thedenverchannel.com

PHILADELPHIA — The first criminal case involving “sexting” reached a U.S. appeals court on Friday — a case that asks whether racy cell-phone photos of three girls amount to child pornography or child’s play.

A county prosecutor in northeastern Pennsylvania threatened to pursue felony charges if the girls skipped his “re-education” course on such topics as sexual predators and “what it means to be a girl in today’s society.”

The photos show two 12-year-olds in training bras at a sleepover and a topless 16-year-old stepping out of the shower.
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Either way, he said, officials are flipping the intent of child-pornography laws — to protect children — by going after the victims. It’s unclear who first disseminated the photographs. Each girl insists she did not.

“Turning them into sex offenders is an odd way to protect kids,” Walczak said after the oral arguments.

Former Wyoming County District Attorney George Skumanick Jr., a Republican, initiated the case in late 2008, and successor Jeffrey Mitchell, a Democrat who took office this month, shows no sign he’ll change course.

“Naked pictures of children on the Internet draws predators the same way a swamp draws mosquitoes,” argued lawyer Michael Donohue of Scranton, who represents the prosecutor’s office. Authorities must sometimes protect children from themselves, he argued.

The prosecutor believes giving them a record and putting them on a sex offender list for the rest of their lives classifies as “protecting” them. Yeah, let’s destroy their chances for federal student aid and limit their choices of where to live for the rest of their lives, all in the name of “protecting” them. What a tool.