WASHINGTON — The notices arrive almost every day. They tell a young woman named Amy, as she is called in court papers, that someone has been charged with possessing child pornography. She was the child.
“It is hard to describe what it feels like to know that at any moment, anywhere, someone is looking at pictures of me as a little girl being abused by my uncle and is getting some kind of sick enjoyment from it,” Amy, then 19, wrote in a 2008 victim impact statement. “It’s like I am being abused over and over and over again.” Full Article
What has happened to Amy is truly terrible, but justice isn’t being served by forcing a man who viewed what happened to bear the total cost of Amy’s expenses. Law enforcement needs to devote their resources upon stopping any further distribution of pornographic images of Amy. It is the distribution that is causing additional harm to Amy and others like her who have been harmed.
After reading the article I cant help but to feel that “AMY” will never be able to put this behind her and get on with her life as long as she allows herself to be used by the courts in this way. She, in all likelihood will come to rely on people being forced to “give” her money, that is if she hasn’t already become dependent on this. The article also makes me wonder why not very many other “crimes” require payment from the defendant. After reading about the Roman Polanski case I have to wonder just how many of… Read more »
I think this is a very interesting issue from the standpoint of damages. There are two categories of damages: economic and non-economic. Economic damages are actual, verifiable damages that you can calculate. Non-economic damages are punitive damages and other such things that are far more difficult to calculate. In this case, if I am reading this correctly, all of the $3.4 million in damages are economic damages which include the costs of attorneys and a lifetime of therapy. I don’t know about the laws in other states, but in California, the economic damages are apportioned under “joint and several” which… Read more »
This young woman can opt out of notification. Then she won’t have to feel like she is being abused over and over again.
Seems like the uncle who was the actual abuser got off pretty easy.
These “notifications” are nonsense. What a way to keep the victim-hood going. It is also nonsense to give victims money from people who have done no more than view the photos or videos of the abuse. If it were not nonsense, then anyone viewing a video of me being illegally beaten by law enforcement would be obligated to give me money. It’s ridiculous. As another example, why is it not even illegal to watch a video of someone committing the crime of murdering someone? And surely the victim in that case should be paid by all viewers. Forcing viewers of… Read more »
Good point… an example: currently, the trial du jour in Orange County (the OCDA being the king of RSO ordinances) is the Kelly Thomas trial, the prosecution of two police officers who beat to death an unarmed, mentally unstable man. Why not all 6 officers involved are not charged with nothing less than murder puzzles me but is beside the point. It is fairly obvious that the main / only reason that the DA is prosecuting this crime is the availability of graphic photos of the victim and videos of the attack, and the resulting public outcry from the recordings.… Read more »
There are two important areas of consideration here,in my opinion. One is that there is no way of telling what is in the mind of someone, who views an image. the best illustration of that is the fact that authorities, tasked with the job, view these images thousands of times over, as they gather evidence to prosecute. what culpability do they have? Are they presumed to be looking at these images clinically, and if so, that is a big assumption. Also, according to recent research, and studies which have been submitted to the DOJ, and Federal Sentencing Commission with regard… Read more »