Three students are suing a state prosecutor in relation to a sexting case. Last February, twenty students at a northeastern Pennsylvania school were found to have sent or to be in a cell phone photo that District Attorney George P. Skumanick considered “provocative.” One photo in the suit shows two girls in bras from the waist up. Another shows a girl with a towel wrapped underneath her breasts. The photos were discovered when many of the students in question had their cell phones confiscated and searched at school. The state prosecutor threatened all of the students with sexual abuse of a minor charges for sexting semi-nude or nude photos of themselves. The charges could lead to jail time and registration as a sex offender. To avoid charges, the prosecutor required the students to attend a 10 hour class concerning pornography and sexual violence. Seventeen of the students accepted the deal, but three girls are fighting it based on their First and Fourth Amendment rights of freedom of expression and their rights to oppose the prosecutor’s deal.
There are many issues that this case brings up. First, does freedom of expression mean that minors have the right to send nude photos of themselves to other people? The defense attorney for the three girls contends that the two photos in question here do not constitute child pornography because they do not show the girls in any sexual activity, and they do not show intent for child pornography. Another issue is should minors be labeled and registered as sex offenders for sending nude or semi-nude photos to their boyfriends, girlfriends, or friends? The context and intent of the photos are clearly important, but I’m sure many these photos are not sent with illegal or harmful intent. The other issue is searching a student’s cell phone. One article states that cell phones contain personal information protected by the Fourth Amendment. Should schools have the right to search students’ cell phones?
Articles:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/us/26sextext.html?_r=1&ref=education
http://www.ncac.org/The-Right-to-Sext-Sending-Nude-Photos-of-Oneself-is-a-Right
http://www.aclupa.org/downloads/MillerComplaintfinal.pdf
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The Fourth Amendment right issue struck me right of the bat. Cell phones are private property. I can understand locker searches, technically they just hold private property but if you have to dig through a cell phone to see that there is a nude picture that is wrong. I almost have to question the unpure?? motives of the administration.
ReplyDeleteAs far as sexting. I don't see the harm in sending nude photos of yourself to someone else as long as they are a willing recipient. I think the issue lies in the recipient passing the image on to others.
I'm no legal scholar, but searching a student's cell phone seems like an infringement. I think that the school would have to have some very strong probable cause to do such a thing. Locker searches can be done because the school owns the lockers. I've heard that drug searches can be done if a drug dog detects drugs first (probably under other circumstances too). There would be an issue if a student is over 18 and sends sexual content to a minor student. I've heard of stories of high school couples getting into legal battles when one person is 18 and the other is say 16.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point Anna, about both parties being willing. There is no abuse implied if both parties are willing participants. If both the students are minors or both are adults, then there is no issue, in my opinion. It does get dicey if one is over 18 and the other is under 18.
Giving minors jail time and labeling them as sex offenders seems like a misuse of child pornography laws. So, it's ok for two minors to have sex, but if a minor wanted to take a picture of herself in a bra and send it to a boyfriend, the boyfriend would be a sex offender just for possessing it? It seems like that would be the case, given what happened here. I don't see how the minor is being harmed in this instance, if she were to take it herself and send it to other minors, so I do think this is a first amendment issue. Like Anna, I do see how maybe distributing the photo without the person's permission is an issue. In fact, there is a law that just passed in Illinois that would make it illegal:
ReplyDeletehttp://illinoishomepage.net/content/fulltext/?cid=86641
I also wonder what the "10 hour class concerning pornography and sexual violence" was all about. Pornography is not usually an issue that is discussed in school, and it seems like the "sexual violence" aspect of it may be a little inappropriate for the situation.
Searching the cell phones is a violation. I can't think of any way around that. I am curious as to what sparked the officials to search them in the first place.
ReplyDeleteAs far as sexting, I hear a lot about the people receiving the text and forwarding it getting in trouble while the person who took the photo of themself is seen as violated. I can't stand this. I'm sorry but if someone takes a photo of themself and sends it out, that's is their fault what happens to it. You can't expect a teen boy to not pass on a nude photo of a girl. (or vice versa) The people who send these photos are out are naive if they think it will stay between them.
On the flip side, if someone if forced to be nude and someone else takes a photo of them--different story.
Also it is crazy that minors are begin charges as sexual offenders for looking at other minors.
I bthinkthe chargingof minors has become a huge iss un th U.S. I've heard of several different cases where students have been charged with statutory rape after parents have pressed charges when their child was involved and just as responsible for their actions. I don't think its right to brand these "kids" with sex offender status as a result of something stupid. I can understand if the person committed an actual crime such forcing someone into an act that they were unwilling to do.
ReplyDeleteI think that this situation is a case of making a mountain out of a molehill. The school shouldn't have violated the students rights to privacy. Yes they can confiscate their hones according to policy, but no, they should not have been going through the information in them. The students have the same rights to privacy that the adults have. Would they advocate it if the students were allowed to go through the staffs personal belongings?
At the same time, once this was done, I believe that it was a matter for the parents to deal with, not the school. Parents should have been informed and allowed to discipline their children. I'm actually proud of the 3 and their parents who are standing up for themselves.
I admire the three girls for standing up for their rights. It sounds like the school didn't have a right to search their cell phones in the first place. Second, the girls' photos were really no more than what one could see in the undergarment section of a Sear's catalog. These kids should absolutely not be prosecuted for this, they are doing what normal kids have done for centuries, they just have cell phones now. I don't even see a point in these prosecutors going after them. Sexting is not a perhaps the best thing for a teen to be doing, but threatening to brand them as a sex offender is bullying on the part of the authorities.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand how a picture of a girl in a bra becomes child pornography. As Celia said, it's no different from what you'd see in a catalog. Perhaps the state's child pornography laws are exceedingly puritanical?
ReplyDeleteAnd Lisa, oddly enough, it's legal in some states for adults to have sex with some minors (of the age of consent). By extension, one must ask that if the law says that these teens are mature enough to consent to sex, then why are they not considered mature enough to consent to posing nude?
Oddly enough, prior to 2003 in the UK, it was legal for 16 & 17 year old girls to pose topless--so anyone in the US who subscribed to a British newspaper, such as the Sun, might've unwittingly been setting themselves up to receive child porn in the mail! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_3_girls#Page_Three_controversies
How can they be sex offenders when they are children themselves?! This is a very complicated situation. So many levels of discussion…
ReplyDeleteA person has the right to take photos however they want and send them to whomever they want.
Why would young girls want to take pictures of that nature? Where are the parents?
I might have to go think about this some more…