Miller v. Skumanick
United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
605 F.Supp.2d 634 (2009)
After school officials found sexually suggestive photographs of juvenile female students on confiscated male students' phones, county district attorney George Skumanick (defendant) warned parents that the boys would be charged with child pornography and the girls charged as accomplices unless they accepted an 'informal adjustment' involving a year's pre-judgment probation and counseling. Most families accepted, but three girls and their parent Mary Jo Miller (plaintiff), along with other plaintiffs, refused, arguing the informal adjustment amounted to a guilty plea and that the girls could not be accomplices since none of the photos depicted prohibited sexual acts and none of the girls had sexted or otherwise disseminated the images. The plaintiffs sued Skumanick seeking to enjoin the threatened charges and sought a temporary restraining order.
Whether a sexted image or text's juvenile subject can be convicted as an accomplice to child pornography without proof that the subject engaged in sexting or otherwise disseminating the image or text.