• Teen Boy Will Be Charged As Adult For Having Naked Pics of a Minor: Himself
    38 replies, posted
[quote]A North Carolina 17-year-old caught in a sexting scandal faces charges of sexually exploiting a minor that could land him in jail for up to 10 years, since the law considers him an adult. But one of the minors he supposedly exploited is himself—which raises an obvious question: how can a teen be old enough to face adult felony charges, but not old enough to keep a nude picture of himself on his phone? Unfortunately, that’s the Kafka-esque nightmare in which Fayetteville-area high schooler Cormega Copening finds himself after exchanging private nude photos with his girlfriend—with whom he is legally allowed to have sex, but not to sext. ... Copening and his girlfriend—now identified as Brianna Denson—are like other teenagers in that they have more than a passing interest in sex. Indeed, when they were 16, they exchanged racy sexy photos via text message. Denson sent pictures to Copening, and Copening sent pictures to Denson. It appears that no one else saw the pictures until local authorities searched Copening’s phone and discovered them. Why did they search his phone? It’s not clear, but local news reports claimed that it had nothing to do with the sexts themselves. The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment. According to fayobserver.com, there is no record of a search warrant being issued for Copening’s phone. Both teens were charged with sexual exploitation. Denson pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was given 12 months of probation. Copening, however, is still facing two counts of second-degree sexual exploitation and three counts of third-degree exploitation. As Ricochet’s Tom Meyer points out, the third-degree charges—which constitute a majority of the total charges—actually stem from the pictures Copening had of himself. The implication is clear: Copening does not own himself, from the standpoint of the law, and is not free to keep sexually-provocative pictures, even if they depict his own body. But consider this: North Carolina is one of two states in the country (the other is progressive New York) that considers 16 to be the age of adulthood for criminal purposes. This mean, of course, that Copening can be tried as an adult for exploiting a minor—himself.[/quote] [url]http://reason.com/blog/2015/09/02/teen-boy-will-be-charged-as-adult-for-ha[/url]
I wonder what the actual purpose of this punishment is.
[QUOTE=Antlerp;48605901]I wonder what the actual purpose of this punishment is.[/QUOTE] Old people disproving of youngsters and their crazy casual sex and sexting. That and maybe a bit because he's black and lives in North Carolina.
This is more absurd than it sounds. They charged the girl as an adult... and simultaneously as a minor... for a crime she committed against herself. She's an adult who produced child pornography of the minor version of herself. NC apparently has fairly reasonable laws concerning this - it's just that they conflict with federal laws on child pornography. Almost everybody I know committed dozens (or hundreds) of felonies before they were 18. Taking a nude picture of yourself before you are 18 is a felony, no matter the context, and you will be charged as an adult for creating child pornography of yourself as a minor to share with someone else who is (in your state) in the range of the age of consent. It's absurd. It's like masturbating under the age of 16 and getting arrested for molesting yourself, then getting charged as an adult for statutory rape, on yourself, as a minor. Nonsense. We really need to streamline these laws so that overzealous lawyers stop criminalizing healthy sexual behavior and locking up teenagers with felony charges. These people will easily spend 20 years in prison and be permanently put on the sex offender registry. Unfortunately, no politician wants to be "that guy" who relaxes sex offender laws, which means that people will continue to be locked up for trivial bullshit by lawyers who need to be stripped off their posts.
Surely the judge can see through this ridiculous contradiction and just drop the charges.
[QUOTE=.Isak.;48605943]This is more absurd than it sounds. They charged the girl as an adult... and simultaneously as a minor... for a crime she committed against herself. She's an adult who produced child pornography of the minor version of herself. [/QUOTE] This is absolutely :mindblown:
Somehow I suspect that judge and jury will see through this shit and hopefully toss the case out.
[QUOTE=GordonZombie;48606039]Somehow I suspect that judge and jury will see through this shit and hopefully toss the case out.[/QUOTE] You'd be surprised how common this is. I'd love for a news site to aggregate how many people are put on the sex offender list for stuff like this. The cases are usually thrown out, but sometimes people have their lives ruined. If you're 18 and put on the sex offender registry, you can no longer attend high school because you're legally not allowed to be within a certain distance of a school. If you have a younger sibling, you're legally required to move out of your parent's house. You cannot contact any friends you may have under the age of 18. You can't access the internet, you can't own a cell phone, you can't do much of anything. There was a case in Iowa where a high school student got slapped with a felony for "knowingly disseminating obscene material to a minor." Even though that minor was within the age of consent for the state, and legally they could meet and have sex and she could choke on his dick and eat out his asshole, sending a picture violates [i]federal[/i] law [i]and[/i] state law, meaning he was charged with a federal crime. This was after the friend asked him for a nude picture 3-4 times - nobody cared until the parents found the picture and basically had this kid thrown out from his high school and tossed on the sex offender list. It's profoundly disturbing. The fact that I could have been locked up in prison and put on the sex offender list for snapchatting a 17-year-old friend of mine nude pictures when I was 18 is fucking terrifying. If we met up and had sex, no issue whatsoever - just the pictures make you a felon. I don't want to know how many felonies a typical high-school relationship involves nowadays.
[QUOTE=RenegadeCop;48606069]I think crimes are suppose to have a victim and have damages, this one has neither.[/QUOTE] The state can assign itself as a victim for "victimless" crimes under the guise of protecting society. This is done in many crimes. Where have you been for the past few centuries?
This is fucked up in so many ways and now these two will suffer for doing normal things? Go get real criminals and get off your high horse.
good thing we've caught this criminal beast. shouldn't be allowed to own a phone.
