It is possible that he was bumped up to tier 2 because of failure to register charges. But most likely it’s due to the original charge and the likelihood of repeat offenses. Most tier 2s have to reregister every 90 days. Tier 1 is annual.
There is virtually no chance that someone would end up with five years in prison based on that set of facts. How, indeed, would the government prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the model was not in fact 18?
Usually doesn’t matter. Depends on how your law is written.
(6)For purposes of this subsection, a person who is depicted as or presents the appearance of being under the age of 16 in any photograph, film, videotape, computer program or file, video game or any other reproduction or reconstruction shall be rebuttably presumed to be under the age of 16. If the child who is depicted as engaging in, or who is caused to engage in, a prohibited sexual act or simulation of a prohibited sexual act is under the age of 16, the actor shall be strictly liable and it shall not be a defense that the actor did not know that the child was under the age of 16, nor shall it be a defense that the actor believed that the child was 16 years of age or older, even if such a mistaken belief was reasonable.
Correct. Obviously, I never saw the images in question, but I am familiar with the newsgroup he downloaded it from. Usenet binary newsreaders could be set to download every image posted, and higher resolution images would be posted as multiple parts, to be re-encoded and saved to the hard drive for viewing later.
This is a technology that pre-dated the Web, but I ask - if you have looked at porn web sites with user uploaded content, can you be sure of the legal status of every single still and video posted? This was the situation. He was looking for images of young, but legal, women, posted by random users and web sites. The vast majority are promotional stills from web sites these days. The remainder are users re-posting images from their collection of previously downloaded images. And (I believe) a handful are illegal images posted as “honeypots” for the purposes of entrapment.
The Amy thing reminds me of Linda Lovelace’s later belief that every time someone watched “Deep Throat” she was being raped. There is no doubt that she was in an abusive relationship with Chuck Traynor, but everyone else involved in making the film agrees that she did the movie of her own free will, and her co-star describes how they would send Traynor on some task every time they actually needed to film a scene.
They easily could if they were the poster.
One of the dirty secrets of law enforcement is that upcoming budgets are dependent on prosecutions. So prosecutors have a reason to ensure a steady supply of offenders.
As I said, this was parts of a campaign to shut down Usenet, to stem the flow of pirated movies, software and games. Going after child porn was a useful tool to do that. It was successful - check to see if your ISP still offers a newsserver.
That is noted in my set of examples by the fathers that repeated that were repeatedly having sex with there daughters yet only convicted of ABHAN and not being ordered to register. I’m not saying these guys aren’t doing anything horrible and shouldn’t be punished, I’m saying that looking at convictions and sentences are not accurate measures of what the person actually did.
But in Amy’s case, we’re talking about actual child porn, as opposed to adults. Child porn would be a whole other ball game, and actual children ARE being harmed when people view these images.
Uh, yeah. If he was set to automatically download every image posted to alt.youngvagina.wet, color me skeptical that he ended up with only “a handful” of childporn images. Unless you have awfully big hands.
I’d probably tell all my friends that I was railroaded, though.
Awesome, children every where appreciate it.
But what did you do? Lie, Cheat someone, beat someone up, run over a kitten.
The point is not that these guys should not be punished. I have to say that prosecutors and judges aren’t looking to place anyone on the registry. If you are convicted of a certain offense, they don’t have a choice with a lot of offenses. Registration is mandatory. If you are found in violation of your supervision on certain offenses (drugs, failed to report, anything) you will be placed on lifetime GPS monitoring. Of all the other offenses you can be placed on “Discretionary GPS monitoring” which doesn’t allow for a petition to be relieved of GPS for 10 years. The only consideration being the offense initially committed, not how you violationed your supervision.
And nothing gets you off the sex offender registry. (I’m in South Carolina BTW.)
Everyone does bad stuff. The point is that for all other offenses have convictions that you can generally eventually complete. Other offenses don’t require you to have your residence, employment and certain aspects of your criminal record posted on a website for any and all to see. Local law enforcement won’t have to go door to door to warn the neighborhood that you moved in if you killed a person or robbed a few houses. It’s a big stain tha follows them forever.
Again, I am in SC, it sounds like NJ is a bit more reasonable.
What? Our budget has much more to do with the size of the area covered and the population. Nothing to do with the number of convictions. If that were true it would be a lot easier to get the prosecutor’s pffice to take a case. Unless there is a confession and a video tape its sometimes like pulling teeth.
No, running over kittens is just a hobby.
Here you can get off the list. After so many years you can apply to have the case heard again.
BTW New Jersey is where it all started. See: Megan Kanka.
Usenet has declined in popularity, but I don’t think it’s because of childporn stings, nor do I think that law enforcement is generally in the practice of working for Time-Warner’s interests. Why do you think this is the case?
Are you suggesting that the government posted a picture of a model it knew to be underage, and then waited for people to view it, and then prosecuted them, proving at trial the model’s age because they knew the model and her age by virtue of being the ones posting the image?
Yeah, that didn’t happen.
Absolutely false.
If you’re quoting New Jersey law, that presumption is essentially erased by the ruling in State v. May, 829 A. 2d 1106 (NJ App Div 2003). The “rebuttable presumption” is not in play unless “the disputed images in such a case depict … very young child-models.” For models appearing close to sixteen, their images “…require expert testimony to assist the jury in determining whether the person depicted is older or younger than sixteen years of age.” Ibid at 1120.
If you’re not – what state do you mean?
You may be right about that. It actually does not come up very often. The only cases I have ever dealt with have to do with images of known vctims.
Hopefully SC will change the laws. I think it damages the whole system the way it’s set up here. I’m afraid we will loose some very useful aspects of it from abuse.
Sure, and with known victims, the state satisfies its burden of proof by evidence of the actual age of the model.
In other words: if someone tells you they are a registered sex offender or that they spent five years in prison because they downloaded Usenet pictures of girls they thought were 18 and a couple of those images happened to be of girls 16 or 17, they’re most probably lying.
The government can’t convict unless they can prove the models’ age, or if the models are so blatantly, obviously young that any jury can so conclude, beyond a reasonable doubt.
You link to the case of Jacobson v. United States, 503 U.S. 540 (1992). Nothing in that case relates to budgets for prosecutors. What part of the case do you feel supports your claim?
Well, if he slows down to touching less than 50 bus drivers a day, he blows up.