Adolescence. The springtime of life, when hormones and stupidity in equal measure mix and produce all sorts of wonderful life-long regrets.
There's nothing unusual, of course, about two teenagers fooling around. Not addressing the morality or pragmatic arguments of it, but it tends to happen a lot in our society.
Combine this long-standing tendency with modern technology, cell phone cameras and twitter, and there's a chance of some photos being taken and leaked. Increasingly stupid levels of youthful transgression, sure, but mostly innocent, right?
No. According to an increasingly large number of prosecutors, while your right to fool around at the age of fifteen is protected by law- the courts long ago, reasonably, decided that the purpose of statutory rape laws being to protect minors from adults, it didn't really apply to two minors- if you take a photo of it with your cell phone, you can be tried as an adult for making and distributing child pornography. A felony. As an adult.
Let me repeat this; two children, in order to protect them from the terrible harm that could be done if these pictures made the rounds on MySpace, can be tried and convicted as adults, required to spend the rest of their lives registered as felons and sex offenders, unable to vote, find gainful employment or make any real headway in the world.
For the crime of fooling around as young, stupid teenagers in a situation where the only potential victims were themselves.
People like Pennsylvania Prosecutor George Skumanick and Florida Judge James Wolf think it is perfectly legitimate to destroy the lives of children in order to- to what? To protect children from themselves? This argument is stuff and nonsense. An excerpt from the last article of Judge Wolf's opinion;
As previously stated, the reasonable expectation that the material will ultimately be disseminated is by itself a compelling state interest for preventing the production of this material. In addition, the statute was intended to protect minors like appellant and her co-defendant from their own lack of judgment...
Appellant was simply too young to make an intelligent decision about engaging in sexual conduct and memorializing it. Mere production of these videos or pictures may also result in psychological trauma to the teenagers involved.
Further, if these pictures are ultimately released, future damage may be done to these minors' careers or personal lives. These children are not mature enough to make rational decisions concerning all the possible negative implications of producing these videos.
In addition, the two defendants placed the photos on a computer and then, using the Internet, transferred them to another computer. Not only can the two computers be hacked, but by transferring the photos using the Net, the photos may have been and perhaps still are accessible to the provider and/or other individuals. Computers also allow for long-term storage of information which may then be disseminated at some later date. The state has a compelling interest in seeing that material which will have such negative consequences is never produced.
No harm is prevented by destroying these childrens' lives; much greater harm is done to them, in fact, than any that could be imagined from distant, hypothetical perverts being able to see what their doctor sees every checkup. That their decisions were incompetent and foolish is besides the point, since foolishness is not illegal; if anything, this would mitigate the charge. It makes the entire scenario even more absurd and a greater mockery of justice- if they did not exhibit and could not exhibit adult judgment, why try them as adults for an adult crime? If they had been adults, there would have been no crime in the first place. The entire thing is a house of cards of faux moral indignation.
The last point is even more absurd. Because sensitive materials could be stolen and used illegaly, one commits a crime by owning them? This argument is ridiculous on the face of it. Is it illegal to own a gun because someone could steal it and committ murder? A more tangent comparison might be that the same argument could declare it illegal to have a bodily orifice as this would allow you to be raped. If someone's stealing pictures of you in a compromising position and using it for blackmail or simply to profit off of your body, that makes you a victim. It's not a crime to place yourself in a position where you may be compromised; it's not a crime to walk alone in a bad part of town, or to wear "provocative" clothing. As the dissenting voice of reason points out anyway, there's no sure-fire way to protect against crime and theft in any medium; I suppose Judge Wolf thinks that the interwebs are a particularly theft-prone interconnected series of tubes.
So all these arguments fall apart. To go back to the great Friedrich August von Hayek; it's about control. It may be a Mayberry sentiment today, but tomorrow it'll be San Francisco values; whatever the group's individual social mores, there are deep currents and pockets of those who favor social control and engineering, Progressives and Culture Warriors and others who feel that the law must be used to enforce morality and control the direction of society.
