Bob CollinsFor some time now, prosecutors who are trying to stop the practice of “sexting” — sending explicit photographs to someone else — have warned teenagers that they could be prosecuted for distributing child pornography.
Now there’s a case in Rice County that involves exactly that.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union in Minnesota, Rice County is charging a 14-year-old girl — named only as “Jane Doe” — with a felony for sending an explicit photo of herself via Snapchat to a boy she liked.
The boy, apparently, showed it and distributed it to his friends, according to a statement one classmate gave to Faribault police.
They’ve been charged under the state’s child pornography law, and so has the girl, a move which the ACLU calls an “absurd interpretation of Minnesota’s child pornography statute.” (See statute)
“To suggest that a juvenile who sends a sexually explicit selfie is a victim of her own act of child pornography is illogical,” Teresa Nelson, Legal Director of the ACLU-MN, said in a news release today. “Child pornography laws are supposed to protect minors from predators, and Jane Doe is not a predator.”
In a court brief asking that charges be dropped (see brief), the ACLU argues that the state statute offers protection for children “being used” for child pornography.
“The statute does not contemplate the possibility of a youth freely deciding [words redacted] her own body, and reasonably so,” the brief said. “[Name of girl redacted] cannot criminally ‘use’ or ‘victimize’ herself. In fact, the child pornography statute does not even attempt to address the phenomenon widely known as ‘sexting.'”
Rice County Attorney John Fossum confirmed the charges in a short interview with MPR News this afternoon, and said although he signed off on the charges, the case is being handled by someone else in his office. But the prosecutor wouldn’t comment further because he has not reviewed the ACLU petition.
“I’m not a criminal for taking a selfie,” Jane Doe said in the ACLU press release. “Sexting is common among teens at my school, and we shouldn’t face charges for doing it. I don’t want anyone else to go through what I’m going through.
“Why are we victimizing the victim?” her father, also unnamed, said.
Earlier this year, criminal defense attorney Joe Tamburino, who has handled sexting cases involving juveniles and adults, told WCCO that felony charges could be filed against teens who take part in sexting.
“If you have a 17-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl, and they decide to share images with each other that are of a sexual nature, they could be charged,” the attorney said.
If “Jane Doe” is found guilty, she would be forced to register as a predatory sex offender for the next 10 years, “and the career paths open to her as an adult could be sharply limited,” the ACLU said in its release.
[Update 1:13 p.m.] County attorney Fossum reports because the case involves in a juvenile, he is not able to discuss the case.
