Not too long ago on the blog, we shared a story about a 14-year-old teen girl who found herself facing felony charges for sending an explicit picture of herself to a boy via Snapchat. Because the girl was a minor, her decision to share a picture of herself meant that police were able to charge her with “knowingly disseminating pornography involving a minor to another person.” If convicted, the teen faced the possibility of jail time and would be required to register as a sex offender for the next 10 years.
As you might have guessed, the judge who oversaw the case wasn’t too pleased that this type of case was taking up time in his courtroom. Rice County District Judge John Cajacob said the whole case was “absurd.”
“The punishment is vastly disproportionate to this girl’s ‘crime,’” Cajacob wrote in his decision. “This Court cannot see how subjecting (the girl) to registering as a sexual offender would protect her or teach her anything but that the justice system is cruel and unjust. The idea that heavy-handed enforcement of pornography laws is going to help these misguided, struggling teens is itself absurd.” Pornography is supposed to be for those over the age of 18 which is why websites like dosexvideo restrict visitors under this age but teens are inquisitive, the law is here to protect children from predators which isn’t what happened in this case. All decent adult porn websites have a stringent age restriction process upon accessing the site, so if you visit a porn website and that site doesn’t have an age restriction process then it isn’t one worth visiting and you’d be better to steer clear of it.
Not The Intended Effect
By the letter of the law, the teen did contribute to the dissemination of pornography involving a minor by sending that picture, but the intent of the law isn’t to punish someone for knowingly and willingly sharing a picture of themselves. Instead, the law is designed to help protect children from being victimized by others. Judge Cajacob said that using the letter of the law definition to punish the girl for sending explicit pictures of herself “produces an absurd, unreasonable, and unjust result that utterly confounds the stated purpose of the statute.”
Judge Cajacob went on to praise other states who offer more reasonable solutions to teens who are caught sending and receiving explicit photos of themselves. For example, in Illinois, the courts often order supervision or community service for such violators, while in Vermont, they offer diversion programs and specifically exclude registration as a sex offender as a potential punishment. He said any of these options would be greatly preferred to a system where teens can face felony charges and a decade on the sex offender registry.
Thankfully this case involved a judge who understands why the law was enacted in the first place. Since he was able to draw attention to the absurdity of the case, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a tweak to the language of the law so that these technical loopholes can be closed.
