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Judge Temporarily Bars Prosecutor from Charging Teens for Child Porn Pictures in Connection with "Sexting" Case
July 01, 2009
Topic: Virginia Legal News
A federal judge has granted a temporary restraining order to prevent a prosecutor from charging three teenage girls with the production of child pornography for allowing someone to take semi-nude photos of them.
In his ruling, the judge appeared to agree that the images in question do not qualify as child pornography. At the center of the case are photos seized from student cell phones. The practice of taking nude or semi-nude self-photos and distributing them by cell phone or the internet has come to be known as "sexting" and has resulted in teens being arrested in a number of states under child pornography laws covering production, distribution, and possession.
The photos at issue in this case are of two teen girls, photographed from the waist up and are wearing white opaque bras. A second photo shows another girl outside of a shower with a towel wrapped around her waist with her breasts uncovered.
The prosecutor had threatened to charge the girls with being accomplices to the production of child pornography unless they agreed to six-month probation, drug-testing and participation in a five-week educational program to discuss why what they did was wrong.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the prosecutor on behalf of the teens and their parents on grounds that he was violating their civil rights. The ACLU claimed that the images did not qualify as child pornography under state law and therefore the prosecutor was prohibiting their free expression to take photos of themselves. The ACLU also claimed the attempt to force the parents to put the girls in an educational program violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights.
A U.S. District Court Judge granted a temporary restraining order on grounds that the plaintiffs stand a reasonable chance of winning their suit against the prosecutor. The judge did not comment on the merits of their claims against the prosecutor other than to say that the "plaintiffs make a reasonable argument that the images presented to the court do not appear to qualify in any way as depictions of prohibited sexual acts."
"We are grateful the judge recognized that prosecuting our clients for non-sexually explicit photographs raises serious constitutional questions," said a legal director for the ACLU. "This country needs to have a discussion about whether prosecuting minors as child pornographers for merely being impulsive and naive is the appropriate way to address the serious consequences that can result from sexting."
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