Routh’s son arrested for possession of child pornography
They searched the computers and other devices of Oran Routh, the son of would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh, and found hundreds of examples of child pornography. As a result, Oran Routh has been charged with receipt of and possession of child pornography.
I have some reservations about this. The search was of course initially in connection with his father’s assassination attempt, but at this point it’s hard to trust the authorities to be on the up and up; did they plant evidence for some reason? Nevertheless, my strong suspicion is that Oran Routh really has been a consumer of child pornography.
So my second reservation has to do with the harsh penalties for “mere” possession. I’m just not sure what penalties are appropriate for possessors. On the other hand, people who make or distribute or are connected with the making or distribution of child porn should have the book thrown at them. Child pornography is a huge scourge. And those who sexually abuse or molest children: likewise. Penalties should be great.
But the crime of possession of child pornography involves the downloading of the images created by the pornographers. The consumer gets off on these images, and that’s extremely creepy. In addition, it may or may not be a gateway to sexual exploitation by that person of children whom he (or she, but it’s overwhelmingly men) encounters in the real world, and if such abuse does occur, the penalties should be harsh. But what of those whose direct exploitation of children remains in the world of fantasy and imagery only?
The argument for strong punishment for such people is that, by looking at the photos or videos, they re-exploit the child and they also support and therefore encourage the business of those who make the pornography. These arguments have validity. I think possessors of child pornography should therefore be punished, but how much? That’s where I’m uncertain. The average sentence for possession seems to be 70 months. That’s about six years, although like most offenders, those sentenced for this crime often don’t serve their full terms.
Is this a fair penalty? Do the offenders get any treatment? Does treatment even work for this particular activity? Do the penalties have a deterrent effect? When someone with this particular perversion is in the privacy of his home and thinking about downloading child porn, does he even realize that this is a crime with harsh penalties? I think most people are well aware that the making or selling of such material is a terrible crime that directly involves the actual abuse of an actual child. But is there general awareness of the extent of the penalties for possession? And does that knowledge stop people from taking the risk? And should that lack of knowledge matter at all in terms of sentencing? Probably not.
I think almost everyone is aware that participating in child pornography in any way is wrong, however, although there are people who try to excuse it and normalize it. Same for child sexual abuse. Neither phenomenon is new, but like many things in society these days, the problems have been exacerbated, and the practices facilitated, by the computer. Things that were difficult and required special efforts to pursue – like child pornography – are now ridiculously simple to obtain online.
What’s more – and this is a different but related topic – children are getting access to adult porn online, and that is very dangerous as well. They are not at all ready for the intense experience, and to compound the problem much adult porn today involves violence against women. I have been impressed by the number of young girls identifying as trans in early adolescence who say that they began to feel that way as a reaction to seeing violence against women in online porn. That had become their perception of adult sex, since they had no actual experience of sex in the real world (or they themselves had been abused as children). In response, they developed a strong desire to escape their female identity, because that seemed to be the only way to avoid being the object of sexual violence.
I think it’s “reasonable” to wonder if this evidence was planted on the son in order to have leverage over the father. Many have wondered where the father got the money to travel and how he knew Trump’s schedule. They can promise leniency for the son as a means of ensuring the father’s silence on the matter, as simply “Epsteining” him would look a bit too suspicious.
So my second reservation has to do with the harsh penalties for “mere” possession.
Where I live the sentences are often months only. For first offenders, often no jail time is imposed.
I think possessors of child pornography should therefore be punished, but how much?
Enough to be meaningful, and a deterrent to the perp and others. Let’s not “define deviancy down.”
An interesting theory, sythan, and I don’t discount it. I certainly don’t trust federal law enforcement at this point.
Why did they arrest rapper Sean Combs at this time? So many Democrat connections, and it would have hurt less after a Kamala win.
On Neo’s question, in the case of child pornography, it’s my understanding that people buy these images, not just look at them for free. If they purchase them, they are contributing to the business of abusing children for profit. I agree that the people who produce them by actually abusing children are more culpable than the image purchasers.
What’s the cyber equivalent of a throw-down bag of weed? It would be a bad idea trust any evidence coming from a computer which has been In the prosecutor’s control.
Geez…neo covered a lot in this one.
Was the search conducted in Ryan’s home or in Oran’s? Not sure how it works if they searched Oran’s room in Ryan’s home, but would assume all rooms could be searched. Oran’s home should not have been searched, if that’s the case.
