Sexting Girls Facing Porn Charge Sue D.A.
One summer night in 2007, a pair of 13-year-old northeastern Pennsylvania girls decided to strip down to their skivvies to beat the heat. As Marissa Miller talked on the phone and Grace Kelly flashed a peace sign, a third girl took a candid shot of the teens in their white bras.
It was harmless, innocent fun, the teens say.
But the picture somehow wound up on classmates' cell phones, and a prosecutor has threatened to charge Miller and Kelly with child pornography or open lewdness unless they participate in a five-week after-school program followed by probation.
On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge to block Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick Jr. from filing charges, saying that the teens didn't consent to having the picture distributed, and that in any event the image is not pornography.
"There was absolutely nothing wrong with that photograph," said Marissa's mother, MaryJo Miller, 44, of Tunkhannock.
"I certainly don't want pedophiles looking at my daughter in her bra, but I don't think that was the intention to begin with," she said in an interview with The Associated Press. "This is absolutely wrong on his part. It's abuse of his authority."
Marissa Miller, Kelly and their parents were joined in the lawsuit by a 17-year-old Tunkhannock girl from the same school who was photographed topless last year in a separate setting. The teen, also facing felony charges unless she takes the class, is called "Nancy Doe" in the lawsuit to protect her privacy.
Skumanick said he would fight the lawsuit.
Appearing on The Early Show, Wyoming County district attorney George Skumanick Jr. said that his office could have filed charges against the girls, ranging from "sexual abuse of children in Pennsylvania, criminal [use] of a communications facility, or open lewdness, and there were other possible charges also," but that his office decided to make an offer of limiting penalties to probation if they attend a sexual harassment program.
Responding to the lawsuit, Skumanick said that the actions of Miller and the other girls are not the issue being considered. "The issue before the federal court is whether or not the federal court has the right to interfere with the separation of powers of my office - and any district attorney across the country - from deciding when to file criminal charges," he said. "We could have taken the easy way out here and simply filed charges against these children, and we wouldn't have been here. We offered them a way out, a way to avoid charges."
Skumanick characterized the lawsuit as an effort to have a federal judge prevent local law enforcement from doing its job, which he warned would create a slippery slope:
"Basically what they're seeking is, they're seeking a federal judge to say whether or not I can file criminal charges against them," he said. "So frankly what they're asking the federal court to allow is, is to allow you to go out, commit a crime, run to the federal courthouse before you can be arrested, and file papers saying, 'Please don't allow them to arrest me, it's going to violate my civil rights.' That's not how the system can possibly work.
"To allow this type of action would allow anyone to plan a crime, commit it, run to the federal courthouse, and then file paperwork saying, 'My rights are being violated. Don't let them arrest me,' and then avoid arrest for years."
"It does seem like a case of kids just being kids and not realizing they were committing a crime when they did whatever it is they did," Early Show anchor Julie Chen suggested.
"Well, as you well know, ignorance of the law is not a defense," Skumanick said.
"What we elected to do, instead of around the country where they simply arrested these children, is to simply made them an offer to avoid prosecution, to avoid a criminal record of any sort, and developed an educational program to help them understand the true dangers of this and the long-term effects of this on them and their future."
When asked by Chen if he would order the arrest of Miller or the others for saying no to his offer, Skumanick said, "Well, actually, they never did say 'no.' They filed this lawsuit before they said no. I've never heard an official 'no' from them."
"Well, this is a case of young girls taking pictures of themselves in bras at a slumber party," said CBS News legal analyst Lisa Bloom. "To think they'd be prosecuted for child pornography, face years in prison, register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives - have we lost our minds?
"Teens have this brand-new technology. They're using it in foolish ways. It's bad judgment. I think parents and teachers should punish them. But to subject them to these harsh criminal penalties I think is very scary, and we as citizens all have to reconsider what we're doing with our laws, catching so many children up in these kinds of dragnets."
"Sexting" Confounds Parents, Educators And Law Enforcement
The photos at the center of this debate surfaced in October, when officials at Tunkhannock Area High School confiscated five cell phones and found that boys had been trading photos of scantily clad, semi-nude or nude teenage girls. The students with the cell phones ranged in age from 11 to 17.
