Hard time for flirting

In Farmington, Utah, junior high and high school kids have been using the camera functions on their phones to take nude pictures of themselves that they then show to their friends. This perfect intersection of technology and the teenage sex drive will elicit little more than a sigh of resignation from anybody who remembers their own adolescence -- well, except for Davis County prosecutors, that is. Law enforcement authorities there have arrested the "offending" teens, charged them with misdemeanors and sent them into the juvenile justice system to face "fines, community service or behavior classes." For taking pictures of their own bodies.

Oh yeah -- and prosecutors are congratulating themselves on their leniency.

[Davis County Attorney Troy] Rawlings described the majority of the teens as good kids who do well in school and who aren’t the type to defy the law. Many didn’t realize that what they were doing is illegal, he said.

He explained that while the actions of the teens matched felony charges more closely than misdemeanors, his office wanted to send a message to not be unduly harsh. So they used “a bit of legal fiction” to match the acts to the crime of lewdness rather than the crime of distributing child pornography.

Well, I suppose that a legal minor showing a naked photo of herself to her boyfriend could constitute "distributing child pornography" -- if you're completely insane.

I know that it's entirely too late in the game to hope for anything resembling common sense and restraint to emerge from a prosecutor's office. But here's a small suggestion to those legal eagles standing between us and the villainous hordes who threaten decent society: Maybe flirtatious snapshots really shouldn't be a criminal matter.