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Pocono News Section
Sexting Case Thrown Out
Sexting Case Thrown Out - Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 04:01AM EST
Reported by: Joe Holden
Thursday March 18 2010
TUNKHANNOCK, WYOMING COUNTY -- Former Wyoming County D. A. George Skumanick said he was trying to be a nice guy.
In October, 2008 his office was called in to investigate sexting at Tunkhannock Area High School. Instead of being arrested and prosecuted, he instructed a number of students attend educational classes for texting semi-nude photos.
A panel of federal judges on Wednesday released an opinion saying Skumanick was wrong because he threatened prosecution if the teens didn't attend those educational classes, and that was a violation of the teen's constitutional rights.
Skumanick wasn't available to speak with us on camera. Over the phone, he told us it's highly unusual for the courts to intervene in this way, saying, "It's not the federal court's job. They're not there to be a super magistrate."
"They're short-circuiting the system," Skumanick told us in an interview last year. "Allowing this creates a dangerous precedent that frankly tells people if you go out and commit a crime, you can run to the federal courthouse, file an injunction against any prosecutor saying don't arrest me because it's going to affect my constitutional rights."
The ACLU has previously said Skumanick overstepped his bounds. But did he?
Police arrested Scott Swanson of Georgia for allegedly contacting one of the Tunkhannock area teens after he received her partly-nude photo. And prosecutors used that case to show the obvious dangers of sexting, when the photos fall into the wrong hands.
In addition to this case, the appealate court declined to wade into the discussion, is sexting pornography? | | |
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