Called "sexting" when it's done by cell phone, teenagers' habit of sending sexually suggestive photos of themselves and others to one another is a nationwide problem that has confounded parents, school administrators and law enforcement officials.
Prosecutors in a number of states, including Pennsylvania, Connecticut, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin, have tried to put a stop to it by charging teens who send and receive the pictures.
In Tunkhannock, a town about 130 miles north of Philadelphia, Skumanick met with about 20 students and their parents last month and offered them a deal: The youths wouldn't be prosecuted if they took a class on sexual harassment, sexual violence and gender roles.
"If we were just out to be nasty about this, we would have just charged everybody," Skumanick said Wednesday.
Seventeen of the students accepted his offer.
But when MaryJo Miller protested to Skumanick that the photo portraying her daughter and Kelly couldn't possibly be considered child porn, he replied that the girls were posed "provocatively," according to the lawsuit.
"You'd have to see the photo and see the setting, which I'm not going to show to the public because I don't think it's appropriate," he said.
The year-old photo of Nancy Doe, meanwhile, shows her just out of the shower, with a towel wrapped around her waist and her breasts exposed.
Vic Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania ACLU, would not say who took the photo or whether she sent it to anybody. But he said she did not intend for it to be widely distributed.
"Our client has absolutely no idea how it ended up on strange people's cell phones," he said.
Under Pennsylvania's child pornography law, it's a felony to possess or disseminate photos of a minor engaged in sexual activity, "lewd exhibition of the genitals," or nudity that is meant to titillate. Open lewdness, a misdemeanor, includes any lewd act that is likely to be observed by others.
The ACLU's lawsuit claims both photos are protected First Amendment speech.
"One of the concerns all of these kids have is it's getting to be summertime, they're going to the beach and the pool, and do they need to be worried about taking photos of themselves swimming around?" Walczak said. "Who knows what he decides will be too provocative?"
Skumanick said swimsuit-clad kids have nothing to fear from him.
Prosecution And Legislation
Meanwhile, children in other communities are facing serious legal problems for creating or sending pictures of themselves.
A 14-year-old New Jersey girl has been accused of child pornography after posting nearly 30 explicit nude pictures of herself on MySpace.com.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children tipped off a state task force, which alerted the Passaic County Sheriff's Office.
The office investigated and discovered the Clifton resident had posted the "very explicit" photos of herself, sheriff's spokesman Bill Maer said Thursday.
The girl posted the photos because "she wanted her boyfriend to see them," he said.
"We consider this case a wake-up call to parents," Maer said.
The teen, whose name has not been released because of her age, was arrested and charged with possession of child pornography and distribution of child pornography. She was released to her mother's custody.
If convicted of the distribution charge, she would be forced to register with the state as a sex offender under Megan's Law, said state Attorney General Anne Milgram. She also could face up to 17 years in jail, though such a stiff sentence is unlikely.
The mother of the New Jersey girl whose death inspired Megan's Law is criticizing prosecutors who charge teenagers with child porn for distributing nude photos of themselves.
Maureen Kanka said Thursday that the prosecutors are harming the children more than helping them.
In Falmouth, Mass., police issued summons against a group of six teens, aged 12 to 14, who are accused of sending nude pictures of a 13-year-old girl through their cell phones. One of the teens had allegedly taken the photo of his 13-year-old girlfriend before sending it to others.
They are charged with possessing and distributing material of a child in a sexual act. They may face child porn charges as well.
In Syracuse, N.Y., police have charged a 17-year-old boy with messaging a sexually explicit video to a 13-year-old girl's cell phone after striking up a relationship on MySpace.com.
The 10th-grader faces charges of second-degree disseminating indecent material to a minor and endangering the welfare of a child.
In Ohio, Republican state Rep. Ronald Maag said Thursday that he plans to introduce a bill that would make it a misdemeanor for minors to send nude images over their cell phones.
Warren County Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel had asked legislators for changes in Ohio law. Currently, minors involved in sexting could face felony charges under Ohio's child pornography law.
Maag says prosecutors still could pursue harsher penalties if appropriate.
© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. It was harmless, innocent fun, the teens say.
But the picture somehow wound up on classmates' cell phones, and a prosecutor has threatened to charge Miller and Kelly with child pornography or open lewdness unless they participate in a five-week after-school program followed by probation.
