Page 11 - IAV Digital Magazine #442

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Minnesota Teen Charged With Child Pornography For Sending Nude Selfie To Schoolmate
By Rose Taylor
A 14-year-old Minnesota girl was charged with felony child pornography by a Minnesota juve- nile court for sending a nude selfie to a boy at her school through Snapchat, an image messaging and multimedia mobile applica- tion.
Prosecutors say the girl, reported- ly both the victim and the felon of child pornogra- phy, violated Minnesota’s child pornography statute, which is designed for adults and bans distributing sexu- ally-explicit pic- tures of under- aged subjects.
Apparently, the boy saved her Snapchat selfie and shared it with other school-
mateswithout the consent of the girl, yet she is facing charges for ‘sexual crimes’ that could lead to her being placed on a sex offender registry for at least the next decade.
The girl, who is being referred to as Jane Doe, was charged with the “felony sex offense of know- ingly disseminat- ing pornographic work involving a minor to another
person”; an adult convicted of this crime can face up to seven years in prison.
While Jane isn’t facing a criminal prosecution in adult court, if convicted, the ‘crime’ could seri- ously limit her adult life before it’s begun — because of con- sensual encoun- ters she had with another teen. The Minnesota law does not have an excep-
tion for teen to teen transmis- sions.
Thankfully, the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota (ACLU-MN), con- cerned over pros- ecutions for the widespread shar- ing of photos by teenagers, has come to Jane’s rescue claiming the charge filed by Rice County Attorney John Fossum is “ridiculous”, “absurd”, and
“bucking the national trend” on how teens are treated legally in these circum- stances.
Teresa Nelson, ACLU’s legal director argues the charges should be dropped.
According to
the legal brief from ACLU, sex- ting is protected by the First Amendment because virtual child pornogra-
phy was allowed while exploitation of actual children was prohibited by law, which means charging a teen for explicit selfies is, in itself, a vio- lation of the First Amendment.
As per the Minnesota statute 617,247, the purpose of child pornogra- phy law is to “protect minors from the physical and psychologi- cal damage caused by their being used in pornographic work depicting sexual conduct which involves minors.”
But, in this case, the state is applying the law in a wrong man- ner since the image in question was sent by the girl with consent to a boy she liked.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine