{"id":183182,"date":"2015-02-03T20:43:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-04T01:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/02\/03\/floriduh\/"},"modified":"2015-02-03T20:43:00","modified_gmt":"2015-02-04T01:43:00","slug":"floriduh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/02\/03\/floriduh\/","title":{"rendered":"Floriduh!"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Leg passed a law banning juvenile sexting, and it appears that in so doing, they effectively legalized sexting<\/a>:<\/div>\n

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\u2019s fine representatives inadvertently banned all computers and smartphones<\/a>? Or the time the legislature unintentionally outlawed sex<\/a>? Now, however, the Sunshine State\u2019s legislators may have outdone themselves: In an effort to outlaw sexting between teenagers, Florida accidentally legalized it<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the sorry story of the state\u2019s latest legal mishap: In 2011, the legislature passed a \u201csexting\u201d statute barring minors from sending images of nudity (their own or somebody else\u2019s) 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. <\/p>\n

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 \u201cbored.\u201d But the state quickly ran into a problem: Florida law doesn\u2019t give any court jurisdiction of civil infractions by juveniles\u2014as opposed to criminal infractions\u2014and the sexting statute doesn\u2019t 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<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The upshot of this misadventure in statute-drafting is that Florida\u2019s sexting law is completely unenforceable. Thanks to the statute\u2019s 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\u2014and because no court can hear civil cases involving minors\u2014it 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\u2014even sexting images of a minor\u2019s nude body\u2014is now functionally legal in Florida. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, the bigger picture, that Florida wanted to make this a crime for a child to send pix of their own naughty bits, and in some cases, make it a felony, is the really stupid part.<\/p>\n

Seriously. <\/p>\n

Isn’t there already enough overcrowding in prisons without criminalize victimless teen stupidity? <\/p>\n

H\/t Tech Dirt<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Leg passed a law banning juvenile sexting, and it appears that in so doing, they effectively legalized sexting: 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\u2019s fine representatives inadvertently banned all computers and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[972,1020,1124,1075,982,1025],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-justice","category-legislation","category-photographs","category-sex","category-stupid","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183182"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}