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North Carolina Teens Charge in Child Porn Case

Thread starter BoF
Start date Sep 13, 2015

BoF

Cautious Daredevil

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Sep 13, 2015

#1

This story was on Melissa Harris-Perry’s show this morning.

Later this month, a North Carolina high school student will appear in a state court and face five child pornography-related charges for engaging in consensual sexting with his girlfriend.
What’s strange is that of the five charges he faces, four of them are for taking and possessing nude photos of himself on his own phone—the final charge is for possessing one nude photo his girlfriend took for him. There is no evidence of coercion or further distribution of the images anywhere beyond the two teenagers’ phones.

….

On July 21, 2015, the young woman took a plea deal whereby the felony charges were dropped, but she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge, which will be expunged after she completes a year of probation. Over the next 11 months, she is not allowed to possess a cell phone, among other restrictions.

…

"You must keep in mind that juvenile court jurisdiction in North Carolina ends at age 16, so 16- and 17-year-olds, as in the Fayetteville case, will automatically be charged in adult criminal court with no option for adjudication in delinquency court," Tamar Birckhead, a law professor at the University of North Carolina, told Ars. "Another irony here is that these two teens could have legally had sex with each other in North Carolina, yet they are charged with felonies for texting sexually explicit photos of themselves to each other."

…

Legal experts remain mystified as to why the CCSO brought this case forward to begin with.

…

"Even if these charges are ultimately dismissed, these teenagers’ lives have been forever altered for the worse. Imagine years from now when they apply to college, or for a job, and someone vetting their application does a Google search," he said. "Their names will forever be linked to this incident. It is ridiculous that we are criminalizing this immature teenage behavior. The notion that prosecutors just enforce the law is absurd. Every day prosecutors make decisions about which crimes to prosecute because of limited resources and proper prosecutorial discretion. This incident was a perfect opportunity for the parents of each of teens to sit down and have a conversation with their children about appropriate behavior. It is not appropriate for it to be in a criminal court."

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...ina-you-can-have-sex-at-16-but-you-cant-sext/

What do guys think about this? What would be a fair outcome?

Last edited: Sep 13, 2015

clintl

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Sep 13, 2015

#2

No, it wasn't. It's a total waste of resources.

cmhbob

Did...did I do that?

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Sep 13, 2015

#3

Drop the charges, have the deputies and prosecutors who brought the charges pay to have them expunged out of their own pockets, and put those same deputies and prosecutors up in stocks.

They're saying, in so many words, that you can't possess nude images of yourself if you're under 18.

"We’re more or less saving the kids from themselves because they’re not seeing what’s going to come down the road." That's so much hogwash. So instead of letting the kids find out that certain places don't want to hire them because of the pictures, we're going to make it so NO PLACE will hire them because of FELONY CHARGES. :rant:

:rant:

:Headbang:

Haggis

Evil, undead Chihuahua

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Sep 13, 2015

#4

clintl said:
No, it wasn't. It's a total waste of resources.

This.

WriterDude

Writer?

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Sep 13, 2015

#5

It's absurd.

CWatts

down the rabbit hole of research...

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Sep 13, 2015

#6

This is utterly insane. Zero tolerance run amok, because the adults in this situation have zero common sense. Also, it shows how quickly technology is outstripping the law's ability to cope with it in a sane and reasonable way.

I'll be especially outraged if this kid gets a harsher sentence than that sicko Jared Fogel.

BoF

Cautious Daredevil

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Sep 13, 2015

#7

WriterDude said:
It's absurd.

I would call it, caca del toro, except that it has had a needless negative impact on the two kid's young lives and will probably have further negative consequences.

Damn the insensitive prosecutors.

Last edited: Sep 13, 2015

Perks

delicate #!&@*#! flower

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Sep 13, 2015

#8

I hope these kids aren't too distressed by this circus, because it absolutely must be revealed and diagrammed for its stupidity. They are unwittingly doing a great service to our collective psyches by showing us how utterly silly we've become, and what ridiculous situations have been created by our stalled progressions in good sense.

I want this case to be publicized far and wide and I want it to be the establishment hanging their heads in shame, not these young people. Then I want to take them out for hamburgers and apologize to them thoroughly.

the young woman was originally charged with two counts of sexual exploitation of a minor—but was listed on her warrant for arrest as both perpetrator and victim.

Silenia

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Sep 13, 2015

#9

cmhbob said:
Drop the charges, have the deputies and prosecutors who brought the charges pay to have them expunged out of their own pockets, and put those same deputies and prosecutors up in stocks.

They're saying, in so many words, that you can't possess nude images of yourself if you're under 18.

"We’re more or less saving the kids from themselves because they’re not seeing what’s going to come down the road." That's so much hogwash. So instead of letting the kids find out that certain places don't want to hire them because of the pictures, we're going to make it so NO PLACE will hire them because of FELONY CHARGES.

