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Court Says Parents Can Block PA "Sexting" Prosecutions
mikesd81 writes "In the first federal appeals court opinion dealing with 'sexting,' a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled Wednesday that parents could block the prosecution of their children on child pornography charges for appearing in photographs found on some classmates' cellphones. Miller vs. Mitchell (PDF) began in 2008 when school officials in Tunkhannock, Pa., discovered seminude and nude photographs of some female students on other student's phones. George Skumanick Jr., the DA at the time, said the students and their parents could be prosecuted if they did not participate in an after-school 'education program.'
The unanimous ruling of the judges, Thomas L. Ambro, Michael A. Chagares and Walter K. Stapleton, criticized the district attorney's reliance on the girls' presence in the photographs as a basis for the potential charges. 'Appearing in a photograph provides no evidence as to whether that person possessed or transmitted the photo,' said the opinion, by Judge Ambro."
the students and their parents could be prosecuted if they did not participate in an after-school 'education program.'
I love the fucking hypocrisy around sex in USA. Sure, violence and killing people is all okay, but when it's about natural human function like sex it's all bad and must be hidden. It's a great irony that just an hour ago I read news that you can't even say tampon on US TV commercial about tampon products . Women bleed once a month. Accept it and get on with your lifes.
When I was a teen we sent back and forth nude pictures of ourself with my girlfriend, and I suspect many others did too. Hell, we even had sex like every other teenager does. 15-16 year old is perfectly capable to understand sex. Age of consent is 14-16 in most of the world and 17-18 in more liberal US states. It makes absolutely no sense that you can have sex but not send a dirty picture of yourself to your boy/girlfriend, and if you do you will be taken to some kind of "education program".
The fact that parents can block some "sexting" prosecution is a stupid point. If I was a parent I wouldn't want to interfere with my 16-17 year old teen sex life, and I sure as hell didn't want my parents to interfere with mine when I was that age.
It would likely depend on how these pics were found. If they were found on a phone confiscated at school, where's the search warrant?
Free Martian Whores!
I simply don't understand how prosecuting teenagers who take nude pictures of other nude teenagers, or appear in such pictures, helps the human sociaty in ANY way at all. Nobody is harmed by this. Aren't there useful things to prosecute instead, such as, people who cause aggression, vandalize cars, etc...?
Why do people tie themselves and others down with such rough-hewn principles? Of course, you need principles, as the human mind can't analyze every detail of every situation and thing all the time, but is that really the limits of their psyches? People around me, normal seemingly functional people that aren't considered mentally challenged by society in any way, burden themselves with crude approximations, in situations where i just improvise a detailed solution on a whim, without any effort whatsoever. It feels like hubris to think that it's a matter of "intelligence", maybe some people just have a psychological need to think and live like that? Reflexively, I find out that many many people think that I'm some sort of ultra-principled saint/boring rules-submissive stiff... when in fact, I'm quite the opposite. So do they then feel they would be crazed hellraisers, or at least incapable of functioning, if they approached problems like I do?
Emotions! In your brain!
On the face of it, it sounds good - it's unlikely parents will agree to child pornography prosecutions against their own child. But looking closer at it, this is just batshit-insanity dressed up with a legal fig-leaf. "Appearing in a photograph provides no evidence as to whether that person possessed or transmitted the photo" sounds to me like they judges are merely arguing that childporn charges do no apply because images themselves do not provide much evidence of who took the picture. It still completely neglects the issue that the current childporn laws apply to people under the age of consent who took naked pictures of themselves! Yes, I know, then there could be a loophole that pedophiles just force their victims to take their own pictures. Honestly - I don't care. The current laws not only make criminals out of people who really didn't do anything wrong, but also terminally fuck someone for the rest of their lives just because they took a picture of themselves.
Yes, yes, pedophilia is the root password to the Constitution, etc. But apathy and fatalism isn't gonna cut it. Write to your congress critters, and interrupt people who blather on about the danger of random strangers taking pictures. Tell them that they ought to look up the weird uncle first.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
So the school staff stole the phones from the students and then found pictures on them... I think there are multiple grounds to get these cases thrown out of court.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
So this sexting thing is labeled as child porn yet this isn't: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:0ifyxqq5ld6e
C'mon people! I continue to be amazed at our country's puritanical stance on sex overall. Yes, child porn and abuse is a VERY bad thing and should be punished by the extreme measures of the law (yes Catholic Church...I'm talking to you) but this kind of stupidity is not acceptable. And as a parent of three, you better believe that I will be on them about sending ANY kind of picture least of all a nude one to their friends. Trust me, I'm not the one that's going to be embarrassed in public about it. If they need to learn the hard way, so be it.
