North Carolina high schooler and his girlfriend face legal proceedings over selfies as both the adult perpetrators and minor victims

A teenage boy in North Carolina has been prosecuted for having nude pictures of himself on his own mobile phone. The young man, who is now 17 but was 16 at the time the photos were discovered, had to strike a plea deal to avoid potentially going to jail and being registered as a sex offender.

Experts condemned the case as ludicrous. The boy was, however, punished by the courts, and had to agree to be subject to warrantless searches by law enforcement for a year, in addition to other penalties.

The young man was also named in the media and suffered a suspension as quarterback of his high school football team while the case was being resolved.

Cormega Copening, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, was prosecuted as an adult under federal child pornography felony laws, for sexually exploiting a minor. The minor was himself.

"It's dysfunctional to be charged with possession of your own image," said Justin Patchin, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Wisconsin.

Copening was charged with four counts of making and possessing images of himself and one count of possessing a naked image of his 16-year-old girlfriend.

His girlfriend, Brianna Denson, took a plea deal after being prosecuted on similar charges for having naked, suggestive pictures of herself on her cellphone.

While the pictures were technically illegal, actual sex would not be - the age of consent for sexual intercourse in North Carolina is 16.

The pictures were discovered on Copening’s phone when authorities were investigating a wider problem of sexual images allegedly being shared at school without the permission of the subjects involved. Copening turned out not to be involved in that case.

He was prosecuted for having his own and his girlfriend's image, despite them not having been shared further.

Copening and Denson's court cases were ostensibly about "sexting" - the sending of sexually explicit material by text message - but the main charges related to them making and keeping their own images.
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In most states, these crimes are technically on the books but are not typically used to prosecute similarly aged teenage lovers under 18 who have shared images only with each other consensually, Patchin said.

Patchin said he and other experts in the field had discussed this case and had heard of "zero examples" of under-18s being charged for having their own naked selfie in their phone.

"Kids should not be charged for that," he said. "And you don't want kids to be sending such pictures to their significant others, but I don't think it should be a criminal offense where there is no victim."

The legal bind came because the two were over 16 and so could be charged as adults in North Carolina, as is common with some felonies, but the crimes they were being charged with related to laws against sexually exploiting minors.

Each was therefore simultaneously the adult perpetrator who is considered a predator and the minor victim who needs protecting by the law.

"It's ludicrous," said Fred Lane, a computer security and privacy expert and author of the book Cybertraps for Educators, based in New York. "It's crazy. It's an overreach."
"This goes back to the supreme court making child pornography unconstitutional in 1983 and each state legislating in line with that for the public good - in order to protect children from adults producing, possessing or distributing nude images of them."

"But that was before anyone thought kids would be making and sending nude photos of themselves with publicly available digital technology."

The federal child abuse image felony laws apply to every state. But 20 states have enacted legislation, often nicknamed Romeo and Juliet laws, to avoid prosecuting teenagers who exchange naked pictures with each other as a couple where there is no exploitation.

Even so, in many states it is still a misdemeanour offence; in others it is a so-called informal offense, where the teens are obliged to submit to "diversion" education about making responsible choices.

In the other 30 states there is no 'sexting' rule to mitigate the child abuse image laws as they apply to teenage lovers consensually exchanging images purely within their relationship, or possessing nude selfies individually. In Fayetteville, the authorities decided to lay down the law.

"There are about 10 or 12 mostly conservative states where they will prosecute kids for this," said Lane, "and it's a kind of moral values thing - they are trying to make an example of them because it's believed to be inappropriate behaviour."

"There is a streak of moralising that runs through this country that is disturbing sometimes."
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In July, Denson took a plea deal and admitted a misdemeanour. Felony charges were dropped. She was put on probation for a year, technically for exploiting herself by making and having a naked image of herself.

She was ordered to pay $200 in court costs, stay in school, refrain from using illegal drugs and alcohol, take a class in making good decisions and do 30 hours of community services. She will not be allowed to have a cellphone for a year.

In September, Copening took a similar plea deal. If both comply with the terms of their deals, then their records will be wiped after a year.

Jeff Temple, a psychology expert at the University of Texas Medical Branch, has conducted research suggesting that 30% of teens "sext" each other. He called for "common sense" from the authorities.

Temple said that if states used their laws literally, "tens of thousands of kids would be in jail and registered as sex offenders".

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/20/teen-prosecuted-naked-images-himself-phone-selfies

yep I know a few local kids that got in trouble for that
it is definitely going on

Well...
they did violate the law, by possessing sexually explicit images of minors.
Doesn't matter that the pics were of themselves.

They may be legally old enough, to become statistics for teen pregnancy, and teen STD cases.

However, and rightfully so, they're not legally old enough to pose for nude/sexually explicit photos.
Even 'IF', they are their own photographers.

Kiddie porn is kiddie porn.
Prosecution was warranted in my opinion.

Good thing he wasnt caught masturbating...coulda been charged with molesting himself

he never said no....

Another example of why I am always cautious about joining into even seemingly obvious righteous crusades.

ANYTHING can be taken past some rational point, and become destructive instead of corrective.

The narrow-mindedness of some people.. I am shocked. Less shocked with the knowledge that this happened in America, but still shocked. Neither of them were doing anything wrong. They were not sharing the images with anyone except themselves. The only thing that could have gone wrong is if they somehow lost their phones and the images could have got into the wrong hands, that's the only thing I can think of, but that does not justify prosecution. They probably didn't think of that, they're still kids, even if they are being tried as adults. They should have just been warned, and asked to remove the images that are (only just) under-age.

The prosecution is not justified, and it's even worse that they were prosecuted as adults when they were still 16 when they took the pics, which shouldn't have to be said at all. It would be like charging a 17 year old for stealing, and prosecuting him as an adult, because old video footage caught him on camera stealing a chocolate bar from a corner shop when he was 10.

Yup, it's considered distributing child pornography. It actually happens a lot now.

Makes me support the Romeo and Juliet laws even more now.

Welcome to our current land of hypocrites ! So, it is okay to do adultery, porn, fornication, and molest boys in churches by priests and pastors. Now sodomites are being wed and praised and sodomites filth is normal for minors. But this naked teen crap is wrong !
When this land of sicktarded Libtards will fall ! ?

i was wondering how these pictures were found by the police in the first place? do they search peoples cell phones up there?

I guess they searced every kids phone at that school...




Betcha some teachers were hoping theirs werent searched

Granny-porn should be illegal too!

Same with monkeys taking selfies

Monkey-porn?

Good ole Fayetteville, NC...


No comment..

moe didn't you even read what you posted when you started this thread?

i guess not... but still, that seems an invasion of the kids privacy... they just decided to check kids phone, on the basis that might have been a crime commited... those two kids didn't commit the crime they were looking, so they decide to prosecute on other BS charges...

well from the article it was an active investigation so i can almost accept the search demand of the minors (just like locker searches during bomb threats or drug investigations). the leap to the to charge to un-involved on separate charges id over the top for sure