Like many other similar cases, this involves two teenagers sexting each other. We can all admit that this is a rather stupid thing to do, but it would be crazy not to recognize that this happens quite frequently with teens these days. It’s already a pretty big stretch to try to twist those cases into “child porn” cases, but various prosecutors have been doing exactly that for years now. In this case, the 15-year-old girlfriend sent her 17-year-old boyfriend a photo of herself, and he sent back the video. The mother of the girl complained, and prosecutors went after the boy for “two felony charges, for possession of child pornography and manufacturing child pornography.”
So far, so normal (although one could argue it shouldn’t be)
The male teen was served with petitions from juvenile court in early February, and not arrested, but when the case went to trial in juvenile court in June, Foster said prosecutors forgot to certify that the teen was a juvenile. The case was dismissed, but police immediately obtained new charges and also a search warrant for his home. Police also arrested the teen and took him to juvenile jail, where Foster said they took photos of the teen’s genitals against his will.
That’s the real wtf-ness… W.T.F.???
Edit:
It seems like Lowering The Bar also picked up on the story:
Police in Sexting Case Want to Take Photo of Teen’s … No, That Can’t Be Right
The Washington Post calls this “a unique approach to collecting evidence,” and I guess that’s one way to put it. The approach is to forcibly inject a 17-year-old boy with something that would cause an erection so they can take a picture of that to compare with the picture he allegedly texted to his girlfriend.
I’m not at a loss for words very often but just now I sat and stared at this report for a while.