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Criminal Law

: Sentencing Law and Policy

The many fascinating legal and social issues swirling around "sexting"

By Douglas A. Berman

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I had a chance to read closely this federal complaint filed last week by the ACLU of Pennsylvania against a local district attorney who threatened three high school girls with child porn charges for appearing partially undressed in (provocative?) cell-phone pictures. The complaint details the remarkable ways in which the local DA exercised his prosecutorial discretion in response to a "sexting" problem in a local school, and it asserts that his actions violated both the kids' First Amendment expression rights and their parents' rights to control their children's upbringing. This interesting complaint confirmed my sense that there are an array of fascinating legal and social issues surrounding the phenomenon of "sexting." And the Newark Star-Ledger had this effective article, headlined "A debate swirls over teens' lurid pictures: Should self-portraits draw harsh penalties?," highlighting that these issues are arising in many places in many different ways: In Indiana, a middle-school boy faces obscenity charges for transmitting naked photos of himself to female classmates...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on March 30, 2009 (boomark / email).