Judge Alex Kozinski makes the point in the Cato Institute’s book, In the Name of Justice, that we’re all likely criminals these days, despite the moral reprobation the ones who haven’t yet been caught feel toward the ones who have. But are we all sex offenders?
From the York Daily Record via Turley, Grandma Donna Dull took some pics of her 3 year old granddaughter to Walmart for development. The kid was nude. Grandma was arrested for kiddie porn, and spent the next 15 months fighting the charge until it was dismissed.
Christopher Moore, a special prosecutor in the York County District Attorney’s Office, is after “perverts, not parents.”
Moore was commenting on the “gray area” between the typical family picture of the 2-year-old getting a bath in the kitchen sink and a picture a pedophile may enjoy.
It can be the same picture, Moore said.
That’s a problem, guys, except Moore says that they’re looking for pervs, not parents. And grandmas don’t qualify?
[District Attorney Stan] Rebert said in Dull’s case, “What made them offensive was their graphic nature. A little girl with her bare butt showing, kind of looking over her shoulder.
“It’s a difficult distinction to make. What’s a cute butt and what’s pornographic?
“I think what she (Dull) did was stupid and in very poor judgment. It was an interesting case and I think we did the right thing.”
Well that explains it. The difference between a perv and a parent is whatever Stan Rebert decides it is 15 months later. Not much help in forecasting the consequences of one’s conduct, but a bright line test as long as Stan Rebert is around.
This gives me pause. You see, I too have a photograph of my daughter in the bathtub when she was an infant. She’s absolutely adorable. She’s also quite naked. There are cute parts of her anatomy showing, though I would never have called them graphic or offensive. I supposed if one was of the mind to find sexual titillation in a child, it might do. It never dawned on us that this was even a concern.
Clearly, Rebert hasn’t got a clue how anyone is to distinguish the good from the bad, the keepsake from the evil. And if he doesn’t know, how should we? Should we ask him first? Do we get advanced permission?
Or are we stupid and show “very poor judgment” when we engage in the time-honored tradition of a photograph of our child, whether bear rug or bath, or just being awfully darned cute, if they aren’t fully attired? Is it really our duty to conduct our family affairs in accordance with prosecutorial sensibilities?
One would think that after the call from Walmart to the cops, demonstrating why the caller was working at Walmart rather than NASA, it would have taken a prosecutor all of 30 second to distinguish grandma from a perv. One would be wrong.
I can’t decide whether to hide my photo or barricade the doors. Either way, I don’t want to end up like Donna Dull, but don’t want to give away that memory of my daughter. I guess we can amend Judge Kozinski’s admonition to cover sex offender for some. Maybe he knows something about that too?
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Young children love to run free naked. Parents discourage this and often make their young chilren feel guilty when they ‘catch’ them naked with their friends. Grandparents have more ‘wisdom’ and are free from the pressures of ‘raising’ kids; they simply ‘enjoy’ this freedom along with their grandkids. This wonderful grandparent/grandchild relationship is a blessing for children who are fortunate to have it.
I don’t think ‘perps’ would use Walmart photo development for their illicit pleasures. They know this is ‘evil’ and must keep this part of their dark personality under cover(s).
Well, trust you to miss a marketing opportunity. “The RonCo BabyBurka(tm) for all of your Crazy Years Baby Photography Needs! And with our new BBShop Software, we’ll scan and add the protective garmentiture to all your now-felonious memories [what the prosecutors call, ‘the evidence’] and return them to you on a handy CD! But, wait, there’s more — “
Sheesh. I got another sideline for Coconut Charlie.
That description sounds just like the old Coppertone add.
What pisses me off is the prosecutor’s sort of stoner-level blase attitude. “Eh, it’s kinda a tough call. So we took a shot at it. Whatever.”
It sounds like it’s even more offensive then “whatever”.
Not only do they not particularly care whether the prosecution was justified, they still seem to think that, to the degree they do care, they were morally in the right to torment this grandmother. Appalling.
It’s more than appalling. It’s downright scary! Also more evidence to support my theory that common sense is frequently left behind in the pursuit of promotion, not to mention personal ethics. And don’t reply “who says they had ethics to begin with?” I’m working on the assumption that (most) everyone develops them at some point in their life, long before they have risen to their “level of incompetence” (The Peter Principle;1968).
Despite my heavily left-leaning sensibilities, it is stuff like this that makes me really love the Second Amendment. Not like I’m ready to engage in a gun battle with the authorities – but I do wish that every single time a cop came to serve a warrant, he worried that not only might the resident inside be more heavily armed than him, but that the neighbors might join in and pin down his back up.
If they believed that, they’d be sending the amphibious assault vehicle (very popular in sheriff’s departments in landlocked counties) and laying down covering fire for “officer safety” when serving routine warrants.
For the “high risk” ones, it’d get nasty.