Teen sends nudes, gets charged for sexual exploitation of herself

[Loach]

@RTFirefly

It would seem common sense that whatever it’s legal for two people to do together, it shouldn’t be illegal for them to share photos of it with each other. But in the case of minors and sex, what’s common sense isn’t necessarily the law.

The problem is that I think there is something in teenage DNA that makes it impossible to keep it to themselves. It is very rare anyone hears about pictures until they get spread. What I have been dealing with is that teenage boys now ask for pics and videos before they ask to go out on a first date. How many nude photos of your classmates you can get is the big competition. I’m sure there are mature 16 year olds that are in loving committed relationships who only send pictures between each other. I just never get to see it.

@BigT

The problem, Loach, is that leaving it up to prosecutor discretion is exactly what creates cases like this. In fact, my post was just going to be “See what happens if you just rely on prosecutor discretion?”

If we all agree that this shouldn’t be a crime, and it sure seems we do if the police won’t even enforce it, then make it not a crime. If there’s some version of it that should be a crime, make that explicit, and remove the other version.

Discretion is for extenuating circumstances or just prioritizing what matters. It’s doesn’t work as a form of nullification.

And, speaking of, I wonder if it would be better for the jury to nullify, or to let this stupidity happen. I guess it depends on whether anyone would care. Or is it better to send the message to the prosecutor that we won’t convict for this “crime”?

As juveniles it probably won’t be in front of a jury. It may be that way in some states but I have never heard of it. Juvenile courts are not run the same. In this state juveniles are not charged with crimes. Each charge is written something like “Charged with Juvenile Delinquency for Robbery which if committed by an adult would constitute a crime of the 2nd degree.”

Anyway, you are wrong. That is exactly how discretion works. Like I said there are some cases that may be perfectly innocent between two people. Many more are not with a lot of nuance in between. I don’t think the answer is to make it legal since that washes away a lot of bad behavior. You are hearing about one case every now and then that might be from an overzealous prosecutor. I have been dealing with this dozens of times a year in my town. Multiply that by every town in the country. We are able to deal with it without being draconian at all times. It helps if some leeway is built into the statute. But usually a lot of leeway is already built into the juvenile system.