There's a longstanding principle in the common law that you don't convict people using laws that were designed to protect exactly those people. In other words, you don't charge an underaged girl with being an accomplice to a statutory rape because the whole point of the law was to protect her in the first place.
Prosecutors are not required to press charges. There is also a legal basis (stronger than "this is bad policy) for refusing to press charges in these cases. It happens because of a distorted picture of what it means to uphold the law.
The US also needs widespread reform of its age of consent and youth sex laws. It's unrealistic and unnatural to pretend that human beings are only ready to engage in that behavior at 18.
Agreed. The US also needs prosecutors who have a clue. You don't get to choose what you receive on a cell phone. If some high school hottie decides to send a photo of herself
au natural to every male member of her class, it isn't like the guys intentionally logged onto a porn site and intentionally downloaded sexually explicit photos. Heck, depending on timing, it's entirely possible that in such a situation a guy could get busted for having the photo on his cell phone before he even knows it's there.
I hope the kids (parents) have good lawyers. This is yet another case of what I consider prosecutorial overreach.
Besides, as a former art major in another life, I know (as do most of you) that not all images of nekked wimmin are "pornographic." When I was in college, my faculty advisor (a noted portraitist) donated a portrait of a nude woman as the prize in some competition or raffle or something. It ended up over the fireplace in one of the fraternity houses, and it was universally understood that the model was the prof's own daughter.
