When a person is accused of a crime, the police officers and prosecutors who are working on the case will usually try to do whatever they can to get the evidence they need to get a conviction. In a recent case in Virginia, it seems as though the officials working on the case were willing to go to unusual lengths to get the information they thought they needed.
The case involves a juvenile crime in which a 17-year-old boy is accused of sexting a 15-year-old girl who was his girlfriend at the time. The boy is charged with possession and manufacture of child pornography in the case.
The prosecutors and police officers involved in the case obtained a warrant that would allow them to take pictures of the teen boy’s erect penis so they could compare those pictures to the ones he allegedly sent to his girlfriend. After the public scrutiny and criticism, an official with the police department says that they will allow the warrant that authorizes those explicit photos to expire.
The teen boy’s legal guarding sent him out of state because she feared that the warrant would be executed. Under the warrant, the teen would have been taken to a hospital to have an erection chemically induced so the pictures could be taken.
It is important for individuals who are facing criminal charges to understand their rights. In this case, the teen’s right to privacy seems to have been on the verge of being violated for the sake of prosecuting him. Fortunately, the public outcry seems to have made the authorities rethink their unusual request.
Source: Source: Philly.com, “Police back off on plan to take explicit photo,” Matthew Barakat, July 10, 2014
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