Congress 'Fixes' Child Porn 'Loophole' With 15-Year Prison Sentences For Teen Sexting
from the if-it's-already-broken,-why-not-make-it-worse? dept
Congress agrees (with who, I don't know): to save our nation's children from the scourge of sexting, we much incarcerate our nation's children. As Elizabeth Nolan Brown reports for Reason, the way to salvation sext-free kids runs through our nation's prison pipelines, where they'll be rehabilitated through the power of life-crippling criminal sentences and accelerated to adulthood via actual sexual assault at the hands of prisoners/guards.
Teens who text each other explicit images could be subject to 15 years in federal prison under a new bill that just passed the House of Representatives. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), ranking member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, has called the measure "deadly and counterproductive."
[...]
Introduced by Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) in March, the "Protecting Against Child Exploitation Act of 2017" passed the House by an overwhelming majority last week. Only two Republicans—Reps. Justin Amash of Michigan and Thomas Massie of Kentucky—voted against the bill, along with 53 Democrats.
Yes, you read that right. The bill would add mandatory minimums to child pornography production -- even if both participants are minors. Mandatory minimums would also apply to thoughtcrime. Rep. Bobby Scott -- one of the few opponents of the bill -- was the first to point out that this draconian child porn law would criminalize consensual behavior between teenagers. He also pointed out that the bill seeks to punish "solicitation," which takes this past actual production of forbidden images into the realm of the hypothetical.
What's more, "the law explicitly states that the mandatory minimums will apply equally to an attempt or a conspiracy," Scott noted:
That means if a teenager attempts to obtain a photo of sexually explicit conduct by requesting it from his teenage girlfriend, the judge must sentence that teenager to prison for at least 15 years for making such an attempt. If a teenager goads a friend to ask a teenager to take a sexually explicit image of herself, just by asking, he could be guilty of conspiracy or attempt, and the judge must sentence that teenager to at least 15 years in prison.
As Brown details in her thorough report on the bill, the proposed law is supposed to close a "loophole" that prevented some child porn prosecutions. At least that's what its supporters are saying. In reality, the loophole isn't a loophole, but rather a bad decision made by prosecutors.
19-year-old Anthony Palomino-Coronado was accused of molesting his 7-year-old neighbor repeatedly over the course of several months. In investigating the case, police discovered one photo of the abuse that had been taken and subsequently deleted from Palomino-Coronado's phone.
Combined with the victim's testimony, the photo should have guaranteed state police little trouble in trying to prosecute Palomino-Coronado for sexual abuse of a child. But federal prosecutors preempted such a prosecution by deciding to instead try Palomino-Coronado in federal court for producing child pornography.
It was a bad call—the case "could have been brought in state court and the defendant would have been subjected to extremely long, lengthy prison time," Rep. Scott noted during floor debate. But federal law against producing child pornography requires a minor to have been recruited "for the purpose of" producing photo or video. In this case, the court concluded, the long-term pattern of abuse, combined with the fact that only one explicit image was ever taken (and subsequently deleted), meant the perpetrator's purpose was not producing child porn but, rather, his own sexual gratification. If the feds had simply let the state handle the case as one of sexual abuse, Palomino-Coronado would probably be behind bars right now; instead, they overreached with the child porn charge, and now he's free.
To try to make amends for this prosecutorial blunder, the DOJ is pushing to have this terrible new law enacted. Not that there's any lack of supporters for the idea of tossing teens in jail. Sponsor Mike Johnson cited noted legal expert, the apostle Paul.
Johnson, a freshman congressman (and vocal Trump supporter), dismissed opponents' concern that the measure would be used in ways he didn't intend it to be used. "In Scripture, Romans 13 refers to the governing authorities as 'God's servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer,'" he said in response to their floor concerns. "I, for one, believe we have a moral obligation, as any just government should, to defend the defenseless."
My guess is Johnson's definition of "defenseless" doesn't cover sexting teens -- not if he's using Biblical authority to shore up his shaky legal assertions. Other supporters are equally as naive, claiming federal prosecutors won't use the law to prosecute sexting teens, blithely ignoring the fact that child porn laws have routinely been misused to do exactly that.
This is the road to hell legislators love to travel. And why not? It's routinely re-paved with good intentions and has lanes wide enough that even the most obtuse legislator can travel comfortably. When it comes to the nation's youth, nothing's too good for them. Our nation's lawmakers are ready to grant them them longer minimum sentences and more ways to avail themselves of one of our nation's oldest traditions: doing federal time on trumped-up charges. After all, you can't be for the children unless you're willing to damn the children. For their own good, of course.
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Filed Under: criminal justice, doj, mandatory minimums, punishment, sexting
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Whenever some moron, in power or not, shouts "for the children" our kids die a little bit more metaphorically speaking.
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Follow Common Sense Colorado
No sex offender registry or other lifelong hurdles to jump over for a bad decision when you were young...
Call me crazy, but 'sex offender' reform really needs to happen in this country.
Peeing outside while drunk? Sex offender.
Mooning your buddy driving down the road? Sex offender.
'Statutory Rape' of a 17 year old by an 18 year old even when the relationship had been underway previously? (certain states) Sex offender...
Good luck getting a career politician throwing himself in with that lot, because they are 'sex offenders'....