Planting evidence – I seriously doubt it in a case like this, and doubt it would be child pornography. Oran has that look about him…as does Ryan, but looks can be deceiving (more on that in a moment…).
Possession of Child Porn. Sexually exploiting a Child is about as bad of a crime that anyone can commit. Prisoners hate Child Abusers. Queers like to get young boys—even tho they’ll deny it. Possession of such porn is a step beyond their desires, and one step closer to finding a Child to sexually abuse. “70 months” is almost 6-years, cut in half for good behavior is about 30-36 months. Seems light to me, but I consider sexually abusing a Child (NOT some 13-14 year old woman) more of a crime than murder, rape, or armed robbery.
• NOTE 1: Child becomes a young adult in one of the later stages of puberty…
• NOTE 2: Females sexually abusing young males in any stage of puberty should not be a crime.
Treatment. We’re beyond mere possession at this point. Life in prison without parole is the only treatment that works…maybe voluntary castration earns an earlier release.
Had a cellmate who had been a fireman in south Florida – never liked him. One day a Freeman (my work supervisor) let it slip that this cellmate had sexually abused both of his sons. JEEZ!?!?!?!
Had a black friend a few cells down in a two-tiered cell block. Told him about it, and had him come for a visit to my cell later—which he often did, and ask my cellmate ‘if it’s true that he sexually abused his sons’. That was nearing the last I saw of that cellmate—shocked & fearful look on his face, followed by denial. Saw him the next morning – then never again. He had been transferred to another prison…good riddance!
The search was conducted in the son’s home. I don’t think it’s unusual for near relatives of people charged with serious crimes to be searched; also, reports are that the father stayed with his son in Greensboro, NC, before traveling to Florida to try to kill Trump. The father’s presence in the place would be sufficient reason for a search.
This guy can’t be too bright if he didn’t go delete that garbage before investigators arrived. I have no sympathy for child abuse, even if vicarious.
Kate:
He may have deleted it, but they can access deleted things.
Sort of, kind of related. The guy who killed ten people in a king Sooper grocery store was convicted despite a plea of insanity.
He’d been possessed by an evil djinn. Lots of evidence.
His family knew but declined to get him mental treatment because it would shame the family. They’re Muslim.
Using the Crumbley precedent–Oxford, MI–should they be prosecuted?
About the KS shooting. The Young Woman who was killed was the Daughter of a neighbor, just down the street.
Some thoughts on application of the law, or perhaps the theory behind it. First, as an analogy, I offer the crimes of theft and receiving stolen property. The first involves direct action of perpetrator versus victim; the second does not. However, in most jurisdictions, they are lumped together as a species of “theft” crime and the punishment for receiving is often equal or close to that for theft, so it is reasonable to make possession of child pornography punishable to much the same extent as the actual production and distribution of it. The fact that the images are accessable by merley a few strokes (pun intended) of the keyboard, although it makes the action almost effort-free, does not diminish its seriousness nor the disgusting nature of it. As usual, if there were no available consumers, there would be few if any producers. Second, as to the defense of “insanity,” (which may be offered in the case of Routh pere), this is a relatively new concept in the criminal law, which was originally intended to punish actions rather than the thoughts behind the action. If one kills his neighbor with intent, the neighbor is no less dead if the intent was premised on a mental aberration. This is not the same as an accidental killing, which, depending on the circumstances can be nearly as culpable as an intentional one, such as in the case of manslaughter. The M’Naghton Rule, which initiated the so-called “insanity defense,” applied originally to cases where the perp killed under circumstances that mitigated intent because of mental defect so substantial as to eliminate the capacity to intend. However, sob sister jurists expanded the concept of “legal insanity” so far over the years as to render it something like a free pass, where “intent” may still be found, but “mental disease or defect” is also found to be the cause of the homicide. See, “The Durham Rule.” Also, under M’Naghton as originally applied, the defendant would be sentenced, as it were to an institution housing “criminally isane” inmates, likely never to see the light of day as a free person again. Now we have the situation where those found not guilty be reason of insanity are sometimes let go after being declared “recovered” by some alleged expert. It was for that reason that legislatures in various places enacted laws enabling “guilty but mentally ill” findings, that allow for, just as it sounds, a jury to convict a defendant and thus allow sentencing to a long stretch of incarceration, but to serve that sentence outside of a penal institution, but still not be allowed into the general population regardless of alleged “recovery” until the sentence is served, with the balance being served in prison. It does appear, however, that pleas of “insanity” of some sort or other are pretty rare and even more rarely successful. Juries still think that killing another human being is an act worthy of criminal punishment regardless of the perpetrator’s “state of mind.” Don’t get me started on why abortion is viewed differently.
