Criminal Law News

A court in Philadelphia has held that a school girl, whose sexually explicit images were found on a cell phone, cannot be forced to face charges of child pornography. It has been one of the more interesting cases featuring overly aggressive prosecutors and the defense of civil liberties.

The entire controversy began when school officials at a school in Pennsylvania found a few nude and semi-nude images of some schoolgirls on other students’ cell phones. Some of the girls were barely 12 or 13 at the time. The officials confiscated the phones, and brought in the Wyoming County District Attorney’s Office. The DA said that the girls could be prosecuted for possession of, or distribution of child pornography. The students were given a choice – they could either participate in an afterschool education program, failing which the students would be prosecuted for pornography charges.

Not willing to be coerced in this manner, the students refused to take the afterschool education program which would have included a report by the students, outlining why their behavior was wrong. The families said that the DA’s conditions amounted to interfering with the parents’ rights to bring up their children as they wished, and the girls’ right to be photographed in whatever manner they wished.

The standoff between the students and the parents on the one side, and the district attorney’s office on the other, went to court in March last year. The District Court barred the district attorney from initiating any criminal proceedings against the girls. The court declared that the pictures did not constitute child pornography under Pennsylvania laws, and were protected under the First Amendment

The DA appealed. Now, the Third Circuit court in Philadelphia has also upheld the District Court’s judgment.  However, the question of whether the pictures were protected under the First Amendment still continues to remain unresolved.

To a person looking at this case, it would seem that the crime rate in Wyoming County is exceedingly low, leaving the DA’s office free to spend valuable time and resources in going after a bunch of schoolgirls. To a California criminal defense attorney, however, it’s further proof that prosecutors are often driven by their own personal quirks, than any reverence for the law.