Bob CollinsCharges have been dropped in a southern Minnesota case where an underage teen was charged with distributing child pornography by sending a boy an explicit picture of herself.
The boy passed it around school in Faribault, so authorities prosecuted the girl.
If “Jane Doe” was found guilty of the charges filed by Rice County prosecutor John Fossum, she would have been forced to register as a predatory sex offender for the next 10 years.
The girl, 14, was charged with a felony.
Rice County District Court Judge John Cajacob has now dismissed the charges.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, which took on the case, Cajacob said prosecuting the girl would produce “an absurd, unreasonable, and unjust result” and that he could not see how “subjecting [the juvenile] to registering as a sexual offender would protect her or teach her anything but that the justice system is cruel and unjust.”
The ACLU called it “unabashed victim shaming.”
The boy was also charged by authorities.
