Teen prosecuted as adult for having naked images – of himself – on phone
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I've always been fascinated with the concept of institutional insanity - where a group of people can behave rationally but the combined effect of their behaviour is insane. It's possible there's some kind of 'gridlock' whereby it's impossible (or even damaging) for any individual involved to try and resist.
It's a milder form of the level of insanity you see within totalitarian states. Reading this echos some of the bizarre logic I read coming from guards at Cambodia's horrific S21. The penalty for resisting (or merely lack of enthusiasm for enabling) was immediate and horrific and would have taken superhuman courage. And it would have most likely made no difference.
In this case - the penalty for speaking out is probably nothing worse than damage to one's career.
I'd love to know how many people involved in this at any level harbour doubts without acting upon them.
I'd like to remind people that this is destroying the lives of two young people. Maybe not beyond repair but possibly sending them on a different course than before and probably not a better one.
They may say "we followed procedure" but it is on them to prove that "procedure" admits no common sense, because, otherwise, it's a failure of their sense and discretion.
When people bring up criticisms of laws as over-broad, I often hear that prosecutorial discretion will keep such abuses from happening. People who suggest that the law as written will result in such injustice are often ridiculed for imagining that any prosecutor would act that way, or any Judge allow it.
Turns out, anyone suggesting that even the most absurd interpretations are not possible are the ones who should be ridiculed.
Remember this the next time someone proposes a law, no matter how well intentioned, and even if it happens to advance a cause you care about. The abuses will happen, and how will you feel about that cost if you are the subject of those abuses.
Yep. See also: the CFAA.
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3223533/North-Caroli...]
Now one might righfully argue that this case is not just ludicrous but also racist.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/07/police-drop-plans...
http://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/bizarre-sexting-cas...
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/underage-sexting-isnt-ru...
https://aclu-wa.org/blog/sexting-and-law-press-send-turn-tee...
Purely based on the fact the defendant and his girlfriend are black? No, I think not.
What, in the story, suggests to you that this case is racist?
Is the pressure in the US that strong that a sane person 'just has to do this'?
Generally, refusing a plea deal for ideological reasons is not a smart legal strategy.
But running a law office is expensive. You're going to have idle "legal capacity" which has has to be paid for by the clients you do get.
There are many other cases, outside of sex offenses, where individuals who may be guilty of a lesser crime take a plea deal to a larger crime to avoid the cost, time, and most importantly uncertainty associated with going to trial. I think, at least with sex offenses, we will see in the future a shift in dealing with the problem though. It is somewhat like drugs. In the early 1980s Reagan was hard-nosed on the war on drugs. He enacted stiff penalties and encouraged three strike laws. This sent a lot of people to jail for a long time on charges that were otherwise non-offenses. You see people in California serving life sentences for having three charges of possession of marijuana. Today though as a younger generation comes into power, and people are slowly changing their views on marijuana, we are seeing a shift in punishment for the same crimes. I predict that at some point there will be tipping point with crimes like this article highlight where people will say enough is enough we need to fix this problem. Until then though, you are going to see more and more articles like this.
So, the calculus is: swallow some pride and be mildly inconvenienced for a year, or fight for justice and hope you don't ruin your life in the process.
Unfortunately it is not.
Let it be known that Brianna Denison, Fayetteville, North Carolina, by order of the court won't have a cellphone with her to call for help if someone abducts her and tries to rape her.
Very smart, yessir.
Actual story "guy is charged with having nude images of underage girlfriend on his phone, prosecutors inflate charges to force settlement by reaching to include his own nude photos".
Still stupid. But way less black and white.
They both got charged as adults for exploiting themselves as minors to share the pics with each other.
Also these people could legally have sex with each other, but apparently aren't allowed to have nude pictures of each other or themselves.
Laws are made to protect children, and "Justice" abuse those laws against... children.
"Justice" is just an administration today, devoid of logic and intelligence.
What needs to happen is 1) the legislature needs to change the law to include exceptions where appropriate and 2) the voters in that area need to take this case into consideration when the prosecutor comes up for reelection.
Furthermore, in the federal system the executive does not decide which laws to enforce. That's a dereliction of duty - he's supposed to enforce them all. Not doing your job is not part of "the design of checks and balances".
What? This makes no sense whatsoever. The legislature makes law. They can change it however they want. Veto is a different concept entirely.
>And the judicial branch can over turn laws that are deemed illegal.
No, the judicial branch can overturn laws that are unconstitutional. Laws cannot be illegal unless they're enacted illegally. For a judge to find a law unconstitutional he must have some textual basis for doing so, and "that doesn't seem fair" isn't enough to do it.
>There are a couple of absurdities in this case...
The law is absurd in many, many ways. But the judges are still supposed to apply it as written unless it's unconstitutional. In this case the law is constitutional, so that's not a legitimate avenue for the defendant to pursue.
When people end up having to register because of 'stupid' crimes like this - either they stand the chance of being persecuted as a sexual offender for the rest of their lives. Or the registry itself becomes increasingly useless as we start to assume people are there for peeing in the wrong place.
> The Fayetteville, NC 17-year-old, Cormega Copening, faced five charges of sexual exploitation after police found the photos while searching his phone in an unrelated incident at his school last fall.
There is a third-party accuser.
>Teen prosecuted as adult for having naked images – of himself
The prosecutor is prosecuting on behalf of the very person who is also supposedly the perpetrator. Do you seriously think our founding fathers intended for "The People" v. Copening to be a replacement for Copening v. Copening?
Anybody who retain some sanity should leave the USA ASAP.
That incident was caused by unfortunate racial stereotyping; this is caused by a literal interpretation of the letter of the law that hasn't caught up with the times.
However, they share the thread of being implementations of unsustainable zero tolerance.
These cases are radically different. In the case of the clock, the "Justice" was not involved, there was no accusation.
"Zero tolerance" for bombs and weapons hasn't generally meant that bombs and weapons are not tolerated - that was already the case. Instead, it has meant that things that merely evoke the image of a bomb or weapon are met with intolerance.
For example, I imagine you came across this story:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/08/28/school-allegedly-...
The deaf boy story is amazingly stupid too. It seems to me we've put to many people in a position to restrict others liberties/rights, and now we pay the price of stupid "rules" or interpretations of "rules". When you give someone a uniform (it's an allegory), you give him power, which must be handled with care... and intelligence.
I see all this as a lack of intelligence/common sense.
This happens because the US is turning into a police state where everyone thinks they've got the right and duty to destroy someone else's live if they don't like something about them (race, religion, sexual life, ...), and the authorities are not only OK with that but actively encourage it to promote constant fear amidst population. If they can charge you with anything at any time and destroy your life, you're going to be a good sheep.