# 15-year-old girl prosecuted for child porn **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 5, 2004, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386 "2004-04-05T17:02:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/101 "2004-04-08T03:49:39Z")
> [@Zoff](#): > > Yet people are decrying the prosecutor, the penalties, all kinds of things we know nothing about. I’m not saying the prosecutor is correct or incorrect. I’m saying that, without relevant facts, there’s no point in debating whether this is a good idea. I’ve read this post or others very much like it about a thousand times on the SDMB, and it’s stupid. You got a better set of facts than what we have, post them. Otherwise we deal with what’s on the table. This business of constantly decrying arguments on the basis of some mythical set of better facts or better undrestanding … virtual pie in the sky … is silly. It may well be true that a more complete news story will come along tomorrow or the next day which will resolve the issues dealt with here. BFD. It may not. We deal with the facts we have. Is that so hard to understand? ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/102 "2004-04-08T04:08:18Z")
> [@chula](#): > > IAAL, and I’m confused. If this were a question on the bar exam, I would definitely say that she was not guilty of any crime. The general rule is that members of the class the law is designed to protect are not liable. This sounds like a case that’s going to get dropped before it reaches a jury. If this is so, how can two teens having (I would assume) consensual sex be convicted of raping one another because they are both underage, as has been claimed earlier in this thread? ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/103 "2004-04-08T04:37:26Z")
Well, I certainly hope she’s acquitted. I don’t see people sharing pictures of themselves as a problem that the law needs to discourage, whether or not those people have reached some arbitrary age. Unless the girl was _coerced_ into taking those pictures, there is no victim. This is just more knee-jerk Puritanism from the same brand of idiots who brought us all that hoopla over two seconds of halftime nipple. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/104 "2004-04-08T04:46:38Z")
> [@catsix](#): > > So far as I know, she took and then posted pictures of her naked self on the Internet. > > I’ve always been under the impression that ‘The People’, and specifically the victim, are represented in court by the DA or the prosecutor who attempts to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant comitted the crime that he or she is accused of having committed. > > My difficulty with these charges is that the ‘victim’ in this case is also the defendant, so supposedly the prosecutor/DA is bringing charges on her (and the people’s) behalf to exact justice for the harm done to her by attempting to put the person who harmed her through some kind of legal punishment. First off, I don’t get the impression that she’s the victim of a crime, or that there was any ‘harm’ committed against her. I also wonder just exactly how the hell this will work in court, since the victims of sex crimes usually testify as to what happened, how the crime affected them, and so on during the trial. You could make the same argument about drug prosecutions also. Who is the “victim” in that case? The State is punishing you for harming yourself. Yes, you and I think it’s silly, but the governing majority seems to accept this as a valid exercise of government power. ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/105 "2004-04-08T05:14:03Z")
And showing me another case in which I firmly believe the ‘governing majority’ is a bunch of fuckwits is supposed to prove what, exactly? That there are lots of bad laws on the books? ---
**Author:** ![chula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@chula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chula)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/106 "2004-04-08T05:40:38Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > If this is so, how can two teens having (I would assume) consensual sex be convicted of raping one another because they are both underage, as has been claimed earlier in this thread? I didn’t mean to imply that no minor can be convicted of a crime against a minor. Maybe I shouldn’t have said “class of persons.” The better analogy in the statutory rape case would be to charge the girl with being an accomplice to her own rape. ---
**Author:** ![Zoff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/6de8d8/32.png) [@Zoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoff)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/107 "2004-04-08T12:27:57Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by catsix_ > If there are no witnesses and no physical evidence that a crime was committed, how would they prove a mugging took place without my testimony? If they think someone mugged me because he now has some amount of money that I now don’t have, but I steadfastly tell them that I was not mugged, and I will say on the witness stand that I was not mugged, how would they actually prosecute that? The fact that it might be difficult to prosecute does not mean they could not prosecute it if they felt they had sufficient evidence. My point was that merely saying the girl was the victim and wouldn’t testify doesn’t mean they can’t prosecute. > [@](#): > > Also odd about what you said: when someone is raped, the victim is the person who was raped, when someone was murdered, the victim is the dead person, and when a child is sexually abused the