Can an adult distribute pornography made when they themselves were underage? My wife and I made a sex tape about seven years ago, at which time she may or may not have been underage. We just re-found it, and wondered whether it would be technically legal to show it to friends or even possess it ourselves, under United States law.
If she was underage at the time then the making, possession and distribution of the video is a crime irrespective of how old she is now. See https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/citizens-guide-us-federal-law-child-pornography
There is no law against a person creating and distributing such a poster, to the best of my knowledge. However such a poster pretty clearly implies that the person shown is guilty of a crime, or at least strongly suspected. If the store somehow made an error, pulling the image of a person who did not use the stolen card or there is some other error, the person pictured might well suffer a significant loss of reputation, and might sue for defamation. Damages could possibly be significant. Such suits have, I believe, happened when surveillance photos were posted but there later proved to have been an error. Mary might wish to double check how sure the store is that the photos are of the person who actually used the stolen card.
Per your comment responses, Maryland is a two party consent state which means that the other party must consent to your recording IF there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. In one's own home is generally considered a place where one has this expectation and thus these recordings are problematic. Depending what you intend to do with them, I would first contact a lawyer to get legal advice as to how to handle this before you publish them. If you are looking to file a criminal complaint (and assuming statute of limitations hasn't run out) the prosecutor may be willing to not prosecute you for violating 2 party consent law because you were trying to gather evidence of someone else's crime, but it's not a guarantee (though this will look bad on the prosecutor come election season). If you are suing your parents it might not be admissible as evidence but I can't specifically say that either. If you are using it to show other people in the same situation what to look for it's probably best to find another set of recordings as these ones carry a lot of legal issues that will come back to bite you if you release them. Finally, while not legal, your parents may not want to pursue the criminal recording side of this matter if they are aware of the &quot;Barbra Streisand effect,&quot; wherein actions taken to ensure something isn't viewed by the public cause that something to gain wider viewership than if they never bothered trying to censor it.
There are several elements working in your friend's favor. The first is "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." In an entrapment case, the police have recordings or documents claiming that the "girl" was underaged. If there is no such smoking gun from the (real) girl, the case (probably) would not be prosecuted in the U.S. He doesn't have to prove that she told him she was 18; "she" (or the police) has to prove that she told him she was "not." The second factor is "remoteness" in time, and distance. Two years after a U.S. state sent me a "nasty letter," I asked my lawyer if the state would ever come after me. He answered, "If they were going to do this, you would have heard further by now." The other factor, distance and cross border, (three countries: Turkey, the U.S., his home country) further militates against prosecution except for highly aggravating circumstances such as drug dealing, gambling, or sex for pay. A third factor is that your friend would not come close to qualifying as a "serious offender." This would be someone like a drug dealer, or the head of a "call girl" ring. The cops concentrate their effects on big "busts" like this that make their careers, not "small fry" like your friend. But of course they use the publicity from the big catches to scare everyone else. While there is no "guarantee" against "the worst possible consequences," the chances of them happening are similar to his getting hit by lightening, and less than his chances of being hit by a car crossing the street. No one stresses out about those chances. He shouldn't either. I am not a lawyer but I have done paralegal work in a law office.
In this specific case and location, the precise location of the incident was explicitly made a public space via state law not too long before this actual event. They therefore most certainly have no right to privacy. What is interesting to me though is the other side of this, does someone have the right to record others in public spaces, or is it simply not illegal? For instance if I non-destructively and non-violently "jam" your camera by shooting a low-power IR beam at your lens, have I abridged a legal right of yours? I don't think it would be illegal to do this. I am not even positive its against the 1st Amendment. The 1st Amendment relates only to the dissemination of information, not the collection of it. The Constitution doesn't seem to compel the gov't to make information available, or even to make things/events/spaces observable. The various "sunshine" laws after-all had to be enacted, it wasn't part of an interpretation of the 1st Amendment. To put a finer point on it, is recording events in public spaces legal or merely lawful?
Because in some jurisdictions it is While sexting underage subjects is pretty much a crime universally, sexting of anyone is illegal in many jurisdictions, For example, in most countries that follow Sharia law.
Laws vary by state, of course. In Wisconsin, according to the 1993 case State v. Neumann: the offense of second-degree sexual assault by sexual intercourse does not require proof of intent and therefore someone who claimed to be too drunk to know what he was doing was still guilty. Although that was a case involving adults and therefore a different statute, I think the statutes are similar enough to produce a similar result in a case involving a minor. But even though intent isn't required, according to the 2007 case State v. Lackershire she's still be not guilty in Wisconsin. It flat out says that: If the defendant was raped, the act of having sexual intercourse with a child does not constitute a crime. Additionally, in your case, there was a gun to her head. Under Wisconsin law, the woman could not be guilty of statutory rape, because of this law: 939.46 Coercion. (1) A threat by a person other than the actor's coconspirator which causes the actor reasonably to believe that his or her act is the only means of preventing imminent death or great bodily harm to the actor or another and which causes him or her so to act is a defense to a prosecution for any crime based on that act, except that if the prosecution is for first-degree intentional homicide, the degree of the crime is reduced to 2nd-degree intentional homicide. The paper you link to mentions several possible defenses like coercion, and how each defense is not applicable in some states. I don't think it ever clearly establishes that there is a state where there is no defense. The example you (and the paper) give occurred in Florida. I couldn't find an applicable statute in Florida law, but that appears to be because it's in common law instead of a statute. According to the 1981 Florida case Wright v. State: Florida has recognized the common law defense of duress as a defense to crimes other than homicide so I don't think the woman would have been guilty under Florida law, either. The paper states that she was in fear for her life and that of her daughters, and it is extremely apparent in hindsight that her fear was reasonable. I imagine that if the author was able to find an actual case where a victim was prosecuted under similar circumstances (or even one where the victim clearly could have been prosecuted under the law of that state) he would have used that case as his example instead. It seems that he couldn't... and that might tell you something. He probably used this example because it was sensational, but it doesn't seem that the woman was guilty under applicable law.
Jurisdiction: Ohio. What charges might this kid face? Let's deal with each individually. Possession of Child Pornography Based on the facts contained in your narrative, the suspect is guilty of possession of child pornography. Here is the relevant code statute. (2907.323 Illegal use of minor in nudity-oriented material or performance.) There might or might not be a problem with the admissibility of the evidence under the circumstances. This defect can be cured if the prosecution obtains a search warrant for the suspect's computer as possession alone meets the statutory threshold. Aggravated Robbery In Ohio, aggravated robbery is not a strict liability (i.e., statutory) crime. Therefore, mens rea (mental state) of the offender can be a legal defense. In this case, the suspect can argue duress as an exculpatory and/or mitigating factor. Here is the relevant code section. Murder As you pointed out in your narrative, the facts suggest the suspect killed in self-defense and, therefore, is not guilty of murder.