SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 4, Interesting) by TheReaperD on Monday January 01 2018, @05:10AM (6 children)
Well, as far as the law, I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time. Since it was passed long before the age of the selfie, possibly even before the age of the polaroid, the only way images of naked childeren were taken was if a 3rd party was involved and almost always with sinister intentions. So, at the time, the one creating the work was always someone else, not the child being photographed so it made sense to prosecute them as a child pornographer. The problem now is this law is being used by prosecutors, such as this, to target teenage girls who are taking their own pictures and sending them of their own free will. It makes me wonder if the prosecutor is doing it just so he can legally view images of underage girls without worry of being prosecuted or being called a pervert.
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
(Score: 3, Insightful) by anubi on Monday January 01 2018, @06:18AM (3 children)
We have a lot of law that takes a modicum of common sense to discern between the letter of the law and the intent of the law.
In this case, those entrusted to judicate the law are demonstrating a complete lack of judgement. I have never seen it get worse than this.
These folks have no business having the kind of power that has been delegated to them.
Anyway, that's my two cent's worth.
I am extremely happy though to see I will be posting a redundant post, as other people have already posted that they also found this whole sordid affair just as asinine as I do. And I agree completely with the S/N community on this.
But I remain puzzled as to why a bunch of S/N nerds like us show such advances in human compassion and judgement over those supposedly trained in the art of judiciary process?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @10:51AM (1 child)
> I have never seen it get worse than this.
Hoo boy. You have lived a sheltered life... This is only the most recent in the very, very long line [techdirt.com] of such cases, and some of them were so much worse. [techdirt.com]
> But I remain puzzled as to why a bunch of S/N nerds like us show such advances in human compassion and judgement over those supposedly trained in the art of judiciary process?
There is a critical difference: we have no power, they do. Power corrupts, etc.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Monday January 01 2018, @12:37PM
Maybe I have been sheltered.... to be honest, I really haven't been following this.
Had it not been for the S/N story, I would have remained ignorant.
I'll just say it was a real eye-opener for me. I knew our legal systems have become quite corrupt, but I had no idea they would actually do something like this.
I have no idea how to fight something like this. I am just disgusted and want to go back to laying out PCB.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by TheReaperD on Monday January 08 2018, @05:04PM
Simple. Because we have nothing to gain or loose in our comments. Prosecutors get bonuses and promotions based on there win/loss numbers and though despicable, this is an easy "win." It gets even worse when the prosecutor has political ambitions because no one has ever lost on the "hard on crime" mantra and cases like this are easy to depict in the media as being the necessary bad guy to prevent her from ever going down the road of a life of immorality (bullshit; but easy to sell to a gullible public).
Ad eundum quo nemo ante iit
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @04:44PM (1 child)
Oh, please. "Minor" does not mean "kindergartener unable to operate anything more complex than a polaroid" -- FFS, this very case is about a 14-year-old. If you don't think teenagers (and younger) have dabbled in photography almost from its introduction, including developing their own film or plates, your stupendous ignorance is part of the problem -- this myth of juvenile uselessness fuels those who want to treat minors like infants until they turn eighteen, and then expect them to instantly adapt to the adulthood they've been insulated from.
Regardless, they definitely had polaroids in 1977. Not sure if you have no clue when we started criminalizing child porn, or have no clue about the history of instant cameras, but either way, would it kill you to google first, instead of rubbing your ignorance in everyone's face?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday January 01 2018, @06:39PM
In the 70s, the Polaroids weren't the main lack. It was the inability to copy, transmit and store photos cheaply-- no Internet, no smart phones with digital cameras, no gigabyte hard drives, flash drives and SD cards-- that kept the lid on this.