victim is the child. But when a 15 year old takes naked pictures of herself, the victim is society? The victim is the one who was raped or murdered, but the prosecution is on behalf of the people. > [@](#): > > In what way did this harm society or ‘the people’ at all? Perhaps when we have more than a thumbnail sketch of the facts we’ll know. That’s my point. > [@](#): > > I think that if the media managed to get any inclination at all that this girl was coerced into taking those pictures, there would have been a Dateline or 20/20 special about it already. That’s just more speculation. > [@](#): > > What other information are you looking for here? Why do you think there is more information that we don’t know? What is so damned implausible about this having been entirely her idea and her action? When did I ever say it’s implausible that it was her idea? And there’s a lot more information we don’t know because what we do know is so very little. An eight line story is hardly exhaustive. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by jayjay_ > 'Cause she’s only 15, dammit! We all know 15-year-olds just don’t DO stuff like this unless they’re coerced to by a nasty, perverted older man! Not sure if this is meant for me. I’m not a prude who denies a 15 year olds sexuality. If she did this on her own, for kicks I don’t think that prosecuting her is the most effective means of discouraging this. But to take a news blurb and then say she did it on her own because 15 year olds sometimes do that sort of thing isn’t a much better approach. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Evil Captor_ > You got a better set of facts than what we have, post them. > > Otherwise we deal with what’s on the table. Yes, indeed. It’s always better to jump to conclusions based on limited information. If you want to do that, have at it. I prefer to have some relevant facts before making conclusions. The media, in my experience, is simply awful in reporting legal news. It’s a lot of fun to get whipped up into righteous indignation. I simply prefer to wait a little bit until I have sufficient information. I guess we have different approaches. > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by ENugent_ > I was thinking the same thing. Are there any other lawyers in the house with a contrary opinion? Why? Before I even start this part of the post let me say this: I’m talking about the government’s justifications for making certain things illegal. I’m not necessarily endorsing it or condemning it so there’s no point in any more “Oh yeah, of course all underage kids who fuck are such innocent victims. I fucked when I was fourteen you prude.” The reasons given for banning child porn are a little different from something like statutory rape. Statutory rape is illegal because it harms the underage participant. That’s about it. Child porn is illegal because it harms the child used to produce the porn but also because it creates an economic motive for its production and the state has a compelling interest in eliminating the production and distribution entirely. So the statutory rape victim is considered the only one harmed while child porn is considered to create a larger problem and, thus, more potential victims. I don’t do criminal law, nor do I know much of anything about child porn law, but there seems to be a distinction there. I don’t know if that’s the approach being used by the prosecutor, though. ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/108 "2004-04-08T17:30:31Z")
> [@](#): > > **Zoff** said: > Perhaps when we have more than a thumbnail sketch of the facts we’ll know. That’s my point. > > … > > That’s just more speculation. What is it when you keep telling me that there’s more evidence out there that I just don’t know about (and that you don’t know for certain exists)? Isn’t that ‘speculation’? > [@](#): > > And there’s a lot more information we don’t know because what we do know is so very little. An eight line story is hardly exhaustive. How do you know there is more information? Because the story’s short? Maybe the story’s short because the facts are actually that simple. Why are you speculating that there’s some grand cache of facts hiding back there? > [@](#): > > It’s always better to jump to conclusions based on limited information. Well, you did jump to the conclusion that there has to be some kind of major underlying mountain of facts simply because the story was short. > [@](#): > > Child porn is illegal because it harms the child used to produce the porn but also because it creates an economic motive for its production and the state has a compelling interest in eliminating the production and distribution entirely. Why was Traci Lords never charged with a single crime despite having made between 70 and 107 porn films and doing two magazine spreads all before her 18th birthday? If child porn is such a problem, and the economic incentive of creating it the reason it’s bad for a 15 year old to make porn of herself, this 15 year old in Latrobe, PA has _nothing_ on Traci. (BTW, Lords started _her_ porn career at 15 and ended it two days after she turned 18.) ---
