Splanky, idiocy and injustice are global problems. Duck Duck Goose cited a similar case in Ohio earlier up the page if you’d like to look at it.
Enjoy,
Steven
Hey you! Quit padding my post count!
It is true that the photo lab clerk, and the police who originally responded to the “suspicious” photo report, would have had no knowledge of the event as “staged.” I’m not sure if this fact was in evidence before the Grand Jury indictments were handed down though.
Enjoy,
Steven
Absolutely. I know plenty of Texans who are normal, and Texas is far from being the capital of intolerance or anything like that. I just thought it was funny that I predicted where this took place.
I don’t see how it matters if it was “staged” or not, as the baby is still her own child and the photo was taken for the purpose of memorializing something of emotional and sentimental significance, not for “lacivious purposes”.
The real fault, if you ask me, is with the legislators who put these idiotic laws in place, and the courts who fail to strike them down. I’m sure that there have been hundreds or even thousands of wild goose chases like these for every one child pornographer put out of business by these stupid “instant developer snooping” rules.
Why does it matter if the breastfeeding was “staged?” It’s a mother breastfeeding and bathing her children; there was no reason for this case to get as far as an indictment, much less having the family’s children taken away from them.
That said, apologies for my… excited post earlier this morning. I’ve said it before, but I really need to not post first thing in the morning.
Are you serious? This is a debate about a family torn apart by knee-jerk police and officious justice system, and all you care about is whether the couple has formalized their relationship with a wedding? Give me a break.
Yes, and in this case the grand jury was not even allowed to hear Ms. Mercado’s testimony. From the article:
This is just fucked-up all around. I don’t suppose i blame the photo lab too much, but you’d think that the police, the DA’s office, and the psychologists involved would have figured out by now that there is NO KIDDIE PORN GOING ON HERE. Fucking morons.
By the way, Bricker, i thought the ham sandwich was guilty of Mama Cass’s murder. I didn’t realize that it had prior offences on its rap sheet. 
(Disclaimer, for the pedants: Yes, i know that Mama Cass wasn’t really killed by a sandwich.)
Lets see … If I were to perform a non sexual act, it is perfectly ok. If I staged a non-sexual act but not take pictures, its still ok in the eyes of the law, but if I staged a non-sexual act and took pictures of it, all of a sudden it becomes deviant sexual behavior??
Breast feeding is non sexual. Naked pictures of kids bathing is non sexual. Unless there is specific language in the law books that say any naked pictures of children is considered pornography (which would be outrageous) then none of the sets of pictures in this case shouldve warranted this charge. The District attorney should be ashamed of himself and resign for his stupidy and any members of the grand jury who agreed with him should also resign their post as jurist. This is blatant stupidity. A witchhunt at best.
I hope the children are promptly and unconditionally returned to their parents. I hope the family sues the DA for legal harassment and psychological trauma (and Win!!) and I wish someone would take a collection and buy these folks a good quality digital camera and a photo quality printer so they dont have to have their film processed by prudish uptight film processors.
Although I certainly agree that this case is unfortunate, I’m not sure it’s so easy to assign blame to any one group. Child pornography and molestation is a problem, and the public has rightly clammored to have the government do something about it. It would appear that the laws, and application thereof, went overboard in their attempt to protect children, to the extent that children are now being harmed by the state itself.
Are the legislators to blame? Yes, partly, though they were also pressured into creating “tough” laws, so the blame isn’t entirely theirs. Are the police to blame? Yes, partly, though they have to follow the laws as they exist, so the blame isn’t entirely theirs, either. Photo lab? Same story. Prosecutors? Same story.
While this is certainly a tragic miscarriage of justice, I don’t think we can just point to one person and say, “You! This is your fault!” Rather, we have to point in the general direction of the system, and indict the whole damned thing. So what’s the solution? What’s the magic balance of legislation and processing that will nab the most child pornographers and molestors, while unjustly harrassing the minimum number of innocents? Got me.
Jeff
It might help to read the statute that was the basis for the charge:
You’ll note that it doesn’t refer to photography. It is likely that the photographs were simply seen as evidence of a crime that already had occurred. In other words, if the police were correct, a crime would have occurred without regard to whether photographs were taken.
I think that this is the first time on these Boards that i can say that i completely agree with X~Slayer(ALE). 
Actually, the comment on digital cameras raises an interesting question about this sort of stuff, because it is certainly true that, with the right equipment, people no longer need the intermediate step of a photo-processing lab to produce good quality prints.
Of course, this has been true for a long time, but it took much more time, effort and money to develop your own print film than it does to print out a digital picture on a $200 printer. And while Polaroid was always an option, the quality was never that great.
I don’t think that the arrival of digital photography will significantly alter the behaviour of true child pornographers or pedophiles, because these people never take their pictures to a lab anyway. But digital photography might help to prevent the sort of over-zealous prosecution that we see in this case.
And this is the BIG problem with “child porn”. Not the human scum that actually film 8yo kids having sex- they should be shot. But the fact is that the Police & the DA have so much leeway in what IS “child porn”. Artistic photos by a world renowned photog in a hard cover book at a Barnes & Noble- is NOT “child porn”- but arrests have been made. Pics of your baby on a bearskin rug- is NOT “child porn”- but arrests have been made. Made up fantasy images of what appears to be underaged kids - NOT “child porn”- but MANY arrests were made. Videos taken of teenaged girls on the beach in their bikinis- is NOT child porn…but…
Xrated films of a fully developed adult appearing women that fooled everyone- also should not be “child porn”.
