Posted on 05/09/2012 1:34:50 PM PDT by little jeremiah
In a controversial decision that is already sparking debate around the country, the New York Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday that viewing child pornography online is not a crime.
"The purposeful viewing of child pornography on the internet is now legal in New York," Senior Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick wrote in a majority decision for the court.
The decision came after Marist College professor James D. Kent was sentenced to prison in August 2009 after more than 100 images of child pornography were found on his computer's cache.
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(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
1. The legislature should have fixed this already.
2. Those who make, sell and distribute child porn should be executed. Of course, with the proper legal authority.
BTW you ain’t my conscience.
This judge did not "create" a loophole, this judge applied the laws as written by the legislature (which had left a gap).
Practically speaking, it's also not much of a loophole - it only applies where the sick freak (1) does not print, save, or otherwise do anything that may be construed as "possessing" the images, AND (2) does not know that web browsers save a cached version of files and images viewed. So, the sick freak would have to be someone with enough tech savvy to know how to find this garbage and to know that they should not save the file, but not know much of anything about web browsers. It's not a "loophole" that will work in many cases (of course, even one case is too many, so the legislature should fix this ASAP).
Oh for crying out loud, I’m not sticking up for the stuff and I ain’t prettying it up. I find it disgusting and abhorrent to a free society.
What is so hard to understand about this?
If some troll posts a child porn pic on FR and you happen on the thread before the mods catch it, you *will* have viewed that image and it *will* most likely be stored on your computer. Guess what...you are now “in possession” of child porn.
Do you not see the problem here?
Exactly. People read headlines and don’t read the rest. Infuriating.
Agreed, 100%. If there's one good thing that comes from this case, it's that there will be attention on the legislature's mistake, which should force the legislature to fix it. Better that attention come in a case like this (where the freak was also convicted of 141 other counts), than a case solely based on "cached" images (where the perv may have walked)
2. Those who make, sell and distribute child porn should be executed. Of course, with the proper legal authority.
Agreed, in principle. The only reason I hesitate to support the death penalty for people involved in child porn (and rapists, and other non-murdering criminals) is that it removes any incentive not to kill their victims. If someone is facing the death penalty for child porn, they'll be more likely to kill their victims, since they can't face any worse punishment than execution anyway, and killing the victim (and thus witness) makes it less likely they'd be caught.
BTW you ain’t my conscience.
I don't claim to be anyone's conscience. (hint)
Well it is, by sheer cold observation and logic. Sorry if you do not like those things.
The law would not have been a problem pre-internet (since anyone viewing a hard copy picture or video would have been in possession of the picture/video while viewing it), and my guess is that this relatively narrow issue had not come up before in internet child porn cases - either because the defendants saved or otherwise "possessed" the images, or because none of their lawyers was clever enough to find this loophole. Now that this case is in the news, I'm sure it will be fixed pretty quickly.
Every Law in England
From Robert Bolt’s play “A Man for All Seasons”, in which Thomas More talks with his ambitious underling, William Roper:
Roper: “So now you’d give the devil the benefit of law?”
More: “Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil?”
Roper: “I’d cut down every law in England to do that.”
More: “Oh, and when the last law was down, and the devil turned on you, where would you hide, Roper, all the laws being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast, man’s laws not God’s, and if you cut them down — and you’re just the man to do it — do you really think that you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?
“Yes, I’d give the devil the benefit of the law, for my own safety’s sake.”
-Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons
Exactly. You can also look to Frankfurter’s comment in his dissent in United States v Rabinowitz that “it is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.”
When you see a picture on a web browser (on your computer), it’s been downloaded to your computer.
You’ve “downloaded” many pictures that you’ve “never downloaded” ... :-)
Very well said.
It’s a side effect of the legal system. The average decent Joe or Jane on the street never gets a court case that can be pushed up to the appellate level for a binding precedent. What, every so often the police barge into the wrong place and then decent people might bring a case because they got hit? But criminal cases with unsavory people abound every day teeming in orders more of magnitude.
Anyhow, honoring law in cases like this is scarcely tantamount to winking at bad social problems like child sexual abuse.
We oughta compile a comprehensive list listing the things the viewing of online or off line should or should not be a crime.
You think it should not be a crime to look at child pornography and I am going off the deep end, or am I misunderstanding you?
It sucks when laws are poorly written, but I won't refrain from saying so just because some people will claim I nauseate them.
If viewing a web image was the same as "possession" or "procurement", then listening to a song in a youtube video would be considered "possessing" the song, and would open one up for prosecution under copyright infringement laws.
Clearly, I don't "take possession" of a song, or of a newspaper article, or of a book, or of a picture, simply because I see it on the internet -- any more than we would all be in "possession" of the images we see on a TV screen in Times Square.
If the legislature meant to say that "viewing" child pornography was illegal, that's what they need to write into the statute.
And I guess I am saying that, as abhorent as child pornography is, I think the risk of judges deciding to re-write laws because they feel something is horrible is a much graver risk than the risk to children based on this particular ruling. The children were harmed when the pornography was made, there are guilty people who need to be caught and convicted.
When this was first brought to my attention earlier today - even before it hit FR, I was jumped on for trying to tell others the judge was correct. Fortunately, in that case I prevailed and everyone finally realized what I was saying.
The opinion actually provides the simplest means of correcting the problem because that language can easily be incorporated into the current NY statute. Draft language will be on the desk of a state Senator in the morning, if not before.
As I said to those in the conversation, it would be political suicide for anyone to oppose it - even in NY.
And the bigger irony is, it does not look like anybody has actually skated through the loop hole, such as it was. It was only a technical defeat and the accused is being penalized no differently.
Perhaps legislators hesitated to fix it in advance of the decision for fear of making the courts more readily believe the old version was flawed, but even then by George something should have been in the NY Assembly’s pocket to whip out in such an event. Great kudos to Gabz and her friends for rushing into the gap, in any event, and doing things properly, even though this Chinese fire drill shouldn’t have been needed.
Keep that strawman factory a-cranking! You will totally lose your credibility.
I am merely asking Revolting cat for clarification. Because that’s what it sounds as though he meant. If he meant something else, he can tell me.
One thing I know for sure, I’ve seen you make very odd comments about the age of consent.
I suppose I have to respond now.
I don’t know, that’s why I proposed making a list. Why would mere looking at, or I as I understand it SEEING, something online be considered criminal?
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