had him wearing shackles when they brought him in. he just looked so little. i just kept thinking the little boy that he was in kindergarten. how did it feel to see your son like that? it was terrifying. i m supposed to be there to protect him, keep him safe, and, you know, there s nothing you can do if someone is taking your 14-year-old child away from you. because blake was a minor sending sexual photos of himself was a crime. distribution of child pornography, creating and sharing images of sexual children has long been illegal. but laws in place to protect kids can also ensnare them. blake was being charged with distributing child pornography, but they re photos of himself. correct. but our understanding is that the child pornography laws were written with something entirely different in mind.
correct. but our understanding is that child pornography laws were written with something entirely different in mind. i don t want to discount what he did. but he was just a kid. we could not believe it. blake was sentenced to ten years on a juvenile sex offender registry along with nearly 100 other young offenders. in minnesota the list of lower level offenders is only accessible to law enforcement. but the protection has its limits. for the next decade, until he s 25, blake may be required to share his status on future job and housing applications. and with his peers. does the future seem scary to you at all? a little bit, yeah. i have never had a girlfriend. it would be nice to have one.
pornography but they re photos of himself. right. but the child pornography laws were written with something entirely different in mind. i don t want to discount what he did. but it was just a kid. we could not believe it. blake was sentenced to ten years on a juvenile sexual offender registry along with nearly 100 other young offenders. in minnesota the list of lower level offenders is only accessible to law enforcement. but the protection has its limits. for the next decade, until he s 25, blake may be required to share his status on future job and housing applications. and with his peers. does the future seem scary to you at all? a little bit, yeah. i have never had a girlfriend. it would be nice to have one.
that s the way that certainly the defense has portrayed it. you have to understand the police department, they re not putting out too much information. they did say this started with a 15-year-old girl and with a 17-year-old. they re not obviously putting any names out there. but they say it happened that the boy, trey simms, was sending these text messages and they say that they told him repeatedly to stop sending them, but that s of course their portrayal of it. stacy bigley, david culver, thanks very much. thank you. this story seems extreme. it is. it s actually part of a way bigger trend. the prosecution of sexting by minors and use of, in some cases, child pornography laws to prosecute teens engaging in consensual behavior. it s happening all around us. we ll talk about it, ahead.
different direction by creating statutes that move sexting into a different category and allow for teens to be rehabilitated or educated in a way that could prevent this from happening. this is an important point. so there are states that have created sexting laws as a way of not using child pornography laws so that a teen who s guilty of sending an image of themselves can t be prosecuted under child pornography laws but would be prosecuted under presumably much less harsh sexting laws? absolutely. i think they recognize this is a real problem. you can be labeled as a sex offender for potentially the rest of your life but also maybe up to 15 years. for kids who are 16, 17 years old, that s a long time. i think people recognize that that punishment may not fit the crime. and so they re looking at other avenues to find ways to teach kids about what they re not supposed to do. and the severity of passing along images that are sexually explicit in nature to people under the age of 18.