The whole thing about the definition of underage and the arbitrary number of 18 is a full load of shit in the US. I mean like yeah we need it so a bunch of old guys don't go around fucking 14 year olds but there has to be a better way of going about this sorts thing
And The Onion continues to leak into real life.
[QUOTE=LoneWolf_Recon;48605971]Surely the judge can see through this ridiculous contradiction and just drop the charges.[/QUOTE] Not if the prosecuter does some gesture with his hands that means something depraved, or says "teen pregnancy" out loud in court, like some kind of "Bloody Mary calling myth", triggering the judge.
[QUOTE=Fapplejack;48606889]The whole thing about the definition of underage and the arbitrary number of 18 is a full load of shit in the US. I mean like yeah we need it so a bunch of old guys don't go around fucking 14 year olds but there has to be a better way of going about this sorts thing[/QUOTE] Makes far more sense to have an age range system rather than a single number i.e. under 14 within 2 years, under 16 within 3, eventually increasing to whatever the fuck you want, but sexual interactions between two people the same age shouldn't be prosecuted under the law designed to prevent older people exploiting young people.
[QUOTE=NeonpieDFTBA;48607024]Makes far more sense to have an age range system rather than a single number i.e. under 14 within 2 years, under 16 within 3, eventually increasing to whatever the fuck you want, but sexual interactions between two people the same age shouldn't be prosecuted under the law designed to prevent older people exploiting young people.[/QUOTE] This is how it is in a majority of states for actual sexual activity. Unfortunately, sending explicit pictures is not considered sexual activity, it's considered pornography. The laws are different for that, and it's federally illegal (and a felony) for someone under 18 to take a sexual picture of themselves. It's illegal in every state as well, afaik. The laws made perfect sense decades ago, but now when a huge majority of teen high school relationships involve sending explicit pictures, it means people are facing felonies for what is effectively normal sexual behavior.
"Hi, I've just moved into the neighbourhood and I'm legally required to tell you all that I'm on the sex offenders registry." "Oh my god! Why?" "I had nudes of myself on my phone when I was 17."
whoever even got this started as a case need to be fired from their jobs and banned from practicing law
Waste of time and resources in my opinion. Not like its some 50 year old man harboring massive amounts of child porn. Nope. Just a 17 year old teen, being, well... A teen.
I asked this question once as a joke to a friend of mine. I'm rather scared that this is actually a thing. I wonder if pictures like the one below are also considered child porn? Because I see shitloads of these. A shop where I used to live advertised these kinds of photos like crazy. [IMG]http://assets.babycenter.com/ims/20070813/Baby_Massage1.jpg[/IMG]
[quote=the article]According to fayobserver.com, there is no record of a search warrant being issued for Copening’s phone.[/quote] That means he didn't exercise his 4th Amendment right to refuse unreasonable searches until a warrant is issued. Amateur. Despite the amateur mistake the case is stupid and the prosecution is wasting their time on stupid shit like this instead of trying to lock away murderers and rapists. They know they're likely to win the psychological war against this lad just by instilling the fact that they could ruin his life for good. Even when he isn't quite finished high school.
I wrote a paper on this a few years ago, it happens all the fucking time and it needs to stop. they're making an issue out of nothing and ruining a kids life for it
So he's being tried as an [B]adult[/B] for having sexual pictures of a [B]minor[/B], himself.... That makes sense
[QUOTE=RenegadeCop;48606069]I think crimes are suppose to have a victim and have damages, this one has neither.[/QUOTE] That's why the government needs to step in and try to cause some trauma to even it out.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;48615221]So he's being tried as an [B]adult[/B] for having sexual pictures of a [B]minor[/B], himself.... That makes sense[/QUOTE] It actually does. Because of her age, the photos are of a minor. However due to the crime she is automatically certified as an adult in the courts. The defense lawyer would have to petition the court for the case to be heard in juvenile courts instead of adult.
[QUOTE=sasherz;48615092]I asked this question once as a joke to a friend of mine. I'm rather scared that this is actually a thing. I wonder if pictures like the one below are also considered child porn? Because I see shitloads of these. A shop where I used to live advertised these kinds of photos like crazy. [IMG]http://assets.babycenter.com/ims/20070813/Baby_Massage1.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE] what the fuck you filthy pervert put that shit in a link
[QUOTE=Jamsponge;48607482]"Hi, I've just moved into the neighbourhood and I'm legally required to tell you all that I'm on the sex offenders registry." "Oh my god! Why?" "I had nudes of myself on my phone when I was 17."[/QUOTE] You wouldn't even get to the second line because everyone would run away from you. Nobody cares about why someone became sex offender.
This is a retarded contradiction
[QUOTE=.Isak.;48607256]This is how it is in a majority of states for actual sexual activity. Unfortunately, sending explicit pictures is not considered sexual activity, it's considered pornography. The laws are different for that, and it's federally illegal (and a felony) for someone under 18 to take a sexual picture of themselves. It's illegal in every state as well, afaik. The laws made perfect sense decades ago, but now when a huge majority of teen high school relationships involve sending explicit pictures, it means people are facing felonies for what is effectively normal sexual behavior.[/QUOTE] The law dealing with sending pictures needs to be changed so that it isn't child pornography if it's a picture of yourself, and if they send the photo to someone that's in the age range that legally allows them to have sex, that shouldn't be either
I have an interesting question/thought experiment: If someone, underage, makes child porn of themselves completely of their own free will and then when they come of age choose to share it with other people is this an issue? In the eyes of the law it currently is, but should it be?
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