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
can result in fatal or permanently life-altering disease
and, of course, pregnancy. duh
combine this with the fact that teenagers are universally fucking retarded (they're green, they're psychologically immature), and it makes a hell of a lot of sense to bind sex up in taboos and rules
sex is immensely pleasurable. its also an emotional minefield. there is no such thing, nor will there ever be, a successful human society with a cavalier attitude towards sex. sex is extremely powerful. as such, it is treated, and should be treated, extremely carefully, and always will be
deal with it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Why isn't it illegal for the school officials to be in possession of nude pictures of underage children?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
For those seeking more background on the general insanity of this story and "sexting" in general, see Slate.com's Textual Misconduct and the Economist on America's unjust sex laws: An ever harsher approach is doing more harm than good, but it is being copied around the world. The latter is tangentially related to the main issue but nonetheless useful.
That's Jewish though Christians say it too. However they add you can only multiply when granted a church license called marriage. Muslims along with some Christian sects also allow males to have more than one spouse, but females can only have one. Which is called polygyny not polygamy. Now if they allowed females to have more than one spouse as well as males then it would be polygamy.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
If the judge has ruled that this photo is not incriminating for the girls in them, because the DA cannot prove that they produced, or distributed the photos then doesn't that mean that the girls are the "victims" here? And if the girls are the victims here, then what does that say about a prosecutor that threatens victims with false charges unless they agree to terms set by him? It sounds to me like the prosecutor is used to badgering the victims in his cases to get the outcome or version of the truth that he desires. I wonder how many other victims this guy has berated or threatened with other charges in order to get them to say what he wants them to say. Might make good ammunition for defense attorneys to ask to have another look at the witnesses that this guy has used in the past. Either way, it's not right. (and yes, I'm new to this planet)
Burn the land and boil the sea........
does not result in happiness. it results in unintended pregnancy and disease. are you happy with herpes and unwanted kids?
of course, you will respond that people will use protection. and i agree 100%. but that's not the FREE AND OPEN attitude you referred to, now is it? monkeys humping are free and open. homo sapiens wrapping their pecker or taking a birth control pill meanwhile are being RESPONSIBLE, not free and open. i don't know why you see some uneducated morons humping and spreading dozens of oprhans and awful diseases as a definition of success
so until your half-monkey teenagers develop a little more heft in their prefrontal cortexes, you bind them up in rules and taboos, to save them and your society from disease and unwanted kids, so you, your society, and the physically developed but psychologically immature teenagers have happy lives
got it?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
the inability to perceive the difference between
1. being responsible about sex and teenagers, and
2. locking people up against their will
so you've given us a wonderful example of the kind of psychological immaturity that makes sex amongst half monkey teenagers a threat to society and their own lives
teenagers are lightweights in the prefrontal cortex. until they develop little more heft in their executive functions of responsibility and planning, you heavily monitor them, to save them, and you, and your society, from disease and unwanted pregnancy
physical maturity unfortunately does not equal psychological maturity
understand?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
if anything, the education here for teenagers should be "how to better protect your privacy/cover your tracks". Sex Ed classes in (most) schools cover the rest of the 'HIV-teen prego-STD-gifts that keep on giving' talk and all that.
From your yearbook, find a portrait pic. From the Interweb, find a semi-nude model. With Photoshop, or Gimp, or other graphic editor, place the head on the body. Put the image on your phone. Now go show it to the principle and have that person from the yearbook brought up on indecency charges.
Id say he presumes he has the responsability for what the child does because, hell, its the law.
Sure, parents are supposed to be responsible, but with laws being enforced like this the nanny state has taken over responsibility. It's the parents' responsibility to teach their children what's good and bad. Laws without unwilling victims are laws that should not exist. At least there are none I can think of that should exist.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
it's not pornography if you send a picture of yourself. this is commonsense. you own you.
of course, if who you sent it to sends it out to everyone else... i could see that being 'wrong'. they have no right to do that to you, especially if you're a minor...
i really don't get why what i just said isn't just the simple law...
music - http://www.subatomicglue.com
Pictures of naked people aren't porn. Pictures of naked children are not porn. Porn is sexual. Nudity isn't. Just because 'someone' thinks it's porn does not make it so.
i am referring to
in which a completely unrelated fear of yours is projected onto my words and what i am communicating
me: "sex should be curtailed by teenagers because of disease and pregnancy"
you: "so you're trying to make me feel guilty?"
wtf?
seriously, wtf is wrong with you?
are 14 yo?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
first up, Kansas, followed by Oklahoma and Texas
What, you mean the Texas board of education hasn't already required condom buyers to prove their 18? Actually because the only acceptable birth control is abstinence, using condoms is a sin, I'm surprised they haven't outlawed them.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
It would likely depend on how these pics were found. If they were found on a phone confiscated at school, where's the search warrant?
