ACLU Sues Penn Prosecutor For Empty Threat of Child Porn

[Tames D]

maybe we canput the parents in jail for raising complete morons?

So it's safe to say that your parents knew about EVERYTHING you did when you were a teen?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Hmmm....

Is That "Sexting" Pic Illegal? A Scientific Test

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/30/1249237&art_pos=2

A county district attorney in Pennsylvania has threatened to file felony child pornography charges against three teenage girls for pictures that they took of themselves, even though the girls' lawyers say the pictures are clearly not sexually explicit and do not meet the legal definition of child porn. The American Civil Liberties Union has countered by asking a federal judge to block District Attorney George Skumanick from filing charges.
Skumanick won't show the pictures to anyone, including the girls' lawyers, but according to the reported descriptions, one picture shows two of the girls flashing the peace sign in their bras, and the other picture shows a girl wrapped in a towel with her breasts exposed after stepping out of the shower. Unless there's something very significant being deliberately left out of those descriptions, it sounds pretty obvious that the pictures do not meet the definition of child pornography, which requires sexual explicitness, not just nudity.

In other words, even an obviously legal photo might seem illegal when it's mixed in with a group of photos that constitute actual child porn. According to the AP, Skumanick's office first found the photos in question after confiscating students' cell phones and rounding up 20 students accused of making or distributing the images found on the phones. Some of those other photos were presumably racy enough to meet the definition of child pornography, and Skumanick probably just lumped in the bra and towel pictures into that category without thinking too much about it. Giving him credit, if someone had come to his office and shown him the picture of the towel girl by itself and asked him to prosecute the girl for creating child pornography, he might have said that it didn't meet the legal definition.



But the "context syndrome" only excuses the initial mistake, and only partly. By now, he's had time to think about those particular pictures, and he knows that non-sexually-explicit photos do not constitute child pornography, so what is he doing? He claims that the girls in their bras were posed "provocatively", but that's not the same as sexual explicitness, and he hasn't even made that claim about the towel picture, so unless there's some bombshell piece of information about the photos that he's still keeping secret (and why would he?), there's no excuse for him not to drop the threats of prosecution right away.

More at the article, it's a good read.

If a pic of the girl in her undies or a bikini is illegal, then Sears and a dozen other stores push porn in half their store flyers.

 

[Twin Fist]

So it's safe to say that your parents knew about EVERYTHING you did when you were a teen?

yep.


My momma wasnt no fool. I knew better than to act a fool, cuz I knew she WOULD find out and she WOULD go upside my head.

Thats the key, too damn many parents are too busy trying to be a "friend" to thier kids that they end up not being a parent.....

 

[Bob Hubbard]

ok, this DA is an idiot.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/27/earlyshow/main4896577.shtml

One summer night in 2007, a pair of 13-year-old northeastern Pennsylvania girls decided to strip down to their skivvies to beat the heat. As Marissa Miller talked on the phone and Grace Kelly flashed a peace sign, a third girl took a candid shot of the teens in their white bras.

It was harmless, innocent fun, the teens say.

But the picture somehow wound up on classmates' cell phones, and a prosecutor has threatened to charge Miller and Kelly with child pornography or open lewdness unless they participate in a five-week after-school program followed by probation.

On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge to block Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick Jr. from filing charges, saying that the teens didn't consent to having the picture distributed, and that in any event the image is not pornography.

"There was absolutely nothing wrong with that photograph," said Marissa's mother, MaryJo Miller, 44, of Tunkhannock.

Skumanick said he would fight the lawsuit.

Appearing on The Early Show, Wyoming County district attorney George Skumanick Jr. said that his office could have filed charges against the girls, ranging from "sexual abuse of children in Pennsylvania, criminal [use] of a communications facility, or open lewdness, and there were other possible charges also," but that his office decided to make an offer of limiting penalties to probation if they attend a sexual harassment program.

Responding to the lawsuit, Skumanick said that the actions of Miller and the other girls are not the issue being considered. "The issue before the federal court is whether or not the federal court has the right to interfere with the separation of powers of my office - and any district attorney across the country - from deciding when to file criminal charges," he said. "We could have taken the easy way out here and simply filed charges against these children, and we wouldn't have been here. We offered them a way out, a way to avoid charges."

Skumanick characterized the lawsuit as an effort to have a federal judge prevent local law enforcement from doing its job, which he warned would create a slippery slope:

"Basically what they're seeking is, they're seeking a federal judge to say whether or not I can file criminal charges against them," he said. "So frankly what they're asking the federal court to allow is, is to allow you to go out, commit a crime, run to the federal courthouse before you can be arrested, and file papers saying, 'Please don't allow them to arrest me, it's going to violate my civil rights.' That's not how the system can possibly work.

