The US 3rd Circuit Court has ruled that a 16 year old girl could not be charged with child pornography for simply appearing in a photograph without any evidence that she was responsible or aware or it’s distribution. This decision is a blow to aggressive prosecution of sexting, and an interesting case in particular, where the prosecutor attempted to threatening the defendant into agreeing to a sexting eduction class in exchange for not bringing the felony child pornography charges. The defendant refused.
The local judge also had ruled that the pictures themselves, which had been distributed among a number of students in Pennsylvania, was not child pornography, but the circuit court did not take up that aspect of the 1st amendment argument.
No related posts.