On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge to block Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick Jr. from filing charges, saying that the teens didn't consent to having the picture distributed, and that in any event the image is not pornography.
"There was absolutely nothing wrong with that photograph," said Marissa's mother, MaryJo Miller, 44, of Tunkhannock.
"I certainly don't want pedophiles looking at my daughter in her bra, but I don't think that was the intention to begin with," she said in an interview with The Associated Press. "This is absolutely wrong on his part. It's abuse of his authority."
Marissa Miller, Kelly and their parents were joined in the lawsuit by a 17-year-old Tunkhannock girl from the same school who was photographed topless last year in a separate setting. The teen, also facing felony charges unless she takes the class, is called "Nancy Doe" in the lawsuit to protect her privacy.
Skumanick said he would fight the lawsuit.
Appearing on The Early Show, Wyoming County district attorney George Skumanick Jr. said that his office could have filed charges against the girls, ranging from "sexual abuse of children in Pennsylvania, criminal [use] of a communications facility, or open lewdness, and there were other possible charges also," but that his office decided to make an offer of limiting penalties to probation if they attend a sexual harassment program.
Responding to the lawsuit, Skumanick said that the actions of Miller and the other girls are not the issue being considered. "The issue before the federal court is whether or not the federal court has the right to interfere with the separation of powers of my office - and any district attorney across the country - from deciding when to file criminal charges," he said. "We could have taken the easy way out here and simply filed charges against these children, and we wouldn't have been here. We offered them a way out, a way to avoid charges."
Skumanick characterized the lawsuit as an effort to have a federal judge prevent local law enforcement from doing its job, which he warned would create a slippery slope:
"Basically what they're seeking is, they're seeking a federal judge to say whether or not I can file criminal charges against them," he said. "So frankly what they're asking the federal court to allow is, is to allow you to go out, commit a crime, run to the federal courthouse before you can be arrested, and file papers saying, 'Please don't allow them to arrest me, it's going to violate my civil rights.' That's not how the system can possibly work.
"To allow this type of action would allow anyone to plan a crime, commit it, run to the federal courthouse, and then file paperwork saying, 'My rights are being violated. Don't let them arrest me,' and then avoid arrest for years."
"It does seem like a case of kids just being kids and not realizing they were committing a crime when they did whatever it is they did," Early Show anchor Julie Chen suggested.
"Well, as you well know, ignorance of the law is not a defense," Skumanick said.
"What we elected to do, instead of around the country where they simply arrested these children, is to simply made them an offer to avoid prosecution, to avoid a criminal record of any sort, and developed an educational program to help them understand the true dangers of this and the long-term effects of this on them and their future."
When asked by Chen if he would order the arrest of Miller or the others for saying no to his offer, Skumanick said, "Well, actually, they never did say 'no.' They filed this lawsuit before they said no. I've never heard an official 'no' from them."
"Well, this is a case of young girls taking pictures of themselves in bras at a slumber party," said CBS News legal analyst Lisa Bloom. "To think they'd be prosecuted for child pornography, face years in prison, register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives - have we lost our minds?
"Teens have this brand-new technology. They're using it in foolish ways. It's bad judgment. I think parents and teachers should punish them. But to subject them to these harsh criminal penalties I think is very scary, and we as citizens all have to reconsider what we're doing with our laws, catching so many children up in these kinds of dragnets."
"Sexting" Confounds Parents, Educators And Law Enforcement
The photos at the center of this debate surfaced in October, when officials at Tunkhannock Area High School confiscated five cell phones and found that boys had been trading photos of scantily clad, semi-nude or nude teenage girls. The students with the cell phones ranged in age from 11 to 17.
Called "sexting" when it's done by cell phone, teenagers' habit of sending sexually suggestive photos of themselves and others to one another is a nationwide problem that has confounded parents, school administrators and law enforcement officials.
Prosecutors in a number of states, including Pennsylvania, Connecticut, North Dakota, Ohio, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin, have tried to put a stop to it by charging teens who send and receive the pictures.
In Tunkhannock, a town about 130 miles north of Philadelphia, Skumanick met with about 20 students and their parents last month and offered them a deal: The youths wouldn't be prosecuted if they took a class on sexual harassment, sexual violence and gender roles.
"If we were just out to be nasty about this, we would have just charged everybody," Skumanick said Wednesday.