I usually try really hard to at least understand the other side of the argument- that was the entire point of the last article, come to think of it- but there's simply no good counterweight here. The arguments that support destroying the lives of teenagers in order to protect them from themselves are absurd and, frankly, monstrously evil.
Marissa Miller is going up against the state of Pennsylvania soon. Hopefully the American justice system is done making a mockery of itself and cooler heads will prevail.
Comments
another reason I'm glad I immigrated. stupidity dressed as piety is a national pastime.
The kangaroo courts at their finest!
RT
www.privacy.at.tc
I agree 100 percent. Logic and common sense have exited our judicial system. I think they're going after youth to balance out their own perversions. With such easy exchange of information, goofy teenage antics (that have been happening for AGES) are brought to light and suddenly people run for the "moral high ground," to peer down, as to not be grouped in.
This natural progression of kids exposing themselves to the masses also naturally makes child predators become more prevalent, which puts more children in harms way. There is no doubt that is happening.
15 year olds shouldn't have phones. You have to prosecute the parents or whoever pays the phone bill. What stops a pedophile from giving phones to minors hoping they'll do just this? Who would you go after then? What if the parent is the pedophile? How do you know they aren't? 15 year olds shouldn't drive and they shouldn't have phones. Sorry.
I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry when the judges say they're "protecting" kids by giving them life-long sex offender status and destroying the ability for these kids to contribute and be productive in society.
I also ask this: did the state not fail by failing to educate these kids in government-mandated education called school? Obviously they weren't prepared for the real world, and these kids should be at the very least taught during sex education on the implications of taking ANY nude photos, much less pornography. They can't legally drive, drink, vote, own firearms, or enter into contracts, yet they're held accountable for something as non-obvious as this?
Absolutely pathetic, and shame on these ignoramuses who fail these kids twice. Maybe some other country should start taking them in as refugees so they can become productive members of some society somewhere instead of telling the world where they live because of indiscretion and ignorance.
Brett, if "there is no doubt" that the existence of naughty pictures causes paedophilia, then perhaps you have the evidence to prove it.
Perhaps then you could move on to showing porn causes rape, or video games causes murder, as the abundance of both available within this decade have seen both rape and murder sky rocket in proportion?
Anyone else suspect that this sweaty pink slob Skumanick initiated the case simply so that he could get his pudgy mitts on those nekkid pictures?
The instances of pedophilia, rape and murder are not skyrocketing, they're actually declining. Newspapers are certainly reporting them more, as salacious stories grab eyeballs, and proportionately, the public is more hysterical than every about what's been going on virtually forever. But actual statistics (y'know, inconvenient facts?) show violent crime has been on a long-term decline.
This being true crime reportage, one would hope a few contextual facts could be reported, but whatever; grab those eyeballs.
Ryan, nice argument, if only your data weren't so critically flawed.
Rape and murder rates in the US both peaked in the early 90s, along with most other forms of violent crime, and have dropped since then. Note that this is BEFORE the widespread availability of both pornography and violent video games.
Do your research before spouting off.
Of interest, Judge James Wolf provides a strong and viable defense for these kids,
"...to protect minors like appellant and her co-defendant from their own lack of judgment...."
"Appellant was simply too young to make an intelligent decision...."
"These children are not mature enough to make rational decisions...."
Okpulot Taha
Choctaw Nation
A young member of my family was victimized by this judicial scheme in PA. It's just westernized sharia law.
By the way, PA is also the state with judges who send kids to detention facilities for payoffs.
Hey, people responding to "Ryan": I believe there is a miscommunication going on here. He uses a cynic question to support his first sentence, otherwise it wouldn't make any sense. I think he's on the same side.
If I were an American, Id be ashamed to live in my own country. You've got corrupt police shooting unarmed victims, corrupt judges sending kids to jail for profit, corrupt politicians waging war for oil, while at the same time infringing upon peoples freedoms with such things as the patriot act, in the name of freedom no less, corrupt laws sending people to jail for using "natural" drugs instead of the synthetic ones they push themselves, peaceful protests being bullied into violence just so the police can stop them from using their freedoms, and now courts who send kids to jail and take away more freedoms to "protect" them. Im disgusted. Im Canadian btw, and I can only hope things are not and do not get, as bad as they are south of the border. I have nothing against the American people. I just hate your laws, your politicians, your guns, your big banks, your criminal justice system, your lawyers and your judges.... well some of them anyway. They're giving the rest of you a bad name.