The couple in this instant case was damn lucky to get a good free lawyer. Many don’t. So what happens is that the DA threatens them with 50 counts of “child porn” at 20 years each- or they can “plead” to one year, and their kids are taken away. Far too many who don’t get that damn good free lawyer have to “plead out”. Now, I think some “plea bargaining” is a GOOD thing- but Mr DA- if you REALLY think that a thousand years in prison is the “right” sentance if they go to trial & lose- how can you justify ONE year if they “plead”? DA’s must be stopped from bullying defendants with threats of ridiculously long sentances.
KellyM is right. Our distaste for the rare real “kiddy porn” criminal has allowed the Police & the Prosecutors to go berserk and make a mockery of the First Admendment. These laws are abused more than their value.
OH, and some dude who happened to be surfing, and gets some “kiddy porn” images on his hard drive- even though he nver “opted in” or paid for them- it is also wrong to prosecute him for “possesion”. But your FBI, in “Operation CandyLand” did just that- not only dudes who paid for the site, but those who just happened by ond captured a few images. Hell- we all likely should go to jail for “child porn” for that- as who hasn’t been trapped by those cascading “pop ups” that send you to dozens of porn sites faster than you can close them?
First, you’re wrong. Blatantly and mindless wrong. These kinds of stupid arrests and charges are in the great minority of prosecutions for child pornography. Second, I’ll give you a bit of credit and assume that you are not talking about getting rid of the Child Pornography laws. That conclusion would be absolutely silly. Instead, I’ll assume you mean we should get rid of the laws requiring photo developers to report possible abuse. I’d disagree with you there, because I think they do more good than harm. The problem wasn’t with the photo lab or that they thought they had to report these, but with the police, the DA, and the grand jury that saw them and thought it should be prosecuted.
Hamlet- yes- get rid of those laws. We lived for decades without such laws- why do we need them now? They don’t stop the perverts, so what is their purpose? - other than allow dudes to say “we’re doing something”.
Read that stupid law, willya? “Sexual conduct is … or any portion of the female breast below the top of the areola”. Remember that contoversial ablum cover with a topless child holding a jet? By this law, that is “kiddie porn”- the makers of that album, everyone who owns one, every record store that sold one, and every electronic site that contains a pic of that cover- and every computer user that still has that image on his hard drive- are all thus literally guilty of breaking that stupid & poorly written law. Every parent who takes their kid to a nudist camp. :rolleyes:
First- nudity is not porn. If we get rid of the sick idea that somehow the naked human body is pornographic, we will stop most of the sillyness right away. OK, sure- that will allow some real pervs to take some pics of naked kids & sell them. But unless the kid is told that “nudity is evil”, the kid won’t be hurt by this.
Then, we can go after those few rare real child pornographers who force kids into hardcore sex acts. And shoot them on the spot. OK?
Whether it’s kiddie porn or not depends on what Ashcroft thinks.
There was a similar case here in TN. A woman and her young daughter (age 4, IIRC) were on vacation and as they were changing into their swimming clothes, the daughter stood in front of the mirror in the room, naked, and struck a pose that her mother found funny. So mom grabbed the camera and snapped a quick photo. Wouldn’t you know it, when she had the film developed, the folks at the developing place saw the picture and called the law.
Thankfully, the mother never had to go through anything as tough as what this couple had to endure, but she still found the experience pretty nerve racking. Looks like the days of showing your kid’s new boyfriend/girlfriend, photos of your kid naked on a bearskin rug are over. Oh wait! There’s digital cameras!
DrDeth, you are excising too many words from the definition of “sexual conduct”. Read it this way,
Sexual conduct means actual or simulated sexual intercourse, deviate sexual intercourse, sexual bestiality, masturbation, sado-masochistic abuse, or lewd exhibition of the genitals, the anus, or any portion of the female breast below the top of the areola.
This seems to mean your referenced album cover doesn’t fit within the meaning of sexual conduct. You should also note that no one was charged with Possession or Promotion of Child Pornography
You are advocating making child pornography legal because of a few cases where you personally feel that it was overextended? Seriously? There are some innocent people convicted of murder, let’s get rid of the murder charges. There are people wrongfully arrested for residential burglary, get rid of those too. We can’t stop it, so make it legal? If I need to point out further the inanity of your argument, I will, but I think it speaks for itself.
No child nudity is not child pornography. You know what? It’s not defined as child pornography. Go figure. You and the law agree. And all without having to get rid of child pornography as a crime. How fortuitous.
hamlet, yes, they are in the minority of child porn arrests. Most of those involve honest (more or less) police work ferreting out someone who is actually producing or distributing child porn and busting them (although quite a few of those busts are themselves not even remotely righteous; the zeal our police forces use in chasing down child porn often exceeds reasonable levels).
But these people don’t send their films to Walgreens to get them developed. They have private photo labs (really, it’s not hard to develop your own pictures) or use digital photography or both. I would love to see numbers on how many real child pornographers have been caught by instant developer intercepts as I can’t recall seeing a single news story on the issue. Since child porn busts generally make the national news, I would not be surprised to find out that there are none.
All these laws do is help to catch the relatively rare “stupid criminal” at the expense of putting millions of innocent people under the spectre of criminal suspicion. It is an invasion of privacy and a curtailment of civil liberties for such a tiny gain as to be not worth it. I don’t see the evidence that these laws really do do more good than harm as you so cavalierly assert; in fact, I see no evidence that they do any good at all. Of course, if you have evidence, I’ll be glad to hear it.
Tell me, hamlet, do you think the police and the DA and the CPS caseworkers involved in the case in the OP of this thread should be fired? Why or why not?