Police
Back off on Plan to Take Explicit Photo
By
MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press
Police
in Virginia said Thursday that they no longer will pursue efforts to take
sexually explicit photos of a 17-year-old in an effort to prove a sexting case
against him.
Police
and prosecutors faced a wave of criticism following news media reports that
they had obtained a warrant to take photos of the teen's erect penis. Police
wanted the pictures to compare against photos he is accused of sending to his
15-year-old girlfriend at the time.
On
Thursday, Manassas Police Lt. Brian Larkin said the Police Department will not
proceed with the plan to take the pictures and will let a search warrant
authorizing the photos to expire.
Privacy
advocates had criticized the plan as a violation of the teen's constitutional
rights.
The
teen's aunt, who serves as his legal guardian, said she had not heard of the
police department's reversal until contacted by an Associated Press reporter
Thursday afternoon. She said she would be ecstatic if police follow through on
their statement that they will no longer pursue the photos. But she said she
won't be fully satisfied until the case against her nephew is dropped entirely.
The
aunt had sent her nephew to West Virginia, where he grew up, for the past
several weeks, fearful that police would show up to enforce the search warrant.
The teen's defense lawyers said authorities had explained that they intended to
take the teen to a hospital and chemically induce an erection to facilitate the
photographs.
The
Associated Press is not identifying the teen or the aunt in accordance with a
policy of not identifying juvenile suspects.
Manassas
Police Chief Douglas Keen posted a statement Thursday saying that "the
decision to pursue prosecution or not lies with the Commonwealth Attorney's
Office and not the Police Department."
Commonwealth's
Attorney Paul Ebert declined to comment on the case in detail, citing ethical
rules about discussion of pending cases outside the courtroom.
The
teen is charged in juvenile court with felony counts of possession and
manufacture of child pornography. The aunt maintains that the charges are
overblown and said the plan to pursue photos of her nephew in an aroused state
came about only after she and her nephew refused to accept a plea bargain that
had been offered.
Larkin
said he had no information on why the department no longer plans to pursue the
photos. On Wednesday night, the department issued a statement saying it was not
their policy "to authorize invasive search procedures of suspects in cases
of this nature" but made no definitive statements about whether they would
continue to pursue the photos that had been specifically authorized in the
search warrant.
Rebecca
Glenberg, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia,
said the pursuit of the photos would have raised serious constitutional
questions, compounded by the fact that the subject of the photos would have
been a minor and by the fact that authorities apparently intended to induce an
erection through a medical injection.
"People
have a constitutional right to control their bodies," said Glenberg, who
was unaware of any similar case.
The
aunt felt certain that the tidal wave of criticism against authorities is the
only reason police reversed course.
"They
would have gotten away with this. They were not going to back off," she
said.
Manassas
City Manager Patrick Pate acknowledged Thursday that the department and the
city had been fielding irate calls from across the country and internationally
after the story broke. He said the city was being portrayed unfairly, given the
fact that the photos were never actually taken. He also downplayed the
possibility that they would ever have been taken, even though he acknowledged
that a warrant authorizing them had been issued.
The
teen's lawyers did not immediately return calls seeking comment Thursday.