And instead of having the risk that some people may know there's nude pictures of these teenagers, they're informing the whole world.

Hm. Sounds logical. :sarcasm

:sarcasm

ErezMA

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Sep 13, 2015

#10

I've posted this in another thread before, but when I worked security at the mall, a coworker of mine found a sixteen and a fifteen year old couple having sex in a parking garage. Our protocol is we have to call their parents and pick them up, and that they'd be banned from the premises for a varied length of time. Well we had a police detail on site who wanted to check it out. They decided to arrest the male for statutory rape as the MA age of consent is 16 years old.

Just like the child porn case, this isn't what the law was meant for. The police, while responsible for knowing what a law statute reads, should also know when to use it. Remember that saying: Knowledge is that a tomato is a fruit but wisdom is knowing not to put it into a fruit salad?

Same thing. That teenager shouldn't have been a tomato put into a fruit salad.

Captcha

Banned

Sep 13, 2015

#11

On the surface, this case is a travesty, and it's quite possible that it's a travesty all the way through.

Trying to figure out how it could have come about is just speculation, of course, but...

Obviously somebody other than the two of them at some point saw the images, because the police/prosecutors became aware of them. Is it possible there was something larger that couldn't be proved, and the prosecutor decided to go for a lesser charge? Maybe, although based on the quote from Sean Swain, this doesn't seem to be the case.

Maybe the person who saw the images was a parent, and had political pull in order to get the charges laid? But what kind of psycho parent would think this was a good way to treat their own child?

The newspaper article says: "To his knowledge, Denson's and Copening's pictures weren't shared with anyone else. He said they were discovered during an investigation of other explicit photos that were being shared among teens without the consent of the person or persons pictured." So if these images were only on the two kids' phones, someone must have been looking on their phones for images of other teens... but there were no charges related to those pictures, which were non-consensual? WTF?

I wonder if there was some sort of hand-in-your-phone operation at the school, as part of a crackdown related to these mythical non-consensual images, and then...?

I don't know. There's something really strange going on with this one...

Perks

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Sep 13, 2015

#12

And here's the concern-troll justification from that article:

"What we are seeing now is that people don't understand—it's a big deal when the young lady and the young man apply for a job [and these photos are online]," Sgt. Sean Swain, a Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) spokesman, told Ars.

"This technology and this problem that we’re having with this case, we don't know where it’s going to go in five years when they apply for college," he said. "We don't know where these pictures are going to go. We’re more or less saving the kids from themselves because they’re not seeing what’s going to come down the road."

The thing is, the genie is out of the digital bottle. Before we had cell phones, couples took naked pictures of themselves. Sometimes I wonder if that's not what the Polaroid Instamatic was invented for.

The point is, that genie isn't going back into the bottle. The risk of your potential boss or college dean seeing a naked photo of you online has been vastly overstated. Unless you were working in porn under your own name, or you have unfortunately been victimized by revenge or sextortion, then your potential educator or boss would have to have a bizarre and committed interest in digging around to find you naked on the internet.

Since there's no re-bottling of electronic genies expected outside the possibility of a massive EMP, then what we have to do (quelle horreur!) is come to terms with what we already know from our own personal, pre-digital experiences - what we do in our private lives does not automatically or overtly predetermine what we can accomplish academically or professionally.

In short, if you see a naked picture of someone - get over it.

Last edited: Sep 13, 2015

Ambrosia

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Sep 13, 2015

#13

cmhbob said:
Drop the charges, have the deputies and prosecutors who brought the charges pay to have them expunged out of their own pockets, and put those same deputies and prosecutors up in stocks.

This.

LittlePinto

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Sep 13, 2015

#14

Is someone up for reelection?

I say this should be a parenting issue, not a legal one.

ErezMA

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Sep 13, 2015

#15

Captcha said:
Obviously somebody other than the two of them at some point saw the images, because the police/prosecutors became aware of them.

It could be anything. One of them could have showed it off to their buddies or it could be accidentally seen when swiping through pictures. You are right that there's limited information but if it is indeed consensual on all ends between the boyfriend and girlfriend, can you think of a reason why a child porn charge would possibly be appropriate?

kuwisdelu

Revolutionize the World

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Sep 13, 2015

#16

Perks said:
In short, if you see a naked picture of someone - get over it.

+1 billion

LittlePinto said:
I say this should be a parenting issue, not a legal one.

I say it shouldn't be an issue at all.

LittlePinto

Perpetually confused

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Sep 13, 2015

#17

kuwisdelu said:
I say it shouldn't be an issue at all.

*shrugs* Even if the teens are pretty close to legal adulthood, they're still minors.

kuwisdelu

Revolutionize the World

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Sep 13, 2015

#18

LittlePinto said:
*shrugs* Even if the teens are pretty close to legal adulthood, they're still minors.

So?

If parents want to make it an issue, okay, but there's no reason it should be an issue.

