In a couple of cases this week, sanity has prevailed. (And lord knows we need some sanity on the national scene these days. Read on, my dears:
TEENAGE SEXTING AND PORN
This one does a kinda Double McTwist 12, legally speaking.
It involves the first criminal “sexting” case to reach a federal appeals court. Here’s the deal. A teenage girl appeared in a sexy cell-phone photo in which she was topless with a towel wrapped around her waist, evidently having just emerged from the shower. She sent the racy photo to a friend. Who then forwarded it on. It made the rounds of some of the boys in her high school.
Bad judgment, for certain. But one thing led to another, and a Pennsylvania D.A. said he would slap felony child pornography charges on the girl (and some other girls—12-year-olds— who took photos of themselves at a slumber party in their “training bra”s) unless she agreed to participate in a diversionary program he had designed and to write an essay explaining what she did and why it was wrong. Not the most onerous of punishments—if she’d, say, been caught with hard core, schedule 1 drugs or, say, had jacked some perfume from Macy’s.
But that’s not what she did. She took a racy photo of herself and sent it to a friend. Period.
Under Pennsylvania’s child pornography law, it’s a felony to possess or disseminate photos of a minor engaged in sexual activity, “lewd exhibition of the genitals” or nudity that is meant to titillate.
However, this week, in a 35-page decision, the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. District Court of Appeals ruled against the DA and further ruled that the legal action violated the girl’s constitutional right to be free from compelled speech and infringed on her parents’ right to direct her upbringing.
Oh, yeah. The court also said that the DA had no evidence that the towel-draped girl was in any way involved in the photo’s distribution, other than her original SEND to a friend.
Although it was hoped that, with this decision, the court would address the question of whether or not sexing could be considered pornography, the 3rd circuit deliberately dodged that ball.
The AP has more.
CREEPY, VIOLENT ONLINE THREATS TO TEENAGERS RULED NOT PROTECTED
And then on Monday of this week, LA’s 2nd District Court of Appeals ruled that the 15-year old whose website was bombarded with anti-gay slurs and physical threats of harm (for instance the promise to “rip out your … heart and feed it to you” and to “pound your head in with an ice pick”) could sue in civil court the kid who posted many of the threats. The significant issue was whether or not the treats were protected as free speech.
The court, with one dissenting vote, decided that they were not.
The court majority said a message that threatens physical harm, even if it wasn’t meant to be serious, loses its First Amendment protection and can be grounds for a lawsuit.
The plaintiff, identified only as D.C., set up a Web site in 2005 to promote an entertainment career after recording an album and starring in a film. Believing – wrongly, the court said – that he was gay, some fellow students at a Los Angeles high school posted comments that mocked him, feigned sexual interest or threatened violence.
The boy’s father said he withdrew D.C. from the school, at the suggestion of Los Angeles police, and moved the family to an undisclosed spot in Northern California. D.C. sued six students and their parents, claiming hate crimes, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The LA Times reports that the LAPD and the LA District Attorney’s office declined to criminally prosecute any of the boys who posted the slurs and threats, which is as it should be. But a civil suit is something again. Poisonous, potentially dangerous actions should have consequences.
Illustration by Chris Kasurak
Deem “sexting” to really be “art”, and liberals will not only want it protected but will want taxpayer funding for it, too.
We’re kicking your tired old butt, Woody. You’re a loser. HCR by the end of the week.
I ignored the turn taken by the last few threads. But please keep this thread free of personal attacks. Thank you.
And, yes, health care reform by the end of the week.
Woody, do you “sext” with Larry Craig and Roy Ashburn?
Liberals can “deem” anything, including votes that never happened.
Oooh, conspiracy time! Grab the popcorn, folks. Woody, how about today, we do Obama voter fraud, and Bigfoot?
There’s ol’ rob exercising his right to be rude at the drop of a hat. There’s some old adage about vinegar, honey and flies but I’m pretty sure someone will take it as a personal attack.
And when you look up “nice” in the dictionary, you see a picture of Gava Joe. Please.
Reg, you try to come off as such a superior type but anyone with one active brain cell should be screaming long and loud about this bill and the tactics being used to win votes.
You’re a child.