Eideard

Ken Kratz hard at work defending Wisconsin standards

If a Wisconsin prosecutor’s constituents want him punished for sending sexually suggestive text messages to the victim in a domestic abuse case he was trying, they may have to wait until they can do it themselves — at the polls in two years.

Calumet County District Attorney Ken Kratz called the woman ”a hot, young nymph” and tried to spark a relationship in messages that became publicly known Wednesday through a police report obtained by The Associated Press. On Thursday, a top domestic violence expert and a legislator called on Kratz to resign, and a statewide advocacy group said his actions were unacceptable and had compromised his ability to serve…

The Republican prosecutor in rural eastern Wisconsin doesn’t face re-election until 2012, and appears likely to escape formal punishment. State legal regulators have already found that his actions did not technically amount to misconduct. The state crime victims’ rights board, which Kratz chaired until state officials learned of the texts, isn’t investigating. And Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, who has the power to seek to remove district attorneys for cause, has been mum on the case.

On Wednesday, Kratz, 50, acknowledged sending 30 text messages to the 26-year-old woman while he was the prosecutor on her case last October. He asked in one whether she’s “the kind of girl that likes secret contact with an older married elected DA…”

The complaint was referred to the Wisconsin Department of Justice. In an e-mail to Kratz, the administrator of the department’s division of legal services, Kevin Potter, rejected his claim that his messages were not sexual and said they could be construed as sexual harassment.

”Telling her several times she is ‘hot’ or referring to her as ‘tall, young hot nymph’ certainly has sexual overtones as do your comments that ‘You are beautiful and would make a great young partner one day’ or ‘I would want you to be so hot and treat me so well that you’d be THE woman! R U that good?”’ Potter wrote.

Has the American public grown so accustomed to self-serving, sleazy politicians that they will return this creep to office? Have both of our TweedleDeeDum parties spent so much time rationalizing away the abusive uses of executive power they don’t even consider removing a thug like this from office?

Both Republicans and Democrats seem to be working as hard as possible to avoid any responsibility to ethical standards, the electorate – or the young woman in the case.

A teenage girl who appeared topless in a “sexting” cell phone picture that was distributed among her middle-school classmates should face child-pornography charges so argues a Pennsylvania prosecutor before a U.S. appellate court.

In the first U.S. case to test the constitutional status of “sexting,” the American Civil Liberties Union countered that the incident does not come close to meeting the definition of child pornography which typically depicts graphic sexual acts with minors and is done for commercial gain.

The ACLU also said the Wyoming County prosecutor erred when he threatened 16 teenagers with the felony charges unless they agreed to a participate in a “re-education” course on why sexting was wrong…

Pictures showed two of the girls wearing white bras and another standing topless outside a shower with a towel wrapped around her waist, the ACLU said. The pictures did not show any sexual activity…

But the county argued that the pictures were pornographic because they were disseminated for the purposes of sexual stimulation and so would be of great interest to child molesters.

Appellate Judge Thomas Ambro said prosecutors are not entitled to try to “re-educate” minors. “I don’t know of anything that allows the district attorney’s office to play the role of teacher,” he said.

Courts and politicians that concern themselves with morality should wend their way into non-existence. Such courts have no place in a modern, educated nation.

Adjudicating harm and damages, crimes and misdemeanors, is tough enough. Presuming religious sway over behavior is a couple centuries out of place.

Plainfield police said they have seized nine cell phones after a 16-year-old high school honors student took a nude photograph of herself and sent it to a male student.

The picture quickly went viral on campus, and a Plainfield East High School official contacted authorities last week, prompting what police are calling their largest-ever sexting investigation. In one sign of how quickly the photo spread, some of the original senders told police they had received it from other people last week, according to court documents.

Viewing the photograph and forwarding it are technically violations of child pornography statutes, though police and the Will County state’s attorney’s office say they typically handle such cases through juvenile probation. No one has been charged…

It’s not clear how many of Plainfield East’s roughly 1,300 students received or forwarded the photo, but it could easily number in the hundreds, police said…

Nine cell phones — including two that were already found to contain the photo — have been turned over to computer forensic specialists at the Will County Sheriff’s Department.

A school district spokesman declined to comment Wednesday, citing student privacy concerns. School board Vice President Roger Bonuchi said only that parents should warn their children against “doing immoral acts.”

Lots of interesting questions about freedom for teenagers. Stupidity certainly is a component.

Have to wonder how many members of the Plainfield PD now have copies of the photo on their own cellphones, eh?

One in five US teenagers admit to sexting. It may seem like harmless fun to a 15-year-old wanting to impress their new boyfriend or girlfriend. But the practice of sexting – sending nude or semi-nude images of oneself to others via mobile phones – is having unintended and, in some cases, tragic consequences.

The risk of having one’s private pictures distributed among schoolmates or uploaded on to social-networking websites is only one part of it. It could also lead to a criminal conviction as a sex offender for any teenager who forwards them on to someone else.

Sending or distributing explicit photos of a child under 18 is, in many countries, illegal. It is also illegal to send such photos to a minor – even if both parties consent to it.

A spate of cases in the United States has seen several “sexting” teenagers arrested on charges of child pornography – alarming parents, school officials, police and prosecutors. It has led people to ask whether threatening children with the same law that was drawn up to protect them – and potentially creating many more sex offenders – is the best way to tackle the phenomenon of “sexting”?

But Witold Walczak, legal director for ACLU in Pennsylvania who is fighting one such case on behalf of the pupils, said, “Child porn is about the abuse and exploitation of minors by adults. That’s not happening here,” he said.

Is it beyond comprehension to suggest we have standards for prosecutors and judges that involve common sense? These nutballs are getting ready to run for office as head of the Spanish Inquisition. Or the nearest equivalent in square America.

Laws written for the purpose of halting the exploitation of childrem haven’t a damned thing to do with sexting. Period. Stupidity maybe; but, not crime.