Last edited: Sep 13, 2015

LittlePinto

Perpetually confused

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Sep 13, 2015

#19

kuwisdelu said:
So?

If parents want to make it an issue, okay, but there's no reason it should be an issue.

Yes. "It should be a parenting issue" means "it should be up to the parents to decide how or if to address the behavior." As for whether or not it should be an issue at all, that is a matter of personal belief.

Captcha

Banned

Sep 13, 2015

#20

ErezMA said:
It could be anything. One of them could have showed it off to their buddies or it could be accidentally seen when swiping through pictures. You are right that there's limited information but if it is indeed consensual on all ends between the boyfriend and girlfriend, can you think of a reason why a child porn charge would possibly be appropriate?

Nothing that seems plausible. Except that obviously someone besides the two teenagers DID see the images, somehow... and I'm curious about how.

Robert Dawson

Getting The Hang Of It

VPX

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Sep 13, 2015

#21

How it came to light: from the article posted in the OP,

Swain added that the male teen allowed law enforcement to search his phone as part of an ongoing investigation into a separate and unrelated alleged statutory rape that was reported to authorities in October 2014.

"He’s an ‘involved other’ in a statutory rape case," Swain continued. "He wasn’t charged with anything in the other case; that’s what we’re investigating. His phone was thought to have involvement or evidence from that case. He’s not a suspect, and he wasn’t a victim and he may not have been there to witness it, but he may have evidence on his phone. Until his case is adjudicated, we will continue to keep his phone."

So they had access to his phone for one reason and they went on a fishing expedition? Thought you folks had a constitutional amendment about self-incrimination?

Last edited: Sep 13, 2015

Perks

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Sep 13, 2015

#22

The protectiveness of the sexual experiences of young people in their mid-teens and beyond seems misplaced to me. The sad reality is that too many young people reach this age without the benefit of positive support and good information. That's where parental influence makes the difference. Too little, too late and a lot of closing the barn door after the horses are frolicking in the pasture is our current mess.

My goal, as far as their sexuality goes, is for my girls to get to that age feeling healthy, smart, considerate, and confident to say yes and no as they wish. At the point of their mid-teens, my role becomes one of open support in the instances of insecurity, questions, and those times where their expectations will be disappointed or even betrayed.

When my girls were very young, I was extremely circumspect about what they took onboard in representation of sexuality in the stuff they read and watched, but less so in violent or colorful language content. I was confronted about this with the accusation that I thought sex was worse than violence and cussing. Of course, I do not. I think that violence is mostly pretty simple. Even a three year old understands that if he is angry, he might lash out and bop you on the nose. Even a toddler understands that a shove is a pretty expedient way to obtain something for yourself out of someone else's hands. Violence is easy to talk about precisely because it makes a certain sort of sense.

And I would be nothing but a hypocrite to complain about cussing. I have a sailor's sensibilities on these matters. And my children are well aware of this.

Sex and its romantic sidecar is very complicated. Small children don't have even the language to process the nuances of these concepts. So we protect them from it until their emotional, experiential, and biological vocabulary can be deployed to help it make sense. (Or at least as much sense as it ever does.)

But I think our parental influences on their attitudes about sex is wielded in a fairly short window of time. And our influence is all but sealed once their hormones come well online.

Last edited: Sep 13, 2015

Vince524

Are you gonna finish that bacon?

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Sep 13, 2015

#23

Robert Dawson said:
How it came to light: from the article posted in the OP,

So they had access to his phone for one reason and they went on a fishing expedition? Thought you folks had a constitutional amendment about self-incrimination?

If a cop enters your home to take a witness report because you say someone broke in, he can't go snooping through your drawers, but if you've got cocaine on the counter, it's legal.

If the teen allowed them access to his phone and they were looking through his pictures, they came across the pictures in a lawful way. They didn't go on a fishing expedition.

Having said that, I still believe the charges are ridiculous.

ShaunHorton

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Sep 13, 2015

#24

Swain added that the male teen allowed law enforcement to search his phone as part of an ongoing investigation into a separate and unrelated alleged statutory rape that was reported to authorities in October 2014.

"He’s an ‘involved other’ in a statutory rape case," Swain continued. "He wasn’t charged with anything in the other case; that’s what we’re investigating. His phone was thought to have involvement or evidence from that case. He’s not a suspect, and he wasn’t a victim and he may not have been there to witness it, but he may have evidence on his phone. Until his case is adjudicated, we will continue to keep his phone."

Why do I feel like someone has it in for this kid?

What the heck is an "involved other" ?

Last edited: Sep 13, 2015

Captcha

Banned

Sep 13, 2015

#25

ShaunHorton said:
Why do I feel like someone has it in for this kid?

What the heck is an "involved other" ?

Yeah, I really feel like there's something going on. I mean, maybe this kid is a sleazy asshole who taped a friend raping a girl and the cops are charging him for this because it's all they can catch him for. But then why charge the girlfriend, too? Something just doesn't make sense.

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