Jury nullification is an act of a jury (its verdict) intended to make an official rule, especially a statute, void in the context of a particular case. In other words, "the process whereby a jury in a criminal case effectively nullifies a law by acquitting a defendant regardless of the weight of evidence against him or her."[1]
Jury nullification is more specifically any rendering of a verdict by a trial jury, acquitting a criminal defendant despite the defendant's violation of the letter of the law, that is, of an official rule, especially a legislative enactment. This verdict need not disagree with the instructions by the judge concerning what the law is, but may disagree with an instruction, if given by the judge, that the jury is required to apply the "law" to the defendant if certain facts are found.
Although a jury's refusal relates only to the particular case before it, if a pattern of such verdicts develops in response to repeated attempts to prosecute a statutory offense, it can have the practical effect of disabling the enforcement of the statute. "Jury nullification" is thus a means for the people to express opposition to an unpopular legislative enactment.
The jury system was established because it was felt that a panel of citizens, drawn at random from the community, and serving for too short a time to be corrupted, would be more likely to render a just verdict, through judging both the evidence and the law, than officials who may be unduly influenced to follow established legal practice, especially when that practice has drifted from its constitutional origins. Jury nullification is a reminder that the right to trial by one's peers affords the public an opportunity to take a dissenting view about the justness of a statute or official practices.
They are made an example of to scare out of other kids. Like a wake up and think before
you act. Not that I agree with that. Cause in the years to come it will happen many
times. I do, however agree with Chumby. The damage to them is ten fold. But seriously
we should all be allowed to go nude anywhere. So some folks are nasty, who are you to
say what they can do. They are out for your mind. Remember the meaning of what this country supposedly stands for. People should laugh at them and move on to the real important things.
Ahhhh the absurdity of laws designed to protect us from ourselves....
While I am confident that these children should not be labeled as sex offenders the rest of their lives, I am also confident that the laws just have not caught up technology. I have heard it many times before, we can't legislate morality, well, I would argue that. I would argue that all lwas are morality, right and wrong.
Is it right for a 15 year old to be sending nude picturs of him or herself to anyone...no. We used to ssay that just becuase you can doesnt mean we should. Now , it seems that because you can, its ok, its not your fault, its your right. Well, I disagree.
Again, should they be labeled sex offenders the rest of their life, no, should they be punished harshly, yes. The longterm ramifications of sending these types of pictures just can't be understood by a 13, 15, 16 year old.
Just my .02
This isn't really new. "We gotta protect the CHILDREN!" has been the rallying cry of American bluenoses for over a century, and the tradition of politically ambitious prosecutors inflating charges for the publicity is even older.
I can't get past how horribly written this sentence is:
"According to an increasingly large number of prosecutors, while your right to fool around at the age of fifteen is protected by law- the courts long ago, reasonably, decided that the purpose of statutory rape laws being to protect minors from adults, it didn't really apply to two minors- if you take a photo of it with your cell phone, you can be tried as an adult for making and distributing child pornography."
Parsing this garbage to
Your article addresses an excellent point, but I would like to mention that you've massively stereotyped teenagers, by assuming that they are all incapable of any semblance of intelligent thought.
A good portion of teenagers are, as you and many other commenters have stated, complete and utter imbeciles. All teenagers are stupid in the same way that all Mexicans wear sombreros and ride donkeys to work. It's a stereotype.
When I was fifteen, I was accepted into a pre-law program, and shipped across the country to pursue higher education.
Of course, that's not to say that texting nude pictures of yourself to a buddie is a good idea, but being a teenager does not necessarily mean you would do something of that caliber.
Many adults are guilty of the same thing, and of the same level of stupidity that is commonly pinned exclusively to adolescence.
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