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Re: Follow Common Sense Colorado
that is sensible?
it can still ruin lives. Two fucking kids sending nudies to each other is not a fucking mind breaking problem.
Society is going fucking nuts, we are killing ourselves over the dumbest fucking shit!
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Re: Re: Follow Common Sense Colorado
For how dumb canon city can be, they made a smart choice to educate rather than punish.
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Re: Follow Common Sense Colorado
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Re: Re: Follow Common Sense Colorado
O wait... its better to put them into jail for fucking years on end because spanking their ass is "child abuse"
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Re: politicians
.... so who did you vote for last November ?
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How can you stop the from seeing each other nude in person if they have time to take nude selfies?
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Re:
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Re: Re: Follow Common Sense Colorado
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Good intentions?
I don't think this is careless or well-intentioned law making.
My guess is that this bill was crafted to satisfy three separate but overlapping motivations:
OA
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Re: Re: Re: Follow Common Sense Colorado
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Re: Sourceless Quotes
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Re:
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Even in the case cited, it was beyond a stretch to make a federal case of it. The federal law relies on there being distribution that crosses state lines, or uses the mail system. Online distribution commonly is assumed to inherently interstate, but that isn't necessarily true. With no distribution, the cited case shouldn't have been in federal court.
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Re: Re: Re: Follow Common Sense Colorado
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Re: Re: Re: Follow Common Sense Colorado
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Re:
I believe this is the source article, I Googled some of the quotes to dig it up.
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Re: Re: politicians
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Sacrifice to Moloch
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Re: Re: politicians
And that was ninja's point until you chose to omit the rest of his sentence in your quote.
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Re: Good intentions?
The absurd and unnecessary fear of Sharia Law was obvious foreboding.
Ah, I see. You're telling me these Christians do not want to fall behind the Muslims, so they're enacting Sharia-law themselves?
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Sheila Jackson Lee
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Re:
"the visual depiction was produced or transmitted using materials that have been mailed, or shipped or transported in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer..."
I doubt you could find a phone or camera that was produced exclusively with materials from one state.
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Re: Re: Re: Follow Common Sense Colorado
It seems to me that adults haive either forgotten their early sexual experiments, or more lke scared that their kids will take the same risk as they did. They have definitely forgotten how ineffective threats of draconian punishment are at moderating their own behaviours.
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Re: Re: Good intentions?
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"and a vocal Trump supporter"
to tilt opinions in a certain direction? Please just stick to
the facts.
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Re: Re: Good intentions?
But yeah the sharia that they keep claiming will be or has been imposed, somehow, and which they hate so much, is mostly the same ruleset they want, but with them deciding who is the sinner or heretic.
This is what authoritarians do, and their best enemies to uphold as an example of why they need even more power and you need less rights are generally their counterparts who drink grape rather than cherry, or some relatively powerless minority which enough people can get on board with not caring about or hating. Best of both worlds is someone you can lump together with the enemy, but who is a minority locally.
However, i think sharia-panic was simply mentioned as an example. The people who want religious law have always been here. Dominionists are fun. So are the ones who claim that the Establishment Clause doesn't imply separation of state from religiously motivated things.
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The Ted Knight Argument
"I've sentenced boys younger than you to the gas chamber. Didn't want to do it. I felt I owed it to them."
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Fraction of American Turd Stains and You
Congress agrees (with who, I don't know): to save our nation's children from the scourge of sexting, we much incarcerate our nation's children.
Do not the unalienable Rights enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution include our nations children?
Sexting is a form of expression and therefor falls under the definition of free speech.
Dear congress aren't the nations prisons and jails full enough?
Does congress really need to destroy the lives of teenagers for sexting?
Who elected these know-nothing fraction of American turd stains?
What a disgrace the nation burns (eg unending wars, rigged economy) and all congress can do is fiddle.
Now that's leadership.
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Surely not our politicians! The USA is definitely a democracy and the citizens would never vote a sex offender into office.
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There's a simple test; it should be part of the hiring requirement.
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The old joke about "acts" in DC
And it's criminilizing something rather than controlling for it. Kids are going to use their phones and other things to sext. So NOW we're just going to lock up a LOT of them. Great. With so many convicted sex offenders and felons, we're going to cure the future unemployment numbers by making sure a whole ton of people can't get work of any kind anyway, so they won't count as unemployed and also will be denied benefits. Awesome.
Glad I don't have kids and I'll probably be dead before what's left of the USA burns down. Y'all can have the ashes. You win.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Follow Common Sense Colorado
No you didn't. The law says so!
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Re: Re: Re: Good intentions?
fatwah envy
ROFL. This is great, I'll remember that for dealing with fundamentalist Christians.
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Re: Re: Re: Follow Common Sense Colorado
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I am going to be getting that, just in case CBSA or CBP, when crossing into Canada or the USA ever decides to confiscate my phone. All I will l have to do is get to the Internet ASAP, and tell Metro to wipe my phone, so that they cannot get at the data that is on your phone.
With all these new laws they are making, this $3/month service by Metro could save from a long jail sentence for things you might not know are there. If you travel to either Britain, Canada, or the USA, and have Metro as your carrier, I recommend getting this service, so you can wipe your phone if it is ever confiscated, without having to tie it to a Google account.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Follow Common Sense Colorado
Cartoonish vengeance is unlikely to resolve the problem.
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Re: Re: Re: Good intentions?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Good intentions?
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