Posted on 09/19/2002 2:24:51 PM PDT by chance33_98
Filming Up Women's Skirts Is Legal In Washington Men Arrested For Shooting Up Women's Skirts
POSTED: 3:38 p.m. EDT September 19, 2002
OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Photographing or videotaping up a woman's skirt in a public place doesn't violate Washington state's voyeurism law.
That's the ruling from state Supreme Court Thursday. The case involved two men arrested for shooting up women's skirts without their permission.
One case was at a mall in Union Gap in 1999, the other at the Bite of Seattle in 2000.
In a unanimous ruling, the court found that the voyeurism law only protects people in places where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Justice Bobbe Bridge called the behavior of Sean Glas and Richard Sorrells "disgusting and reprehensible" but said it's not illegal.
Judges (at least the good ones) don't write the law, they interpret it. You would have to carefully read the statute and it's legislative history in order to have an informed opinion as to whether the Court's interpretation was "dumb".
The last thing I want is an a court of appeals to "think out of the box." I want them strictly confined to the laws and the Constitution as written, and not to issue opinions that seem right according to their own feelings or prejudices.
Now, I find that quite odd.
A poster by the name of "Little Bush" stating that men should be hung!
Thank you for your voice of sanity. It's entirely possible, strange as it may seem, that this decision is correct. If, as I suspect, it is correct there's an obvious message to the State Legislature. Meantime, Wondevixen's roll of coins might be useful.
If a female is wearing a skirt, she should have NO expectation of privacy if there are innocent ways of having other people's eyes positioned directly below her - such as on an unenclosed flight of stairs, for example. If she is next to the end of the stair treads, anyone on the flight below her can look all the way up to Toledo.
Non-enclosed flights of stairs are fave locales for the perverts who shoot these "upskirt" stills and movies. Most skirt-wearing women probably don't realize the number of situations they can be in where the skirts they're wearing don't afford privacy. Even a short skirt on a gal climbing a flight of stairs will afford a view to those behind her due to the elevation difference.
If someone makes themselves visible - wittingly or unwittingly - it isn't a crime to view what one is displaying.
Michael
It is certainly reasonable to expect that one will not be subject to cameras looking under one's skirts.
Give me an answer, do.
Paul
And hopefully that what the judge's did.
However the problem arises on many ocassions on how the stautue is written.
Perhaps this stautue needs to be amended
They already have cameras on the street corners in many Seattle suburbs. Now they can use tax dollars to install cameras in the sidewalks and create the latest "reality" TV show. Go left-coast go....straight into Big Brother's hands.
ROTFL!!
And Ray-Ray and Boo and Pookie 'nem.
By the way, how're yo mamma'n'em?
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