What's Your Take on this Decision?

[qayak]

When you go fishing, do you usually catch all of the fish?

Were they fishing? I thought they were conducting a criminal investigation.

qayak, would you care to take a shot at articulating the respects in which you believe the offense which this perpetrator is charged with committing differ from what she has actually done? Because from my reading of the statute under which she is charged, she done it, no mistake. Surely your quarrel lies somehow with the wording of the law and not the actions of the Crown, which is bound to enforce the law as it is written.

I have been over this several times but to sum up:

She posted a picture of a rival on the rival's Facebook page and sent another picture to a female friend.

Assuming these pictures are child pornography and not just nude shots:

(a) a photographic, film, video or other visual representation, whether or not it was made by electronic or mechanical means,
(i) that shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity, or
(ii) the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years;

1) She did not create the pictures, either the ex or the boyfriend did.

2) Where were the pictures and how did they get there for her to forward them? Once again, either the ex, the boyfriend, or both.

3) Although the pictures might have been created for sexual purposes, for the girl to excite her ex, or for their mutual pleasure, it doesn't mean all use of them is sexual.

4) The pictures were not used by the teen for a sexual purpose

the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose)

that is for her, or anyone else, to get off on. They were used to bully a rival.

5) The fact that out of this entire "child porn ring" they prosecuted one child who did very little, and certainly much less than the person(s) who created and originally distributed the pictures, leads me to believe that. on second thought, your descriptor of "fishing" is very apt for what the crown did.

6) An adult, sending nude pictures of a rival would not be prosecuted for it. This means that a child, engaged in the same behaviour of bullying a rival, will be held to a much higher standard.

7) The Crown fails because the Crown is the government. They are the ones who have failed to address the issue of cyberbulling, and sending nude photos of others, with a simple law that they could lift directly from many jurisdictions that already have it.

8) Torturing a law beyond the scope it was intended maybe okay for those who think crime is rampant and something needs to be done immediately about this danger to society but I just don't see it that way. This girl isn't a danger to society like a child pornographer is. She did something stupid and mean but she isn't a child pornographer.

 

[colander]

Were they fishing? I thought they were conducting a criminal investigation.



I have been over this several times but to sum up:

She posted a picture of a rival on the rival's Facebook page and sent another picture to a female friend.

Assuming these pictures are child pornography and not just nude shots:



1) She did not create the pictures, either the ex or the boyfriend did.

That is presumably why she is being charged with dissemination of illegal materials instead of creation of those materials.

2) Where were the pictures and how did they get there for her to forward them? Once again, either the ex, the boyfriend, or both.

But none of that changes the fact that she ran afoul of the law prohibiting distribution of those materials.

3) Although the pictures might have been created for sexual purposes, for the girl to excite her ex, or for their mutual pleasure, it doesn't mean all use of them is sexual.

This doesn't matter in the slightest. Any old piece of child porn could conceivably be used in a non-sexual manner. I could use pictures of kids having sex to insulate my kitchen or make paper airplanes, but Canadian law still considers those pictures to be child porn.

4) The pictures were not used by the teen for a sexual purpose

How do you figure? The sexual explicitness of the photos was obviously an integral element of the perpetrator's plan: The reason that it is humiliating is that now a whole bunch of people have access to sexual photos of the victim and can use them in any way they please, including using them to get off. That is why the perpetrator chose to send nude photos of the victim instead of, say, photos of the victim wearing a very ugly sweater.

that is for her, or anyone else, to get off on. They were used to bully a rival.

5) The fact that out of this entire "child porn ring" they prosecuted one child who did very little, and certainly much less than the person(s) who created and originally distributed the pictures, leads me to believe that. on second thought, your descriptor of "fishing" is very apt for what the crown did.

Again, nothing that anyone else has done negates the fact that the perpetrator committed the crime she is being charged with.

6) An adult, sending nude pictures of a rival would not be prosecuted for it. This means that a child, engaged in the same behaviour of bullying a rival, will be held to a much higher standard.

No, it is exactly the same standard: nobody, adult or child, is allowed to distribute child porn.

7) The Crown fails because the Crown is the government. They are the ones who have failed to address the issue of cyberbulling, and sending nude photos of others, with a simple law that they could lift directly from many jurisdictions that already have it.