Seventeen of the students accepted his offer.
But when MaryJo Miller protested to Skumanick that the photo portraying her daughter and Kelly couldn't possibly be considered child porn, he replied that the girls were posed "provocatively," according to the lawsuit.
"You'd have to see the photo and see the setting, which I'm not going to show to the public because I don't think it's appropriate," he said.
The year-old photo of Nancy Doe, meanwhile, shows her just out of the shower, with a towel wrapped around her waist and her breasts exposed.
Vic Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania ACLU, would not say who took the photo or whether she sent it to anybody. But he said she did not intend for it to be widely distributed.
"Our client has absolutely no idea how it ended up on strange people's cell phones," he said.
Under Pennsylvania's child pornography law, it's a felony to possess or disseminate photos of a minor engaged in sexual activity, "lewd exhibition of the genitals," or nudity that is meant to titillate. Open lewdness, a misdemeanor, includes any lewd act that is likely to be observed by others.
The ACLU's lawsuit claims both photos are protected First Amendment speech.
"One of the concerns all of these kids have is it's getting to be summertime, they're going to the beach and the pool, and do they need to be worried about taking photos of themselves swimming around?" Walczak said. "Who knows what he decides will be too provocative?"
Skumanick said swimsuit-clad kids have nothing to fear from him.
Prosecution And Legislation
Meanwhile, children in other communities are facing serious legal problems for creating or sending pictures of themselves.
A 14-year-old New Jersey girl has been accused of child pornography after posting nearly 30 explicit nude pictures of herself on MySpace.com.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children tipped off a state task force, which alerted the Passaic County Sheriff's Office.
The office investigated and discovered the Clifton resident had posted the "very explicit" photos of herself, sheriff's spokesman Bill Maer said Thursday.
The girl posted the photos because "she wanted her boyfriend to see them," he said.
"We consider this case a wake-up call to parents," Maer said.
The teen, whose name has not been released because of her age, was arrested and charged with possession of child pornography and distribution of child pornography. She was released to her mother's custody.
If convicted of the distribution charge, she would be forced to register with the state as a sex offender under Megan's Law, said state Attorney General Anne Milgram. She also could face up to 17 years in jail, though such a stiff sentence is unlikely.
The mother of the New Jersey girl whose death inspired Megan's Law is criticizing prosecutors who charge teenagers with child porn for distributing nude photos of themselves.
Maureen Kanka said Thursday that the prosecutors are harming the children more than helping them.
In Falmouth, Mass., police issued summons against a group of six teens, aged 12 to 14, who are accused of sending nude pictures of a 13-year-old girl through their cell phones. One of the teens had allegedly taken the photo of his 13-year-old girlfriend before sending it to others.
They are charged with possessing and distributing material of a child in a sexual act. They may face child porn charges as well.
In Syracuse, N.Y., police have charged a 17-year-old boy with messaging a sexually explicit video to a 13-year-old girl's cell phone after striking up a relationship on MySpace.com.
The 10th-grader faces charges of second-degree disseminating indecent material to a minor and endangering the welfare of a child.
In Ohio, Republican state Rep. Ronald Maag said Thursday that he plans to introduce a bill that would make it a misdemeanor for minors to send nude images over their cell phones.
Warren County Prosecutor Rachel Hutzel had asked legislators for changes in Ohio law. Currently, minors involved in sexting could face felony charges under Ohio's child pornography law.
Maag says prosecutors still could pursue harsher penalties if appropriate.
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I understand that there are real problems with sexting among teens and tweens, but these children (which is what they are, children, they are not adults yet) should not have their lives ruined by having to register as sex offenders because of a stupid mistake made as a teenager. It is scientifically proven that the part of an individuals brain that evaluates consequences for ones actions is not fully developed until the individual is, on average, into his or her early to mid 20's. I am not saying these children should not be held responsible, the consequences should just not be as harsh. Instead these children should be taught why acts like these (although I see nothing wrong with a bra picture as I have already demonstrated) can be dangerous.
I do agree with iroc2, we were all given endless pamphlets in school and lectures that droned on and on that we ultimately ignored. The inadequacy of the school to educate its students is not the fault of the students, but the administration! They need better, more involved ways to educate students about the dangers of the "real world". Students should not be penalized because their school is still living in the 20th century.
