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NEWS: Swedish Manga Translator's Child Porn Charges Overturned

Hooray for rational thought. It is nice to see some courts have some common sense

The Local, a Swedish news source, reported that the "pastel-colored pictures [showing] children in different states of undress" were displayed on large screens in the Supreme Court. While the court ruled that one of the images could be considered a depiction of child ponography for being "sufficiently realistic,"

voyeurism as well............

You would think we would have real exploiters to hunt down versus this.

Awesome. Now someone should let the King Ishihara to know about this.

You would think we would have real exploiters to hunt down versus this.

sharonlover wrote:

You would think we would have real exploiters to hunt down versus this.

It's easier for police to make an arrest and for prosecutors to prosecute possession-oriented offenses than exploitation than occurs behind closed doors. Possession is ongoing as opposed to happening in a matter of minutes, thereby giving police ample time to make their move rather than having to perform a stakeout. People who merely possess said thing are probably less dangerous than those who actively harm or exploit people, and police are like the rest of us in that they'd rather avoid those who might harm them. For prosecutors, there's no need for potentially unreliable witness testimony that can be picked apart by the defense. The jury only has to be convinced that the defendant possessed said thing, which is easier to get a guilty verdict on. They get to prove their "tough on crime" bona fides if they run for higher office with a successful legal career because they were able to get so many convictions.

At least in the United States, there are perverse logistical and even political incentives for such an intense focus on possession offenses as opposed to seeking out active person-to-person harm. Short of drug court (which only modifies the issue to issue a different penalty to the defendant), I do not see any real movement to fundamentally change that.

shamisen the great wrote:

Hooray for rational thought. It is nice to see some courts have some common sense

I'd call it logical and scientific rather than common sense, but I'm in agreement with you that it's a good thing the court ruled against censorship.

Brent Allison wrote:

sharonlover wrote: You would think we would have real exploiters to hunt down versus this. It's easier for police to make an arrest and for prosecutors to prosecute possession-oriented offenses than exploitation than occurs behind closed doors. Possession is ongoing as opposed to happening in a matter of minutes, thereby giving police ample time to make their move rather than having to perform a stakeout. People who merely possess said thing are probably less dangerous than those who actively harm or exploit people, and police are like the rest of us in that they'd rather avoid those who might harm them. For prosecutors, there's no need for potentially unreliable witness testimony that can be picked apart by the defense. The jury only has to be convinced that the defendant possessed said thing, which is easier to get a guilty verdict on. They get to prove their "tough on crime" bona fides if they run for higher office with a successful legal career because they were able to get so many convictions. At least in the United States, there are perverse logistical and even political incentives for such an intense focus on possession offenses as opposed to seeking out active person-to-person harm. Short of drug court (which only modifies the issue to issue a different penalty to the defendant), I do not see any real movement to fundamentally change that.

Possession-oriented are of course much easier to act upon. If you catch a guy with drugs, you charge him with drug possession right? And he can't get away from the charges (unless of course he is a really talented liar, and even then I doubt his chances of getting away from facing charges).

However, as harmless as these kinds of images can be, even if it would depict child pornography, the court decided to prosecute him, not only once but twice before being acquitted by the supreme court. Why was that?

We all know that these images are harmless to any living human being. I know it, you know it, the court knew it. But they decided to act upon it anyways. The reason for this is that in a recent documentary, they reported that only 5.8% of the crimes reported last year were solved. Not only that, but a lot more cases are dropped than actually solved. A penalty judgement on this case would make it SO MUCH easier to go after more of these "criminals", since as you said so yourself, Possession-oriented crimes are easier to judge. Imagine how many more of these you could sentence and fine? And the crime solving ratings would go way up for little Sweden, not to mention that the government would also earn money by fining each and every one of these.

This, judging to higher the ratings isn't just used inside court in Sweden by the way. The police actually have quotas for how many tickets they should give out each year to make the ratings look nice. And if you haven't filled your quotas of tickets served (or as they call it, "crimes solved"), get back out on the streets and charge people for the mistakes they make.

Or maybe this is just the beer talking and I am just pissed off that this case went this far......