Maybe if there were a law against cyber-bullying, she would be charged with both cyber-bullying and distribution of child pornography. There isn't right now, though, so she is only being charged with distribution of child pornography. She is being charged with that because she did that.

8) Torturing a law beyond the scope it was intended maybe okay for those who think crime is rampant and something needs to be done immediately about this danger to society but I just don't see it that way. This girl isn't a danger to society like a child pornographer is. She did something stupid and mean but she isn't a child pornographer.

Your ideas about the intent and scope of the law don't seem to be backed up by the way the law is actually written, do they? Does this not lead you to suspect that you may in fact be mistaken about what the law was really intended to accomplish? As far as Canadian law is concerned, anyone who distributes child pornography is guilty of distributing child pornography, and this seems fair to me. Again I ask: exactly what changes would you like made to Canadian law?

 

[qayak]

No, it is exactly the same standard: nobody, adult or child, is allowed to distribute child porn.

No. An adult will seldom if ever have a child as a romantic rival whereas a child will almost always have another child as a romantic rival. Each posted a picture of their rival, only the child is charged.

 

[colander]

No. An adult will seldom if ever have a child as a romantic rival whereas a child will almost always have another child as a romantic rival. Each posted a picture of their rival, only the child is charged.

Since when is an inalienable right to distribute nude pictures of romantic rivals written into Canadian law? Hint: since never.

The law doesn't care whether the person in pornographic pictures you are distributing is your romantic rival. Why should it? It only cares whether or not they are under age.

 

[Cool Hand Luke]

Your ideas about the intent and scope of the law don't seem to be backed up by the way the law is actually written, do they?

And your ideas about the law are not backed up by the way the law is actually administered.

Prosecutors are given enormous leeway in deciding whether to bring a charge - or any charges - given the circumstances of a case. This is a CRITICAL aspect of the justice system. If we prosecuted people every single time somebody "broke the law" the courts would collapse and the prisons would overflow even worse than they do now. Part of being a prosecutor is exercising appropriate discretion in charging decisions so as to balance the needs of justice with the equally important needs of the justice system and the community as a whole.

The issue here isn't so much whether the girl did it and whether it was a violation or not. The issue is whether, under the circumstances, the state abused its discretion in bringing charges.

As I noted earlier, one of the key factors in a charging decision for adults is whether it passes the laugh factor. If a jury is going laugh you out the room for bringing the charge then it's time to exercise some discretion and let the charge lay.

In this case there's no way, IMHO, that anybody was going to come near a conviction if a jury had been involved. It would have almost certainly ended in a hung jury - and you can see the evidence of that from the wide spread of closely held opinions in this thread. If this hadn't been a bench trial it would never have gone anywhere. There's no way you would get a conviction out of jury and therefore there's no way a competent prosecutor should be bringing such a charge jury or not.

By taking it this way the prosecutor has achieved nothing that couldn't have been accomplished by bringing a lessor charge except to brand this girl as a sex offender for life. Lessons could still have been taught, controversy avoided, and the public stuck with a much smaller bill if it weren't for the apparent need of the prosecuting attorney to go for a grand-standing conviction. If this had been a jury trial it would never have happened. Just because there's no jury does not mean that charges should have been brought. It was a huge abuse of discretion to do so on the part of the state.

If we ran the criminal justice system the way you insinuate we'd have locked up 90% of people before they were 25. That's why there's slack built into the system. It's not always in the best interest of the state to charge everybody who's "guilty" of something for that crime. This was a mistake - and given the publicity it's generated I suspect that somebody's career is going to take a beating because of it.

Cheers,
Luke.

 

[colander]

And your ideas about the law are not backed up by the way the law is actually administered.

Prosecutors are given enormous leeway in deciding whether to bring a charge - or any charges - given the circumstances of a case. This is a CRITICAL aspect of the justice system. If we prosecuted people every single time somebody "broke the law" the courts would collapse and the prisons would overflow even worse than they do now. Part of being a prosecutor is exercising appropriate discretion in charging decisions so as to balance the needs of justice with the equally important needs of the justice system and the community as a whole.

The issue here isn't so much whether the girl did it and whether it was a violation or not. The issue is whether, under the circumstances, the state abused its discretion in bringing charges.