@Karmi:
“but I consider sexually abusing a Child (NOT some 13-14 year old woman) more of a crime than murder, rape, or armed robbery.”
I’ve long believed the same. Sex crimes are worse than taking a life, in my worldview. I expand mine to encompass all sex crimes, due to the fact that they require continued motivation throughout to complete the attack.
I can see murder or a crime of physical violence to be a single snap moment of passion- swinging a bat, squeezing a trigger, etc.
I don’t need to explain how a sex crime generally requires motivation and action past a split second.
As for treatment. I view treatment for sexual desire of children to be in the same realm of any treatment for a desire. It wasn’t too long ago we gave up on “treatment” for gays. Expand that to “treatment” of any other sort of desire- a desire for redheads, perhaps. All that to say, impossible.
Combine that with recidivism rates of up to 40% (quick Google review of journals), why are we so worried about the offender when we should be concerned with society at large?
As Lord Halifax said, “Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen.”
@ Grunt
I agree mostly. However, the hearing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh & the #MeToo movements, etc. left me with a
100%110% distrust of any woman claiming she had been raped, sexually assaulted, ‘Forced’ into committing a sex act, etcetera etcetera etcetera. A close relative I would believe, but not the rest without TOTAL proof and coming forward immediately, i.e., not after being fired or 40-years after alleged crime was committed…even then probably would not believe them.Do people convicted of having child pornography carry lifelong sex offender status? Because I’d almost consider that as bad as going to jail because anyone can be looked up by their neighbors everywhere they go for the rest of their life.
}}} neo: Kate: He may have deleted it, but they can access deleted things.
Actually, neo, it is quite possible to delete things so that even the government can find it exceptionally difficult to recover. There are even programs available to do this. It pretty much involves writing and re-writing random data to the same locations where the data is stored at least 7 times. After that, the only possible way to maaaaaaaybe recover the data is an obviously tedious and very time consuming process depended on minor inaccuracies in an over-the-counter level drive. You take the wiped drive into a clean room, remove it from its original casing, and then put the platters onto a device with far far far more precision that can *possibly* read sideband info that was put with the original data but did not get touched by the subsequent erasure passes, due to slight variances in those.
The only way to truly and completely wipe such info is to open the case, pull the platters, and melt them in a steel or aluminum furnace 😉
As to “child porn”, realize there are at least two legal classifications — it is clearly possible, now, to use AI to create images which never involved any human being.
There is lots of such Anime porn, involving blatantly underaged individuals. There is also porn based on The Simpsons characters
Yeah, creepy and weird. But unless the law has since changed and I am unaware, it is not illegal to possess these images. I also believe the possibility of prosecution rises as the possibility of it appearing as a real image of a real individual grows less and less distinct.
This is relevant because Japan has a rather deeply ingrained set of perversions which often cross this line if they are in the USA.
OBloody:
I looked it up just now, and the law isn’t very clear in the US about cartoon child porn.
OBloody:
I’m aware that things can actually be deleted.
My point is that most people are unaware of how to do it, and unaware that a simple deletion doesn’t do it.
Neo: Agreed on both counts. I think the law makes the distinction I specified, or did at one point. I am unaware of any judicial cases which have made any binding case law regarding it. But not really tied into looking for such… just recalled the questions when they were first being discussed. After all, one of the largest complaints about actual child porn is the clear harm to the victim being molested.
Such a thing cannot be said for most computer generated — then — and any AI — now. After that you have to argue for harm by encouraging further action vs. reducing harm by giving a fantasy outlet for impulses. And that may be heavily dependent on the person… and, arguably, until the former, one has committed no crime other than thoughtcrime.
Yes, a publicly repulsive thoughtcrime to most, but still a thoughtcrime
And, lest there be any suggestion otherwise. I said I did not know much since the initial legal positions were being established, it’s because pedophilia truly deeply repulses me. I personally would castrate anyone whom I KNEW had escaped justice by a twist of the law. When I was a teen, my neighbor’s little girl was sexually molested when she was six by the father of the baby sitter. More than once, apparently. And I believe he got away with it on some technical matter, as there was no question of any kind that he did it. If I had been older, I certainly would have done something, if no one else did.
If something is completely AI, is it any different from somebody’s fantasy? Speaking legally.