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."

Comments

Insanity

[sopssa]

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.

Re:Insanity

[Lunix Nutcase]

When I was a teen we sent back and forth nude pictures of ourself with my girlfriend,

So she really got around, eh?

Re:Insanity

[bmecoli]

Hell, we even had sex like every other teenager does.

I never had sex as a teen, you insensitive clod!

Re:Insanity

[couchslug]

The sex thing is driven by the Christian Taliban. Christianity, like the other desert superstitions, seeks to control and ration sex.

Re:Insanity

[Anonymous Coward]

He said "every other teenager", not "every teenager".

Re:Insanity

[Cro Magnon]

And yet, they tell us to be fruitful and multiply. I didn't realize they were talking about diet and math.

Re:Insanity

[wisnoskij]

I think you hit the mark perfectly.

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".

No sane person would call teens sending their teenage boy/girlfriends a dirty picture of themselves pedophiles or bring them up on child porn charges.
But obviously just mentioning the words "child porn" makes a lot of people loose their sanity.

Re:Insanity

[Jason Levine]

My parents still interfere. However, their interference has evolved into "so when are you going to have another child?" To which I respond "Two kids is enough! That's all we're having!"

Of course, back in college, my father's idea of "interfering" with my sex life was walking with me on campus eyeing the women (and by eyeing I mean turning his head so fast I worried he'd get whiplash) and telling me I should walk up to them and ask them to sleep with me. My response then was "If they said yes to a random guy walking up to them asking for sex, then I sure as hell *DON'T* want to sleep with them!!!"

Re:Insanity

[falconwolf]

You sure as hell *better* interfere with your 16-17 year old's sex life. Teenagers are stupid fuckers, and can get HIV or become pregnant as easily as 30-somethings.

Then teach them safe sex. Many teens have sex yet their lives don't fall apart after that. And abstinence only does not work.

Falcon

Re:Insanity

[tomthepom]

Underage sex photos should be restricted (because someone was raped),

It's this kind of inflexible logic that leads to situations where if 15 year old girl sends sex photos to her 16 year old boyfriend, they run the risk of being charged and prosecuted, him as a child molester and her as a child pornographer! Two lives potentially destroyed because 'someone must have been raped'. The only one doing the raping here is the state.

Re:Insanity

[plague3106]

Actually, if you want your daughter to pregnant or start having regular abortions at age 9 or whatever, great. I don't want my daughters to be fucked by any old dude with a penis, requiring her to get HPV vaccines and take hormone pills during the time of her puberty and maturation.

You sound too misinformed to be allowed to have children. You think laws keep kids from having sex, and if that do they start at 9?

I also don't want you telling me how to raise my kids any more than you want me telling you how to raise yours.

And as for "Christian Taliban" when was the last time any "christian" stopped you from raising your kid the way you wanted. HMMM?

Well lets see, there's no nudity on TV because of conservatives, which invariably are religous. Oh and there was the outrage from christain groups because some kids saw a nipple during the superbowl. Then there are the blue laws. I think you get the idea.

People who talk like you have never raised any kids or had to deal with the crap that results. I can't wait till you have a slutty daughter, who is pregnant at 13, by a 26 year old loser.

Ya anyone that disagrees OBVIOUSLY can't have raised kids, and OBVIOUSLY are bad parents. My wife didn't raise her kids like you, she never hid sex, she had appropriate conversations at appropriate ages. Her kids are fine.

But I also know a few girls with parents like you. Thank you, because girls raised by people like you are the real sluts with no limits, and its fun to watch them strip, fuck, and party.

Re:Insanity

[schon]

a lot of parents that don't want naked pictures of their perfect child floating around the school and would like to use rule of law to discourage "sexting."

So the solution is to have their own children branded as sex offenders after they've committed the act?!?!?!

Yeah, you've thought that out well.

Re:Insanity

[dfenstrate]

You presume that you will always make better choices than your children will? Interesting...

Not always, just 99% of the time when there is a disagreement.

Or have you not learned a damn thing since you last technically qualified as a child, assuming you're not one right now?

More kids need their parents to be parents. We've got enough undisciplined little hellions running around as it is, because their parents won't enforce rules, boundaries, or limitations.

The natural state of mankind is savagery. Overcoming that is the duty of the parent.

If you're bent out of shape after 'suffering under the oppressive thumb' of your father, it's probably because he understands things you don't, but lacks the articulation to explain it to you, or you lack the capacity to listen.

Re:Insanity

[mcgrew]

You presume that you will always make better choices than your children will?

Spoken like a true teenager.

At the McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., Deborah Yurgelun-Todd and a group of researchers have studied how adolescents perceive emotion as compared to adults. The scientists looked at the brains of 18 children between the ages of 10 and 18 and compared them to 16 adults using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Both groups were shown pictures of adult faces and asked to identify the emotion on the faces. Using fMRI, the researchers could trace what part of the brain responded as subjects were asked to identify the expression depicted in the picture.

The results surprised the researchers. The adults correctly identified the expression as fear. Yet the teens answered "shocked, surprised, angry." And the teens and adults used different parts of their brains to process what they were feeling. The teens mostly used the amygdala, a small almond shaped region that guides instinctual or "gut" reactions, while the adults relied on the frontal cortex, which governs reason and planning.

As the teens got older, the center of activity shifted more toward the frontal cortex and away from the cruder response of the amygdala.

How old are you? In almost all cases, an adult WILL make better choices than a teenager will.

I've been a teenager, and I'm the father of two former teenagers. I think I know what I'm talking about here.

Stupid question time

[Locke2005]

Why isn't it illegal for the school officials to be in possession of nude pictures of underage children?