As I noted earlier, one of the key factors in a charging decision for adults is whether it passes the laugh factor. If a jury is going laugh you out the room for bringing the charge then it's time to exercise some discretion and let the charge lay.

In this case there's no way, IMHO, that anybody was going to come near a conviction if a jury had been involved. It would have almost certainly ended in a hung jury - and you can see the evidence of that from the wide spread of closely held opinions in this thread. If this hadn't been a bench trial it would never have gone anywhere. There's no way you would get a conviction out of jury and therefore there's no way a competent prosecutor should be bringing such a charge jury or not.

By taking it this way the prosecutor has achieved nothing that couldn't have been accomplished by bringing a lessor charge except to brand this girl as a sex offender for life. Lessons could still have been taught, controversy avoided, and the public stuck with a much smaller bill if it weren't for the apparent need of the prosecuting attorney to go for a grand-standing conviction. If this had been a jury trial it would never have happened. Just because there's no jury does not mean that charges should have been brought. It was a huge abuse of discretion to do so on the part of the state.

If we ran the criminal justice system the way you insinuate we'd have locked up 90% of people before they were 25. That's why there's slack built into the system. It's not always in the best interest of the state to charge everybody who's "guilty" of something for that crime. This was a mistake - and given the publicity it's generated I suspect that somebody's career is going to take a beating because of it.

Cheers,
Luke.

That was a long post, but you neglected to explain what, if anything, is so terrible about the decision to pursue charges in this case. Are you saying that Canada is in the habit of automatically putting even juvenile sex offenders on a permanent registry? I don't think that is true, but if it is, then don't you think that is the thing that should be changed?

 

[Cool Hand Luke]

That was a long post, but you neglected to explain what, if anything, is so terrible about the decision to pursue charges in this case. Are you saying that Canada is in the habit of automatically putting even juvenile sex offenders on a permanent registry? I don't think that is true, but if it is, then don't you think that is the thing that should be changed?

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It just happens that I worked on such a case just a couple of years ago.

My client had been removed from his parental home at the age of 11 and placed in foster care. At the age of 12 he had been caught by the foster parents "fooling around" with their 11yo son. My client was removed from the foster home and charged with a sex offense against a minor. His overworked public advocate simply plead out the charge.

Fast forward 15 years and my client is arrested on a drug charge and sentenced to a short prison term. Upon release they ask him whether he's ever been convicted of a sex offense. He answers truthfully and is immediately put into a special program for convicted sex offenders. He now has to register with the state authorities for life. He is banned from areas such as public parks and shopping malls where children may be present. He is not allowed to live within a certain distance from places like schools and libraries. He is forbidden to use the internet. In effect, he is trapped in a useless life with little to no hope of ever finding a decent job or having a decent family.

All because a troubled 12yo kid from a broken family did what millions of kids do every single day all over the planet . . .

(All of which, BTW, I believed was actually unconstitutional given his circumstance but we never got to finish the appeal as other factors intervened.)

The point of allowing prosecutorial discretion is that we can't write laws that cover every possible scenario for every possible crime. We therefore leave it up to (supposedly) smart people to figure out the best course of action in such cases. Do they always get it right? No. Of course not. But it's a far better cry than having 10X more laws on the books than we already have. There's no possible way for the legislatures to anticipate every possible circumstance of every possible case even if they had the time and inclination to do it. That's why we MUST give prosecutors the ability to modify charging doctrine as appropriate. The alternative is even greater stagnation than we already have.

Discretion should have been used in this case. The goal of the juvenile justice system is to reform, not to punish. You could have taught this girl a good lesson without dragging a sex charge into it and potentially crashing her life for good. You could have also saved the taxpayers a bundle on the original proceeding and the appeals. I think it's sad for everybody involved that the prosecutor felt they had to push it like this. I don't think there was any point in doing so.

Cheers,
Luke.

 

[colander]

Sounds like your client really snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Too bad. So sad.

 

[Cool Hand Luke]

Sounds like your client really snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Too bad. So sad.

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Drugs will do that to you . . . it was a sadder story than you might think.

After years in foster care the kid had actually managed to turn his life around. He graduated with honors in political science from a major US university and was trying to get a spot in grad school. One of the faculty members had taken him under wing and was giving him some serious help in making something of himself.

And then he went to a party and did a line of cocaine . . . .