**Author:** ![Zoff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/6de8d8/32.png) [@Zoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoff)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/109 "2004-04-08T18:24:22Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by catsix_ > How do you know there is more information? Because the story’s short? Maybe the story’s short because the facts are actually that simple. Why are you speculating that there’s some grand cache of facts hiding back there? I’m just cautioning against making conclusions without relevant facts. I’ve never said there is some cache of earth-shattering facts. But we’ve already had people saying that it’s more likely a case of an adult exploiting a child and others seemingly implying it’s a prosecutor punishing sexuality. That’s certainly not in evidence here. It’s been my experience that quick blurb news stories can be very misleading. Especially when dealing with legal issues. How did the reporter get the information? Did the reporter see the charging documents or hear it from a source? Does the reporter/source understand legal documents enough to get the gist of what’s happening? > [@](#): > > Why was Traci Lords never charged with a single crime despite having made between 70 and 107 porn films and doing two magazine spreads all before her 18th birthday? If child porn is such a problem, and the economic incentive of creating it the reason it’s bad for a 15 year old to make porn of herself, this 15 year old in Latrobe, PA has nothing on Traci. Did you read my disclaimer? I’m not going to debate about the economic implications. I was repeating the Supreme Court’s explanation for why child porn is illegal. I have no idea why Traci Lords wasn’t prosecuted. I don’t know enough about the facts. ---
**Author:** ![coffeecam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bc8723/32.png) [@coffeecam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecam)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2004, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/110 "2004-04-08T18:48:49Z")
RE: jury nulification I know that at least one case in Wisconsin had nullification argued to the jury as the only just course of action, and that jury did decide to nullify, despite the obvious guilt of the accused. The jury in that case was asked to make a statement about the reasonableness of the procecutors decision to bring the suit in the first place (do they as citizens feel that his/her decision to prosecute is in their best interest.) The judge allowed this line of argument as the closing of the case. (we saw it in evidence as an example of the prosecutors function.) ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2004, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/111 "2004-04-09T04:18:19Z")
Quite frankly **Zoff** , the reporter doesn’t have to understand anything about it to write down a list of facts in sentence form. It’s a lot better, IMO, when they don’t, because then they don’t editorialize and spin everything. The longer the article, the more of the reporter’s opinion we’re going to see. If you have some kind of other facts, post them. Otherwise, you’re contributing nothing whatsoever to the discussion. Right now you’re doing nothing constructive by continuing to say that you think (but don’t know) that there are more facts that somehow change this story. If you’ve got such a hardon for only posting about the facts, then quit your speculations. ---
**Author:** ![elfbabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b782af/32.png) [@elfbabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfbabe)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2004, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/112 "2004-04-09T04:36:40Z")
Oh right, there was this thread I was posting in… Anyway, I’m just going to try to clear up my own position briefly here. > [@clairobscur](#): > > You’re using circular logic. Actually, I think you missed the part where I explained why I thought it was bad for a 15-year-old to distribute naked pictures of herself. Anyway, it’s because pictures like this can affect the person photographed for a long time after they’re taken if they someday come to light again. Remember those pictures of Dr. Laura? Someone who takes naked pictures at 14 or 15 may, 10 years later, want to have a career or lead a life that would be quite damaged by the existence of said nakeypictures. Of course, an 18-year-old might end up in the same situation, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to set SOME arbitrary minimum age on nakeypicture distribution, 18 or 16 or 15 or whatever, below which we presume that the individual is unable to fully understand the consequences of those actions. There are, of course, the same problems with having sex at a young age before you really understand the possibility of diseases and babies and whatnot, and I actually feel the same way about age of consent things as I do about naked pictures, but that would take a while to explain. > [@catsix](#): > > Then I guess you’d find it really, really unfortunate that the statute of limitations is probably up on Traci Lords? Then I guess that you feel that Traci Lords did absolutely nothing wrong? In my view, pretty much everyone involved in the Traci Lords… problem… was somehow culpable, including Lords herself. Still, I am NOT interested in tracking down former underage porn stars in order to punish them somehow, just as I’m not interested in tracking down underage girls who show their boobies in order to clap them in irons. The point of any legal punishment for this ought to be more educative than anything else, IMO - a little bit of “When we said not to do that, WE REALLY MEANT IT,” and a lot of “This is why you really shouldn’t do that.” ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2004, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/113 "2004-04-09T04:44:17Z")
