US: North Carolina teen prosecuted for own nude photos

A North Carolina teenager has been prosecuted for possessing naked images of himself in a case which has been derided by criminal justice experts.

Cormega Copening, 17, faced four charges related to two naked pictures of himself which were taken by him when he was 16 and a minor.

A fifth charge related to the possession of a naked photo of his girlfriend, Brianna Denson, who was also 16 at the time and a minor.

Mr Copening has now accepted a plea deal to avoid prison time for the offences.

District Court Judge April Smith sentenced Mr Copening to a year of probation during which he must stay in school, take a class on making good decisions, complete 30 hours of community service, not use or possess alcohol or illegal drugs, not possess a mobile phone, and must submit to warrantless searches.

Ms Denson, who faced two charges for making and possessing the nude photo of herself, accepted a comparable plea deal in July. Both teenagers’ records will be wiped clean if they keep to the terms of their probation.

Justin Patchin, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Washington, told The Guardian that the charges were “dysfunctional”.

He added: “Kids should not be charged for that … You don’t want kids to be sending such pictures to their significant others, but I don’t think it should be a criminal offense where there is no victim.”

Fred Lane, an NY-based computer security and privacy expert, also told the newspaper: “It’s ludicrous. It’s crazy. It’s an overreach.

“This goes back to the supreme court making child pornography unconstitutional in 1983 and each state legislating in line with that for the public good – in order to protect children from adults producing, possessing or distributing nude images of them.

“But that was before anyone thought kids would be making and sending nude photos of themselves with publicly available digital technology.”

However, District Attorney Billy West defended the decision to prosecute the teens, telling the Fayetteville Observer: “The legislature has obviously criminalised the conduct, arguably at a more serious level than we resolved the case at.

“Seemingly it would be that they did not think it was good public policy for these young people to be exchanging these sort of photographs with their phone.”

He added: “The legislature makes the law; I enforce it.”