The appeal was mooted after he was picked up on another possession charge. He was living on the street because he couldn't get a job or an apartment with the sex offender registration hanging on him. He's a very, very smart kid. He just can't stay away from the crack - and as long as he stays homeless because of the sex charge that's never gonna change. Because of the sex charge he's basically been thrown away as a person.

Luke.

 

[qayak]

Since when is an inalienable right to distribute nude pictures of romantic rivals written into Canadian law? Hint: since never.

There is no law against it and no law that can be tortured to make it illegal. It happens often and has led to several people committing suicide. So it needs to be stopped but making an example of one child isn't the way to do that. The way to do it is for the government to make a proper law against it.

The law doesn't care whether the person in pornographic pictures you are distributing is your romantic rival. Why should it? It only cares whether or not they are under age.

Well, the Working Group on cyberbullying seemed to care immensely and stated flat out that teenagers would be the unreasonable targets of the use of child porn laws.

If this girl were actually making or distributing child porn, I would agree with you but she wasn't. She did what thousands of other people have done with impunity.

 

[epeeist]

To adapt something from elsewhere (and thankfully, I don't know much about the laws of various jurisdictions regarding child pornography, so don't rely on this, nor am I going to do a search while on a break at work!).

Case 1: an adult sketches (so not real-life) images from his own mind which are like fan-fiction sexually explicit version of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" and e-mails copies to someone = child pornography.

Case 2: this older teenager (but still a minor) e-mails real, private, intended only for the recipient boyfriend, sexually explicit photos of a minor teenager for the specific purpose of causing harm to that minor teenager = people leap to her defense.

I see case 2 as far more evil/immoral/objectionable than case 1. The only mitigating aspect as that the perpetrator is a minor, and that is already addressed by the fact it's being dealt with by the youth justice system. Even if there was a jury trial, this hardly seems like a laughing matter to me.

As has been noted, if there are problems with long-term effects of registries or penalizing people who sext their own (underage) images, etc., then the problem is with registries or lack of discretion, not with penalizing child pornography per se. From what I know I do NOT think it's a stretch or twist or anything like that to prosecute this person for distributing child pornography.

 

[colander]

.
Drugs will do that to you . . . it was a sadder story than you might think.

After years in foster care the kid had actually managed to turn his life around. He graduated with honors in political science from a major US university and was trying to get a spot in grad school. One of the faculty members had taken him under wing and was giving him some serious help in making something of himself.

And then he went to a party and did a line of cocaine . . . .

The appeal was mooted after he was picked up on another possession charge. He was living on the street because he couldn't get a job or an apartment with the sex offender registration hanging on him. He's a very, very smart kid. He just can't stay away from the crack - and as long as he stays homeless because of the sex charge that's never gonna change. Because of the sex charge he's basically been thrown away as a person.

Luke.

Yeah, except for the child molestation and habitual cocaine use, he sounds like a real great kid. Why, I can barely see my keypad through my tears. Too bad he didn't get assigned counsel who informed him of his right not to disclose youthful infractions and who could spare the time to file the proper appeals, huh?

If the way we deal with sex offenders is too harsh, then by all means, that should be fixed. That seems like a rather more viable solution than deciding that only the pedo-looking violators (or whatever the hell eldritch metric you're using to separate the molesters who are deserving of penalty from the molesters that are "good kids who made a mistake") should get charged with doing sex crimes and we should look the other way for everyone else.

 

[Cool Hand Luke]

Yeah, except for the child molestation and habitual cocaine use, he sounds like a real great kid. Why, I can barely see my keypad through my tears.

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Oooooh. I just realized that you're from Brookfield. Now I get where your arguments come from.

Too bad he didn't get assigned counsel who informed him of his right not to disclose youthful infractions and who could spare the time to file the proper appeals, huh?

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Too bad you live in the same jurisdiction, huh? Next time you complain about how unfair the justice system is being to YOU please remember this post. You can't imagine how many people from Brookfield came through my office complaining about the justice system after voting for years to hamstring and undermine it. It's amazing how quickly one experience with the courts can turn people into a supporter of the public defender's office.

If the way we deal with sex offenders is too harsh, then by all means, that should be fixed. That seems like a rather more viable solution than deciding that only the pedo-looking violators (or whatever the hell eldritch metric you're using to separate the molesters who are deserving of penalty from the molesters that are "good kids who made a mistake") should get charged with doing sex crimes and we should look the other way for everyone else.