Students on campus don't have rights. That's how school are able to get away with forcing drug testing of students.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Except in OrwellWorld(TM), "obey or be prosecuted" is not "voluntary".
Not noted in the article was that Judge Ambro specifically credited Captain Obvious, Esq. for his amicus brief on this subject.
No, on it's bald face it sounds horrible. It only smells worse and worse the deeper you get.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I'm serious. I'm not trolling.
We absolutely should be severely punishing anyone that harms children. Child porn provides evidence of that harm. Child porn is not harm in and of itself.
Eliminating child porn would not help children. In fact, it would hurt children. Just ask the FBI. The FBI has what is most likely by far the world's largest collection of child porn. Why? Because they use it to find people who harm children.
If child porn were legalized, this would mean that teens that take erotic pictures of themselves would no longer be prosecuted.
I salute this D.A. because he is doing what people don't want to hear or see done but hey its all these moms that made these rules. All these holier than thou only my kids and not your kids count attitude that got us in this mess. Its all the right wingers. They thought put all the men in prison and all the skanks wont have anyone to knock them up hence lower teen pregnancy.
I blame nancy grace, chris hansen and all of the fear mongers that told you that if you don't have gps and websites and know 183 random faces from a web page you are putting your kids in danger.
Its funny how we wrote these laws, and not its biting our kids in the ass. I say let em fry. Cook em all for child pornography because now in this country there are countless cases like this of teenagers having sex and going to prison. A D.A. has to prosecute by whats illegal. What these kids are doing is illegal by the laws we have passed. Even though its so ridiculous and far fetched that its common sense not to prosecute the law doesn't go by common sense.
Maybe once these kids each get a year in jail and can't go to college or work a decent job for the rest of their lives people will look at these laws.
For god sakes look at jessica lundsford.. then look at mark lundsford. Then look at joshua lundsford. Yeah it was JOsh who molested a 14 year old girl but didn't get slapped with his daddys laws. He avoided megans law but not for long.
Thats what happens when you write these feel good do nothing laws.
Tear down megans law!! Tear down GPS Monitoring!!! Tear it all down!!!
btw all these laws.. written by 2 of the biggest sex addicts (john walsh) and pedophiles (Mark Foley)
This is nazi germany, 1984, Pol Pots eutopia. THis is the end of our country and our freedom as we know it.
some reading material
http://johnwalshournewgod.blogspot.com/
soft on "crime" either way it is using the state's power to enforce some politician's personal morality on others.
Correction, it's easier on the politician but harder on those who disagree.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The judges are asserting that there is a likelihood that the prosecutor was retaliating by threatening to prosecute because the Does were seeking to exercise their rights under the law. Isn't this barratry?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Can NONE of you remember what it was like as a teen and sex?
Hell, I'd say to young people...sure, be responsible, protect yourself, but get out there and FUCK!! These are you best fuck years, particularly males!!
Lordy, when you're that age, you can fuck, blow a wad...and keep it hard and start right back up again. Take advantage of stamina and libido while you have it.
It won't last forever...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
They can legally participate in sexual activity including, at the least, seeing each other nude but having pictures of the same is illegal. Yeah I just can't see that curious logic being repeated too much until someone with the ability to do something about it "gets the picture"...
Sigh...
Unless the children are adopted, I see no way to become a parent without fucking.
Are these "education programs" anything like the ones in China?
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Sorry, the homo-eroticism of military life is not the way I want to raise my son.
Blar.
How is a naked devleoped 16-17 year old girl considered child porn? When I think of child porn I think of under 10.
Did judges actually use common sense in a ruling? What the hell is this world coming to?
if your buying them condoms don't forget the bananas:
http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/health/stories/bananas-prevent-hiv-infection
I *AM* a weird uncle, you insensitive clod !
And, no, I am NOT a pedophile, nor a pederast, nor a sex criminal of any flavor.whatsoever.
