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Child porn law goes nuts: 14-year-old girl charged for nude selfie
A 14-year-old girl is facing charges in Minnesota juvenile courts that could lead to her being placed on a sex offender registry—all for taking a nude selfie and sending it to a boy at her school. Prosecutors say that she violated Minnesota's child pornography statute, which bans distributing sexually explicit pictures of underaged subjects. But a legal brief filed this week by the ACLU of Minnesota says that this is ridiculous. Charging a teenager for taking a nude selfie means the state is charging the supposed victim—an absurd result that the legislature can't have intended when it passed Minnesota's child pornography statute, the ACLU argues.
The case is being heard by a juvenile court in Rice County—about an hour south of the Twin Cities. Because this is juvenile court, there's a lot we don't know including the name of the teenager. We don't even know if the selfie in question was a photo or a video. What we do know comes from the ACLU's legal brief, which includes a brief description of the case. According to the ACLU, the anonymous teen sent a nude selfie to a classmate over Snapchat. The recipient apparently took a screenshot of the message and shared it with others at school without the girl's consent. One of the classmates alerted the police in Faribault, Minnesota, which is presumably where the girl goes to school.
Officials decided to charge the girl with the "felony sex offense of knowingly disseminating pornographic work involving a minor to another person." An adult convicted of this crime can face up to seven years in prison. As a 14-year-old, the girl in this case isn't facing a criminal prosecution in adult court and won't face the harsh sentence an adult might face. The problem, the ACLU notes, is that if she's found guilty she is likely to be placed on a sex offender registry, where she would face the same stigmas as someone who commits violent sex crimes. That could lead to difficulties finding a job or obtaining housing. The ACLU's brief doesn't mention whether the boy was charged for distributing the girl's photo to other classmates.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @02:12AM (4 children)
Sometimes prosecutors take stupid cases precisely to make a point, hoping to get the stupid laws behind the cases modified by judicial practice (such as declaring something unconstitutional) or by creating such outrage that legislators will change them.
Prosecutors have even been known to effectively take a dive on such cases, effectively telling the judge: "I'm doing my job, but this is really stupid."
So I'm not going to condemn the prosecutor without knowing more about this.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Monday January 01 2018, @02:25AM (2 children)
Using an embarrassed 14 year old girl as a pawn in a dirty political game is unconscionable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @03:24AM (1 child)
Good. Help the prosecutor make that case to the judge and legislators.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday January 01 2018, @05:52AM
The judge is irrelevant if the prosecutor refuses to prosecute as he should. It's up to him to complain loudly to the legislature. It may not carry legal weight buty it would surely carry political weight.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 01 2018, @04:23AM
Disagree. It seems that prosecutors are political animals. As near as I can tell, lawyers, prosecutors, and politicians care little for justice. They only care about their careers. When you find that rare beast, a lawyer who really cares about justice, it seems that the system just beats them into conformity. This prosecutor is a piece of filth, floating in a tank of filth.