.
I think this pretty much sums up all we need to know about your arguments.

Anyone who believes that a 12yo can be morally capable of ANYTHING that would warrant life-long punishment is arguing way beyond the bounds of the rest of reasonable society.

Could you please explain why this 12yo boy was "guilty" of a crime requiring life-long consequences while his 11yo partner was not?

Are you advocating that every 14yo girl who becomes pregnant by a 13yo boy needs to be jailed for rape?

How about the 5yo boy I mentioned earlier who was charged with sexual assault for "playing doctor"? Would you be happy if your 5yo was charged as such for touching the rear of another kid during play? That case was also in your jurisdiction, btw, where the lack of decent counsel you were so dismissive of earlier would also apply to you. You ready to sell the house and empty your bank account in order to hire a legal team to defend your 5yo against sexual assault charges?

I understand from looking back at your other posts that you have strong personal feelings about sexual assault and like to speak out on it. I think that's great. More people need to do the same. I congratulate you for speaking your mind on your convictions.

But blindly applying criminal punishments and procedures to a kid that were intended for use with adults is not only pointless in deterring the bad behavior of other kids, it's also needless damaging to the kid and the system as a whole. There must be moderation and discretion applied in such cases - and that's why the law is written to allow for it.

Your one-size-fits-all-ages approach to sex offenses doesn't make sense for anybody involved.

Cheers,
Luke.

 

[qayak]

To adapt something from elsewhere (and thankfully, I don't know much about the laws of various jurisdictions regarding child pornography, so don't rely on this, nor am I going to do a search while on a break at work!).

Case 1: an adult sketches (so not real-life) images from his own mind which are like fan-fiction sexually explicit version of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" and e-mails copies to someone = child pornography.

Case 2: this older teenager (but still a minor) e-mails real, private, intended only for the recipient boyfriend, sexually explicit photos of a minor teenager for the specific purpose of causing harm to that minor teenager = people leap to her defense.

I see case 2 as far more evil/immoral/objectionable than case 1. The only mitigating aspect as that the perpetrator is a minor, and that is already addressed by the fact it's being dealt with by the youth justice system. Even if there was a jury trial, this hardly seems like a laughing matter to me.

As has been noted, if there are problems with long-term effects of registries or penalizing people who sext their own (underage) images, etc., then the problem is with registries or lack of discretion, not with penalizing child pornography per se. From what I know I do NOT think it's a stretch or twist or anything like that to prosecute this person for distributing child pornography.

Yeah, if you think case #2 has any relation to the case under discussion, your reading ability is sadly lacking. Yours is an appeal to ignorance.

 

[epeeist]

.
Oooooh. I just realized that you're from Brookfield. Now I get where your arguments come from.


.
Too bad you live in the same jurisdiction, huh? Next time you complain about how unfair the justice system is being to YOU please remember this post. You can't imagine how many people from Brookfield came through my office complaining about the justice system after voting for years to hamstring and undermine it. It's amazing how quickly one experience with the courts can turn people into a supporter of the public defender's office.


.
...
Anyone who believes that a 12yo can be morally capable of ANYTHING that would warrant life-long punishment is arguing way beyond the bounds of the rest of reasonable society.
...

[portion only quoted]

I do think it quite possible that a 12-year-old could do something that would warrant life-long protection of society from that 12-year-old, regardless of moral culpability or lack thereof. Just as there are adults who are genuinely insanely not morally responsible for their actions, but society deserves to be protected against them nonetheless.

Also, that said, I wouldn't want to rule out there ever being a 12-year-old sometime someplace capable of adult-level appreciation of the moral consequences of their actions at least to the extent we do so with adults now.

Some tangential thoughts, one is that "Dear Prudence" on Slate had a letter today (?) about someone whose husband had been convicted as a juvenile of having (consensual) sex with another juvenile and still couldn't get a job, house vandalized, their children victimized, etc. I do agree that when the best evidence shows measures don't genuinely protect the public they become excessively punitive (e.g. people who have to live under a bridge because every place else in the city is too close to a school or park etc.). That is, many people who aren't dangerous are I think excessively punished post-release in ways that don't protect the public, so I do agree with you to that extent. I just think that some people put too much emphasis on (some) people's lack or alleged lack of responsibility and not enough on protecting the public, the latter may require e.g. incarceration even if the person doesn't "deserve" punishment. Just like an illness may require quarantine even though the person is morally faultless for becoming ill.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I need to see the evidence before deciding

 

[colander]

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Oooooh. I just realized that you're from Brookfield. Now I get where your arguments come from.