I hear so much about how it's UNCLES that do all the damage, and you drop me in that same "suspicious" bucket because my brother and sister have female offspring. You know what, go to hell yourself. When I am no longer permitted to play frisbee with my nieces or nephews and their teenage friends of both sexes because you told a congress critter to concentrate on uncles, I hope you're proud of yourself for dismantling intergenerational contact, one of the few remaining opportunities that WEIRD adults like myself get to listen to kids and just maybe pass on a little friendly advice from experience. I know you mean well, but you're just transferring the FUD to another inappropriate target, and you honestly expect a congressman to differentiate and make a sensible decision based on your advising them to "look up weird uncles first", a decision they clearly weren't capable of before being talked to? Idiot.
I know it's an ENORMOUSLY unpopular and politically incorrect thing to say, but unfortunately child sexual abuse, like any and all other crimes, are crimes of choice of the offender, and the only way to eliminate them completely is to eliminate ALL choice. That's never going to happen, and it's synonymous with fascism. If you don't have the freedom to commit crimes, then you don't have freedom. We can up our prevention efforts to a certain degree, but we have to learn to live with the facts of life: sometimes people will be murdered, people will be injured, people will be raped, people will be robbed, and we can only act AFTER the fact of so many of these nasties. They can NEVER be prevented 100%, but so many folk these days seem to think that's actually a desirable outcome, and we end up with even more ridiculous laws and scenarios as the article describes.
Calm down, get a clue, and realize that it's a dangerous, dirty world out there, but there's so much MORE beauty and joy and happiness to be had by everyone if you'd spend a little less time worrying and freaking out whenever anything bad actually does happen. You're missing out on life, by focussing on death and damage and disease.
If minors can be charged with child pornography for taking pictures of themselves, can they also be charged with rape for masturbating? After all, having sex with someone under the age of consent is statutory rape, isn't it?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
It's like saying that your microwave oven is broken because a can of tomato soup sitting on the counter isn't getting hot. You have to open the can of soup and put it in the microwave, and then turn the microwave on, before you can expect the soup to get hot.
There's a big, huge, massive difference between them. You have to put the can in the oven, then watch it explode. Teens on the other hand have to agree to abstinence, which most will not. Even those who sign an abstinence pledge don't keep the pledge. Studies support this:
Final Nail in the Coffin
"In the most recent study, researchers compared teens who had taken the virginity pledge to those who had not taken a pledge. The researchers found results similar to the aforementioned studies.'
"First, the rate of the teens taking part in sex was the same. Those taking the virginity pledge were just as likely to have intercourse. The only positive, statistically small, was that those taking the pledge had 0.1 fewer sex partners over the five year study than did those who did not take such a pledge. "
Here are more:
"...The problem is that even when these sex ed programs are effective in encouraging teens to remain virginal, "effective" may only mean that the programs have convinced teenagers to avoid vaginal intercourse. But vaginal intercourse is not the only sexual activity that can be hazardous to a person's physical and emotional health; oral and anal sex may not lead to pregnancy, but they can spread sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as gonorrhea, herpes, and HIV."
"Although they were once the sole province of religious organizations, many secular groups and schools now host events where students sign "virginity pledges" as a way to promote pre-marital abstinence. Today, virginity pledges are also part of most abstinence-only-until-marriage curricula and programs. Research has found that under certain conditions these pledges may help some adolescents delay sexual intercourse. When they work, pledges help this select group of adolescents delay the onset of sexual intercourse for an average of 18 months--far short of marriage. However, the studies also found that those young people who took a pledge were one-third less likely to use contraception when they did become sexually active than their peers who had not pledged. These teens are therefore more vulnerable to the risks of unprotected sexual activity such as unintended pregnancy and STDs, including HIV/AIDS. Further research found that, among those young people who have not had vaginal intercourse, pledgers are more likely to have engaged in both oral and anal sex than their non-pledging peers. In fact, among "virgins," male and female pledgers are six times more likely to have had oral sex than non-pledgers, and male pledgers are four times more likely to have had anal sex than those who had not pledged. And, the research has confirmed that, although some students who take pledges delay intercourse, ultimately they are equally as likely to contract an STD as their non-pledging peers. In fact, researchers found that the STD rates were higher in communities where a significant proportion (over 20%) of the young people had taken virginity pledges. Clearly, virginity pledges are not an effective strategy for keeping young people healthy."
There's plent
Should there be a Law?