Legal Commentary

An Adult Pretending To Be a Child Is Still an Adult

By TChris

A troubling trend that vexes those of us who believe the police should prevent or solve crimes, not manufacture them, is the detective sitting in a chat room posing as a 15 year old waiting to engage in salacious conversation with an adult. Courts have typically held that an adult who travels to meet the "15 year old" for a sexual encounter can be charged with attempted sexual assault of a minor, even though the defendant never chatted with a minor and no actual minor was ever at risk.

The Indiana Court of Appeals recently bucked that trend.

The court has ruled that two types of felony charges police had been using against sexual predators accused of luring underage victims via Internet "chat rooms" can't be leveled when the person at the other end of a "chat" is an undercover police officer, and not an actual child, The Indianapolis Star reported Sunday.

[more ...]

The dismissal of a charge of attempted sexual misconduct with a minor -- a Class B felony -- against a Shelbyville, Ind., man last week could mean new Internet child sex cases will lead to lighter sentences, prosecutors said.

"Lighter sentences" are appropriate when a chat room occupant makes a date with an adult police detective, not with a child. The law should recognize a distinction between attempted crimes that endanger real people and attempted crimes that are invited by the police.

[P]rosecutors are now relying on child solicitation charges, a Class C felony charge that applies as long as the defendant merely believes the intended victim is at least 14 and younger than 16.

Whether a mistaken belief about a chatter's age (when the belief is induced by a lying law enforcement officer) should lead to any form of criminal liability is questionable. Putting that question aside, it is reasonable to recognize, as Indiana now does (at least until the legislature closes this "loophole"), that people who don't put a child at risk deserve greater leniency than those who do.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 04, 2009 (boomark / email).