Not that it matters, but I'm from the Philadelphia Main Line, lived in Berkeley for the past seven years, and have been residing in Brookfield since my flight from SFO arrived in Milwaukee this past Sunday night. I would have expected a lawyer to be a little more careful about jumping to specious conclusions, but I guess I was a little off base on that one.

Too bad you live in the same jurisdiction, huh? Next time you complain about how unfair the justice system is being to YOU please remember this post. You can't imagine how many people from Brookfield came through my office complaining about the justice system after voting for years to hamstring and undermine it. It's amazing how quickly one experience with the courts can turn people into a supporter of the public defender's office.

As amazing as it may sound, up to this point in my life, I have actually managed to avoid doing cocaine, molesting children, or anything else that would necessitate my use of a defense lawyer, public or otherwise. I do believe the same is true for most people. May I suggest to you that your job working with criminal offenders has perhaps caused you to perceive that they make up considerably more of the population than they actually do?

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I think this pretty much sums up all we need to know about your arguments.

Even if I had been from Brookfield, why in the world would that invalidate my arguments? That doesn't make any sense.

Anyone who believes that a 12yo can be morally capable of ANYTHING that would warrant life-long punishment is arguing way beyond the bounds of the rest of reasonable society.

It wasn't supposed to be life-long, was it? But I guess when the system assigns apathetic counsel to defendants who can't afford any better, some of them inevitably slip through the cracks.

Could you please explain why this 12yo boy was "guilty" of a crime requiring life-long consequences while his 11yo partner was not?

Are you advocating that every 14yo girl who becomes pregnant by a 13yo boy needs to be jailed for rape?

How about the 5yo boy I mentioned earlier who was charged with sexual assault for "playing doctor"? Would you be happy if your 5yo was charged as such for touching the rear of another kid during play? That case was also in your jurisdiction, btw, where the lack of decent counsel you were so dismissive of earlier would also apply to you. You ready to sell the house and empty your bank account in order to hire a legal team to defend your 5yo against sexual assault charges?

Gee, that's a tough one. I guess would probably do the same thing you would do if your five-year-old were raped by a coked-up assailant who escaped sex criminal convictions for similar past offenses because his public defender convinced a jury that he was a "good kid".

I understand from looking back at your other posts that you have strong personal feelings about sexual assault and like to speak out on it. I think that's great. More people need to do the same. I congratulate you for speaking your mind on your convictions.

But blindly applying criminal punishments and procedures to a kid that were intended for use with adults is not only pointless in deterring the bad behavior of other kids, it's also needless damaging to the kid and the system as a whole. There must be moderation and discretion applied in such cases - and that's why the law is written to allow for it.

Your one-size-fits-all-ages approach to sex offenses doesn't make sense for anybody involved.

Cheers,
Luke.

I think you're getting upset with the wrong person, friend.

 

[Mark6]

What does Brookfield have to do with anything?

 

[Cool Hand Luke]

Colander, I'm truly sorry for the anger that seems to pervade your life. Perhaps you can soemday find a way to escape it and achieve peace. In the meantime please try to remember that not everyone on the planet is as perfect and god-like as you.

Cheers,
Luke.

 

[epeeist]

Yeah, if you think case #2 has any relation to the case under discussion, your reading ability is sadly lacking. Yours is an appeal to ignorance.

And yours is an appeal to ad hominem insult rather than information or argument. If you had pointed out a single item in hypothetical case #2 which you believed was not present in the story linked to at the start of the thread, then notwithstanding disagreement this could have been a rational discussion.

"Case 2: this older teenager (but still a minor) e-mails real, private, intended only for the recipient boyfriend, sexually explicit photos of a minor teenager for the specific purpose of causing harm to that minor teenager = people leap to her defense."

I reread the article and it still appears accurate to me, every point in there (except for the leaping to her defense which is based more on what's in this thread) is in the story as reported (notwithstanding the Mark Twain quote: "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed." [analogous to the Web]).