"To allow this type of action would allow anyone to plan a crime, commit it, run to the federal courthouse, and then file paperwork saying, 'My rights are being violated. Don't let them arrest me,' and then avoid arrest for years."

"It does seem like a case of kids just being kids and not realizing they were committing a crime when they did whatever it is they did," Early Show anchor Julie Chen suggested.

"Well, as you well know, ignorance of the law is not a defense," Skumanick said.

"What we elected to do, instead of around the country where they simply arrested these children, is to simply made them an offer to avoid prosecution, to avoid a criminal record of any sort, and developed an educational program to help them understand the true dangers of this and the long-term effects of this on them and their future."

I greatly fear for these kids...not because they are doing stupid things, but because stupid adults are over reacting to such extents.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-big-questions/200903/my-1st-bra-my-1st-sexual-offense

Oh, warning. The link shows what may or may not be an anonymous teen in a bra. This photograph may cause serious problems if your local DA or law enforcement orgs are inbred over reactive morons who confuse such things with real pornography.

I imagine this happened with the district attorney attempting to prosecute this girl.
The DA: "Sexual pictures of a 13 year-old girl! I am outraged. The man responsible for these nude images must be punished."
Colleague: "Actually, there is only one picture and it was only from the waist up. And she was wearing a bra."
The DA: "We must punish these young boys for their sexual perversion and disrespect of these young ladies."
Colleague: "Actually, the picture was taken by some female friends of hers at a slumber party."
The DA: "How dare those young girls allow themselves to be photographed in bras! They must be punished!"
Colleague: "It is a bra, girls that age wear bikinis to the beach and few people think twice. It is sort of the same thing. Why would they object? It isn't like they thought the images would get out."
The DA: "Well, grrr. It is still wrong. I just know it is. Girls shouldn't do this."
In most cases, maybe it does not so much matter if people "decide" what is right or wrong based on a gut level feeling. Nor, does it matter that these judgments persist even when people cannot come up with a good reason why they think something is right or wrong.

 

[Tames D]

yep.


My momma wasnt no fool. I knew better than to act a fool, cuz I knew she WOULD find out and she WOULD go upside my head.

Thats the key, too damn many parents are too busy trying to be a "friend" to thier kids that they end up not being a parent.....

I thought this was the kind of parenting that gets parents thrown in jail. Or should.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a prosecutor from filing child pornography charges against three northeastern Pennsylvania teenagers who appeared in racy photos that turned up on classmates' cell phones.


U.S. District Judge James Munley ruled against Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick Jr., who has threatened to pursue felony charges against the girls unless they agree to participate in a five-week after-school program.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/03/30/national/a153940D31.DTL&tsp=1

 

[Scott T]

I thought this was the kind of parenting that gets parents thrown in jail. Or should.

I grew up with corporal punishment in extreme circumstances. It's more effective than a useless time-out, which I've also received.

Except back in the 70's and 80's it was simply "go to your room!"

 

[BrandonLucas]

This whole thread scares the poop out of me...I'm the father of twin girls, who I'm sure are going to try some stupid things in their time, simply because of the genetics involved...I know I've done some pretty dumb things in my day.

I greatly fear that by the time they're old enough to know about this stuff, technology and the law surrounding the technology is going to be so harsh that something worse can happen than a simple slap on the wrist.

I think I'm going to be a good father, but I don't know exactly how good of a father I can be. I certainly can't police every move they make...especially once they reach the age that these kids are getting in trouble for doing this stuff.

I guess one preventative measure would be to deny them cell phones, or at least allow them to have a cell phone but one that doesn't have a camera. But then, how would I stop their friends from taking pictures like that?

It's the same fear I have of them having sex for the first time. How can I make sure that they're not falling into the trap of the whole "peer pressure" thing?

The best that I can do is to instill the best values that I can in them now, and pray.

 

[Tames D]

This whole thread scares the poop out of me...I'm the father of twin girls, who I'm sure are going to try some stupid things in their time, simply because of the genetics involved...I know I've done some pretty dumb things in my day.

I greatly fear that by the time they're old enough to know about this stuff, technology and the law surrounding the technology is going to be so harsh that something worse can happen than a simple slap on the wrist.

I think I'm going to be a good father, but I don't know exactly how good of a father I can be. I certainly can't police every move they make...especially once they reach the age that these kids are getting in trouble for doing this stuff.

I guess one preventative measure would be to deny them cell phones, or at least allow them to have a cell phone but one that doesn't have a camera. But then, how would I stop their friends from taking pictures like that?

It's the same fear I have of them having sex for the first time. How can I make sure that they're not falling into the trap of the whole "peer pressure" thing?

The best that I can do is to instill the best values that I can in them now, and pray.

All I can say is you better fiind a way to police their every move or your going to jail for being a bad parent (if some people get their wish).