> [@](#): > > Then I guess that you feel that Traci Lords did absolutely nothing wrong? Actually, I don’t. She wanted to be in porno. She went to great lengths to conceal her age so that she could be. She wasn’t coerced. Apparently she now claims it was a mistake, but hell, lots of adults do things they later claim were mistakes. So no, I don’t think she did anything ‘wrong’ in the sense of a crime that anyone should have had to pay for. ---
**Author:** ![BlackKnight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eb8c5e/32.png) [@BlackKnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackKnight)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2004, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/114 "2004-04-09T06:29:53Z")
> [@The world's most deadliest...](#): > > **The Man with the Golden Gun** and **BlackKnight** , while only trying to make a funny (probably), are hitting pretty close to the truth of the matter. I _was_ trying to be funny, but I was also serious. When I was 16, I emailed explicit naked pictures of myself to a 35 year old woman I had met online. I had cybersex and phone-sex with her numerous times between the ages of 16 and 19. (I never had any face-to-face encounter with her, since she lived very far away.) It’s possible (although unlikely) that I still have one or more of those pics on an old harddrive or floppy disk somewhere. What would happen if someone found a picture of a naked 16 year old me on one of my floppy disks? Could I be charged with posessing child pornography of my earlier self? If, by some chance, she still has one of my earlier pictures, I don’t think there is any reason whatsoever to charge her with anything. If, by some chance, she were to be prosecuted for posessing such pictures I would gladly testify on her behalf. ---
**Author:** ![Zoff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/6de8d8/32.png) [@Zoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoff)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2004, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/115 "2004-04-09T11:49:33Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by catsix_ > If you have some kind of other facts, post them. Otherwise, you’re contributing nothing whatsoever to the discussion. You’re right. I don’t want to get in the way of righteous indignation based on a couple of sentences in a newspaper. ---
**Author:** ![elfbabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b782af/32.png) [@elfbabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfbabe)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2004, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/116 "2004-04-09T21:20:33Z")
> [@catsix](#): > > Actually, I don’t. > > She wanted to be in porno. She went to great lengths to conceal her age so that she could be. She wasn’t coerced. Ok, since she wasn’t coerced or exploited, do you think that the various agents, producers, distributers, and whatnot involved with the issue got what they deserved? Was it right that they were prosecuted when it was discovered that she’d been underage, even though she told them she wasn’t? ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2004, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/117 "2004-04-09T21:24:11Z")
> [@catsix](#): > > Why was Traci Lords never charged with a single crime despite having made between 70 and 107 porn films and doing two magazine spreads all before her 18th birthday? (Aside) Really, why wasn’t she? Has this been addressed somewhere? ---
**Author:** ![elfbabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b782af/32.png) [@elfbabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfbabe)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2004, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/118 "2004-04-09T21:33:28Z")
> [@Una Persson](#): > > (Aside) Really, why wasn’t she? Has this been addressed somewhere? Well, in [this interview with Ron Jeremy](http://www.nyrock.com/interviews/2003/jeremy_int.asp), he says that “Traci Lords turned in her friends so they didn’t go after her.” I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I can’t find a better source at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2004, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/119 "2004-04-09T23:09:59Z")
> [@elfbabe](#): > > Ok, since she wasn’t coerced or exploited, do you think that the various agents, producers, distributers, and whatnot involved with the issue got what they deserved? Was it right that they were prosecuted when it was discovered that she’d been underage, even though she told them she wasn’t? IIRC, only one producer, Ginger Lynn Allen, was ever prosecuted, and she was acquitted very handily. Fact was, everybody including her had a defense, i.e., Traci Lords had fake documents, apparently pretty good ones, to establish her age. IIRC Lynn said she was only prosecuted because they were pressuring her to roll on other members of the industry, and she wouldn’t roll. So only one person got prosecuted, nobody got convicted. ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2004, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386/120 "2004-04-10T02:53:07Z")
> [@](#): > > **elfbabe** said: > Ok, since she wasn’t coerced or exploited, do you think that the various agents, producers, distributers, and whatnot involved with the issue got what they deserved? Was it right that they were prosecuted when it was discovered that she’d been underage, even though she told them she wasn’t? I don’t think it was. It’s not like they were out deliberately victimizing someone they knew to be a child. At least in the end, nobody went to prison over Lords’s decision and deception. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/15-year-old-girl-prosecuted-for-child-porn/238386.md?page=7)