Not Just Another Dumb Naked Kid
Simple Justice:
When the story of the 15 year old girl from Licking Valley High spread around the blawgosphere, it seemed like just another goofy story that we share for its shock value. I first saw it when Turley posted about it, where he commented:
This seems a lot like charging an attempted suicide as an attempted murder.
She may have to register as a sex offender, though it is unclear whether (as both the victim and the culprit) she would get victim notification reports about herself.
Other than to point out its absurdity, it was no more than a curiosity. But the full story from the Newark (Ohio)Advocate via Don’t Tase Me, Bro!, leads me to be more concerned. Not so much for the monumentally stupid and infantile act of a young girl publishing a nude photograph of herself to other youths, which is a matter for parents and a competent therapist to address over a lengthy period of time, but for the reaction of this Ohio legislator:
State Rep. Jay Hottinger, R-Newark, wrote the state’s Megan’s Law bill, the predecessor of the Adam Walsh Act, and said this case was not something the legislature envisioned.
“Clearly it was in an illegal act,” he said Tuesday. “Clearly it was an unacceptable act, and there needs to be consequences from that, but we need to make sure the punishment is a reasonable punishment.”
One the one hand, Hottinger says this was not the conduct the legislature had in mind when it enacted the law, yet on the other hand he states that it was clearly “an illegal act” that requires punishment. Oh no you do-on’t.
Raising two independent problems, and two problems that create a synergistic third, this can’t be ignored. First, the failure of legislation to be sufficiently clear as to encompass only those acts…