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In October 2008, officials in the Tunkhannock School District in northeastern Pennsylvania discovered photographs of semi-nude and nude teenage girls on cell phones that had been confiscated. Many of these girls were students in the district. It was obvious that male students had been trading these images over their phones.
Administrators turned the phones over to George Skumanick, the county's district attorney. In a November 2008 assembly at the district's high school, Skumanick warned that students who possess inappropriate images of minors are subject to prosecution under a Pennsylvania child pornography law. He explained that these charges were felonies subject to long prison terms and, even for juveniles, a permanent criminal record.
In early February 2009, Skumanick sent letters to the parents of about 20 Tunkhannock students who either owned the confiscated phones or were the girls in the photos. The letter informed the parents that their child had been "identified in a police investigation involving the possession and/or dissemination of child pornography." Skumanick promised in the letter that he would drop the charges if the child successfully completed a six- to nine-month education and counseling program. Warning that "charges will be filed against those that do not participate or . . . successfully complete the program," he ended the letter with an invitation to a February 12 meeting at the county courthouse.
At the scheduled meeting, Skumanick reiterated his threat of prosecution, explaining that the required counseling program would cost each student $100. A parent asked whether his daughter, who was wearing a bathing suit in one of the photos, was subject to child pornography charges. Skumanick answered that it was child pornography because she had posed "provocatively." When another parent asked him to explain his determination of...