The Florida Legislature Accidentally Legalized Sexting Among Teens

[n2doc]

The Florida legislature is commonly considered to be one of the stupidest law-making bodies in the United States, and for good reason. Who can forget the time the state’s fine representatives inadvertently banned all computers and smartphones? Or the time the legislature unintentionally outlawed sex? Now, however, the Sunshine State’s legislators may have outdone themselves: In an effort to outlaw sexting between teenagers, Florida accidentally legalized it.

Here’s the sorry story of the state’s latest legal mishap: In 2011, the legislature passed a “sexting” statute barring minors from sending images of nudity (their own or somebody else’s) to other minors. The first offense would qualify as only a civil infraction; minors who violated the law would merely have to perform court-ordered community service or pay a $60 fine. The second and third offenses, however, would qualify as misdemeanors, while the fourth offense would qualify as a felony.

Under this law, Florida prosecutors thought they had a slam-dunk case when they brought charges against a minor who texted a picture of her own vagina to a classmate because she was “bored.” But the state quickly ran into a problem: Florida law doesn’t give any court jurisdiction of civil infractions by juveniles—as opposed to criminal infractions—and the sexting statute doesn’t grant any court this kind of jurisdiction. Accordingly, no court in the state currently has legal authority to hear a case involving minors sexting. The prosecutors attempting to prosecute the sexting teen got their case thrown out of court, a decision an appeals court later affirmed.

The upshot of this misadventure in statute-drafting is that Florida’s sexting law is completely unenforceable. Thanks to the statute’s layered structure, the more serious penalties for sexting can only come after a minor has been convicted of his first offense. But because that first offense is a civil infraction—and because no court can hear civil cases involving minors—it is legally impossible for any minor to be charged with that first offense. As a result, there simply cannot be a second, third, or fourth offense. Sexting between teens—even sexting images of a minor’s nude body—is now functionally legal in Florida.

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http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/02/02/florida_teenagers_can_sext_with_legal_impunity_thanks_to_stupid_legislature.html

[NV Whino]

1. Yay, Florida!

[Pacifist Patriot]

2. The gerrymandered Republican supermajority strikes again.

[hunter]

3. This is a very disturbing law, whether it's enforceable or not.

How does law enforcement and court exposure of teen-teen sexting improve in any way the lives of the minors caught doing it?

As a responsible adult you do your best to inform teenagers about the risks of sexting, but I know as the parent of children who were once teenagers, that I'd have been furious if law enforcement or even school administration had ever demanded inspection of their cell phones or computers. As a parent I respected my kids' privacy too.

The only exception I can think of would be if an adult sexual predator was involved.

Raising teens is a delicate process, like tip-toeing through a minefield sometimes. You want them to be safe, but you can't lock them up in a cage.