IA- Iowa court upholds 'sexting' conviction

9-19-2009 Iowa:

The Iowa Supreme Court upheld the misdemeanor conviction Friday of a teenager who sent a text message photo of his erect penis to a 14-year-old female classmate.

_____. was 18 when he sent the pictures of his penis and his face, with the words "I love you," in May 2005. The practice, known as "sexting," has triggered controversy in other parts of the country.

_____ and the girl both attended Perry High School and had known each other as friends for roughly a year, according to the ruling. The girl, identified by initials C.E., testified that she asked _____ to send the photo three or four times, as a joke, and not to excite any feelings.

The photo was later discovered by C.E.'s mother, who showed it to her husband, a former reserve police officer. Police charged _____ with knowingly disseminating obscene material to a minor.

"This should be a warning to young people who want to engage in this sort of conduct," said Theresa Wilson, _____'s court-appointed lawyer. "Even though it may be between friends, people can still be held responsible."

A Dallas County jury later convicted _____, and a judge granted him a deferred judgment with a $250 fine and one year of probation. _____ also was required to register as a sex offender.

He appealed his conviction, but the Iowa Supreme Court denied the claim because he had received a deferred judgment. _____ then violated his probation, which caused the deferred judgment to be revoked and required a 90-day jail sentence.

____ argued in his appeal that prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence to convict him, and claimed that his lawyer did not do an adequate job. He argued that the photo did not meet the legal definition of obscenity.

The high court rejected the claims. To qualify as obscene, photos must be "patently offensive" and appeal to a "prurient interest" with no serious literary, scientific, political or artistic value, Justice David Wiggins wrote.

The district court judge "effectively instructed the jury that mere nudity does not constitute obscenity," Wiggins wrote.

The decision to uphold _____'s conviction was unanimous except for Justices Michael Streit and David Baker, who did not participate in the case.

Bob Brammer, a spokesman for the state attorney general, said he was unaware of any other "sexting" appeals court cases in Iowa. In January, six high school students in Pennsylvania were arrested on child pornography charges after three teenage girls allegedly sent nude or half-nude photos of themselves to male classmates using cellphones.

_____, now 23, lives in Perry and is still listed on the state's Sex Offender Registry.

His conviction is a serious misdemeanor punishable by a fine between $315 and $1,875, and a maximum one-year prison sentence. ..Source.. by Grant Schulte