For example:
- People can brag about having sex and maybe even sneak pictures of then while having sex and they can be distributed as well as pictures sent through sexting.
-People can over react about sex situations and commit suicide because simply the whole situation and/or mistake has gone out of hand, as well as sexting situations can get out of hand and cause the same result of a teenager taking his/her life into their own hands like that.
What sexting doesnt do that sex does:
-Sex might give you an STD/STI. Sexting doesnt.
-Sex might get you pregnant/make you a father. Sexting wont.
Let me ask you this; how often do you see a teenager,who has had sex with another teenager, introuble with the law like this? Unless it was a minor and a person over the legal age, you never see it!
STOP OVER REACTING!
And for those of you who are thinking 'How could she know anything? Shes just a stupid fourteen year old...', think about what I have said here.
This whole situation has gone completely out of hand and I say we do something about it. Copy and paste this to other sites if you are with me!
The Institute for Responsible Online and Cell-Phone Communication has an effective method for dealing with the vast number of digital issues we are aware of (like the trend du jour known as "sexting"), and those that we will be aware of soon.
Despite this fact however, our nation and media seem to be content with treating these digital, 21st century issues, with an "old school" 20th century approach. Unfortunately, based on past headlines regarding "spyware" and "cyber bullying" and now with the national fixture of sexting in the news, it appears we are failing an entire digital generation.
Fortunately however, there is an effective way to save this new generation for those of us willing to listen. It is through The Institute for Responsible Online and Cell-Phone Communication's concept of "Responsibility 2.1C".
Think about it...
1: Can you honestly say that you have never been irresponsible either as a kid touching a hot stove, or smoking (underage), or drinking underage, or trying drugs?
2: Did you always listen to your parents, teachers or caretakers when they told you not to do these things and offered you a ton of information about why you shouldn't?
3: Have you ever been irresponsible or break the law as an adult (e.g. speeding, running a red light)?
4: Have you ever posted your status on Facebook as "On Vacation", "Traveling" or "Out"?
Well if you answered ?NO? to any of the questions above (even # 4), your life may have been over at a very young age (or it could be altered soon) as is the case for many people of today?s digital generation, because it only takes a few seconds of irresponsibility online to ruin your life.
For Example: Lighting up a cigarette, or trying a beer at the age of 17 most of the time, will not instantly alter your life, or affect your loved one's lives, or the life or someone halfway around the globe. However, as we have read lately, in the time it takes a 17 year old to press the send button on a cell phone with a naked picture attached (less time to finish a drag of a cigarette or sip of beer) he/she could be placed in jail and registered as a sex offender.
Simply saying, ?don?t do that? to a kid or flooding them with "tip sheets" and facts did not work when you were one, so why would it work now? The real difference and alarming issue is that the digital technologies available to our youth deliver instant consequences that can alter their life. Fortunately, it appears that the Institute's concept of Responsibility 2.1C may just be the way to reach this new generation.
Richard Guerry, the visionary behind the concept of "Responsibility 2.1C" and co-founder of The Institute for Responsible Online and Cell-Phone Communication recently stated that "We as a nation need to provide direct proactive communication of Digital Responsibility (Responsibility 2.1C) to a new generation. We cannot be reactionary treating today's digital issues, and we cannot resolve them with 20th century threats, reprimand and curriculum." He went on to say, "The real problem is our youth has grown up learning what we call responsibility 1.0 or offline responsibility. They do not understand the scope of the repercussions when they invoke poor (digital) judgment because they have not been proactively taught digital responsibility or what we call, responsibility 2.1C. We cannot apply 20th century solutions to 21st century issues."
Find out more about how you can support The Institute for Responsible Online and Cell-Phone Communication and help them save your community by visiting www.iroc2.org or www.sextingisstupid.com
The problem is, laws in this country are often to sloppily written and put together, that situations like this aren't taken into account before the bill is passed. Had these laws been written with these exclusions in the first place, this wouldn't be happening. Unfortunately, you get these I'll-Press-Charges-On-You-Now enthusiasts in the Prosecutor's Office, and these ridiculous charges are then passed.
I feel awful for these girls and their families. Good luck to all of you, and I hope these charges are dropped so that you can forget about all of this, go off to college, and live your normal adult lives.