.
IANAL, but all the above is my understanding of how it works.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
Like it or not, agree with it or not, minors do not legally have civil rights so they can not be infringed upon.
They don't have the right to vote, and they are considered mentally incompetent. But yes, they do have civil rights.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
Saranko indicated that authorities decided to file
I just confirmed that the Westmoreland County District Attorney's office will be handling this case.
I'd ask any interested slashdotters to call the Westmoreland District Attorney's office and tell them that the prosecution of these individuals:
a.) is not in the interest of the individuals involved
b.) is not upholding the intent of the statutes as written
c.) is completely stupid, without merit and lacking in common sense
c.) will be an embarrassment to the district attorney when he runs for re-election in 2010, should the voters of Westmoreland County find out that that valuable public resources will be used prosecuting teens for something which is hardly threatening the public.
John Peck, District Attorney
Phone: 724.830.3949
da@co.westmoreland.pa.us