Page 14 - IAV Digital Magazine #436

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Indiana Supreme Court: Sex With Minors Is OK, But It’s Illegal To Sext Them
David Kravets
In Indiana, it's legal for adults to have consensual sex with minors aged 16 and 17. But it's illegal to sext those same minors, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled this week. The deci- sion reinstated sexting charges against an adult who texted nude images of himself to a girl he knew was 16.
The state's high- est court, ruling
5-0, noted that the charges against 40-year- old
defendant Samee r Thakar, a high school teacher who has been removed from his post, are "incon- sistent" when bal- anced against the state's laws on consensual sex. But state lawmakers, and not the Supreme Court, can rectify that if they want to, the court ruled.
"The
Dissemination Statute clearly protects minors under the age of 18 from the dis- semination of matter harmful to them," Justice Mark S.
Massa wrote (PD F). "Whether this inconsistent statutory treat- ment of minors aged 16 and 17 is advisable with respect to sexu- ally-related activi- ty is a matter for the legislature, and whether Thakar’s alleged conduct violated
the Dissemination Statute is a mat- ter for the jury."
A lower court had tossed the charges last year because Indiana's law allowed minors as young as 16 to consent to have sexual rela- tions. Thakar did not have sex with the girl, who was in Oregon. The defendant, who faces a maximum of three years in prison if convict- ed, argued that it
was "patently illogical" to hold someone crimi- nally liable for sending nude pictures to a minor—yet it's legal to expose themselves to minors in person.
The Indiana rul- ing is among a string of cases in which sexting laws are clearly nonsensical. Last month, for exam- ple, the Washington Supreme Court upheld the con- viction under state child porn laws of a 17- year-old boy who sent a picture of his own erect penis to a 22- year-old woman. The case illus- trates a bizarre situation in which the juvenile defendant was both the perpe- trator of transmit- ting child porn and the victim of it.
Last year,
we reported on a similar case out of Texas, where it's legal to have sex with some- body as young as 17 years old. But it's considered child pornogra- phy to have nude pictures of some- body under 18, even if he or she is17andisthe same person you had sex with.
Then there was the 2015 case of two North Carolina
teens charged wit h child porn accusations for consensually sexting one another. One of the teens was accused of pos- sessing child pornography because he had nude photos of himself on his phone. The arrest warrant for the boy's girlfriend described her as both a victim and a perpetrator.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine