Court Opinion

ID: 9702432
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:11:11.707189+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:37.443606
License: Public Domain

HICKS, J.,
dissenting. Because I believe that United States Supreme Court precedents do not compel the result the majority reaches and I believe that the State may constitutionally criminalize the defendant’s mere possession of the images in question, I respectfully dissent. I would hold that the images possessed and controlled by the defendant are “visual representation[s] of a child engaging in sexual activity” as proscribed by RSA 649-A:3 (2007); that the statute is not fatally overbroad; and that its applicability to the defendant’s conduct violates no free speech rights.
First, I cannot conclude that Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234 (2002), compels a finding that the defendant’s morphed images are protected speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution in part because the Court explicitly left that question open. The respondents in Ashcroft did not challenge the provision of the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 (CPPA), 18 U.S.C. §§ 2251 et seq., that prohibits morphed images. Id. at 242.
Writing for the majority in Ashcroft, Justice Kennedy explained: *697Id. I believe that this is precisely the case left undecided by Ashcroft. Moreover, in my view, much of Ashcroft and Ferber is dicta, and, as such, does not compel any particular result in this case.
*696Section 2256(8)(C) [of the CPPA] prohibits a more common and lower tech means of creating virtual images, known as computer morphing. Rather than creating original images, pornographers can alter innocent pictures of real children so that the children appear to be engaged in sexual activity. Although morphed images may fall within the definition of virtual child pornography, they implicate the interests of real children and are in that sense closer to the images in [New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982)]. Respondents do not challenge this provision, and we do not consider it.
*697Although I believe that the majority correctly analyzes the Ferber factors, I would simply draw the opposite conclusion. For instance, the Ferber Court recognized that States have a compelling interest “in safeguarding the physical and psychological well-being of a minor.” Ferber, 458 U.S at 756-57 (quotation omitted). I believe that this interest is implicated when pictures of identifiable real children are altered to make it appear as though the children are engaging in sexual activity. The Ferber Court noted the legislative and professional opinion that “the use of children as subjects of pornographic materials is harmful to the physiological, emotional, and mental health of the child.” Id. at 758 (emphasis added). I believe that a child need not actually engage in the sexual activity depicted in morphed child pornography to be a victim of sexual exploitation. See United States v. Bach, 400 F.3d 622, 632 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 546 U.S. 901 (2005) (concluding that image depicting the head of “AC, an identifiable minor child” on the nude body of an unidentified boy in a sexually explicit pose, “created an identifiable child victim [ie., AC] of sexual exploitation”). I also believe that the State has a compelling interest in protecting children from such exploitation.
The Ferber Court noted that “[t]he distribution of photographs and films depicting sexual activity by juveniles is intrinsically related to the sexual abuse of children in at least two ways:” (1) “the materials produced are a permanent record of the children’s participation and the harm to the child is exacerbated by their circulation;” and (2) “the distribution network for child pornography must be closed if the production of material which requires the sexual exploitation of children is to be effectively controlled.” Ferber, 458 U.S. at 759. I acknowledge that the morphed images here do not implicate these concerns as directly as the images at issue in Ferber— images that the Ashcroft Court described as “speech that itself is the record of sexual abuse,” Ashcroft, 535 U.S. at 250. Because they can be produced from “innocent pictures of real children,” id. at 242, morphed images do not require the sexual abuse of a child for their production. Nevertheless, such images do produce a permanent record of the children’s apparent participation in sexual activity. Cf. Ferber, 458 U.S. at 759. As discussed above, I believe that such images sexually exploit the real child whose image is used and I find the conclusion inescapable that “the harm to the child is exacerbated by their circulation.” Id. Additionally, if one accepts the premise that morphed pornographic images of real children exploit those children, it logically follows that the production of such morphed images “requires the sexual exploitation of [those] *698children,” id. Thus, I believe that morphed pornographic images of actual children sufficiently implicate the second Ferber rationale.
Another factor in the Ferber Court’s reasoning was that “[t]he value of permitting live performances and photographic reproductions of children engaged in lewd sexual conduct is exceedingly modest, if not de minimis.” Id. at 762.1 believe that the value of permitting the exploitation of children by using their images to create virtual depictions of them engaged in sexual activity is de minimis at best.
Admittedly, not all of the Ferber factors obtain here; in my view, however, the absence of one or more of the Ferber factors is not fatal to this prosecution. The presence of those listed above is sufficient to warrant classifying the images possessed by the defendant as child pornography within the meaning of Ferber. Having reached that conclusion, I would hold that the images in question fall squarely within Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U.S. 103 (1990), in which the Supreme Court held that States may constitutionally criminalize the mere possession and viewing of child pornography, id. at 111. In addition, using the above-cited federal opinions for guidance only, see State v. Ball, 124 N.H. 226, 233 (1983), in the absence of controlling state precedent, I would hold that criminalizing the defendant’s mere possession of the images at issue does not violate the State Constitution. Accordingly, I would reject the defendant’s as-applied challenge and reach his facial challenge.
The defendant argues that this court’s construction of RSA 649-A:3 in State v. Cobb, 143 N.H. 638 (1999), renders that statute substantially overbroad under the reasoning of Ashcroft. Although Ashcroft declared two provisions of the CPPA unconstitutional, only the first of those provisions, section 2256(8) (B), is relevant to this case. That section prohibited “any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture, or computer or computer-generated image or picture, that is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.” Ashcroft, 535 U.S. at 241 (quotations omitted). In concluding that section 2256(8)(B) was unconstitutionally overbroad, the Court declared that “[b]y prohibiting child pornography that does not depict an actual child, the statute goes beyond New York v. Ferber.” Id. at 240.
The defendant contends that in Cobb, this court “construed [RSA 649-A:3] to extend to visual representations that did not involve any actual child engaging in sexual activity.” The defendant cites the following language:
There is no statutory requirement that the visual representation involve the use of an actual child. Furthermore, we see little meaningful distinction between sexually explicit material *699produced through the use of an actual child and such material that gives the appearance of having been produced through the use of an actual child.
Cobb, 143 N.H. at 644 (citations omitted).
As the trial court similarly concluded, however, the defendant takes the statement out of context. The defendant in Cobb argued that the statute did not apply to his “photographs because no children were used in sexual performances in order to create them.” Id. This court’s response, therefore, was focused upon the “use” of a child in a sexual performance. Thus, in saying that the statute did not require “the use of an actual child,” id., the court held that the statute did not require that a child actually engage in the sexual activity depicted. In my view, that statement was not intended to decide whether or not the child depicted must be an actual child, as that question was not before the court.
Because I agree with the State that RSA 649-A:3 can be construed to apply only to images of real children, I would hold that the statute is not unconstitutionally overbroad. RSA 649-A:3, I, provides, in relevant part, that “[a] person is guilty of a felony if such person ... (e) Knowingly buys, procures, possesses, or controls any visual representation of a child engaging in sexual activity.” “Child” is defined to mean “any person under the age of 16 years.” RSA 649-A:2, I (2007) (emphasis added). I conclude that construing the word “person” in RSA 649-A:2, I, to mean a real person, and the word “child” in RSA 649-A:3 to mean a real child, is a permissible interpretation of the statute. Cf. Commonwealth v. Simone, No. 03-0986, 2003 WL 22994238, at *15, *14 (Va. Cir. Ct. Nov. 12, 2003) (concluding that plain language of statute “confines its application to images utilizing actual children” where “[t]he statute specifically requires that the material at issue utilize or have as its subject a ‘person’”).
When RSA 649-A:2,1, is construed to refer to an actual child, RSA 649-A:3 does not reach the “virtual” pornography at issue in Ashcroft: images that look like real children but that are in fact wholly computer-generated. See Ashcroft,, 535 U.S. at 241. In addition, because “[c]hild” is specifically defined to mean a “person under the age of 16 years,” RSA 649-A:2, I, RSA 649-A:3 covers only images of actual persons who are, in fact, under sixteen years of age and does not reach images that appear to be of children but that are, in reality, of young-looking adults. Cf. State v. Fingal, 666 N.W.2d 420, 424 (Minn. Ct. App. 2003) (“‘Minor’ is defined [in the statute] as ‘any person under the age of 18.’ If the sexual performance depicted does not, in fact, involve a person under the age of 18, possession of the depiction is not prohibited.”). Accordingly, under this construction, RSA 649-A:3 would not suffer the infirmities that rendered section *7002256(8)(B) of the CPPA substantially, and therefore unconstitutionally, overbroad. Other courts have reached similar conclusions. See id. at 425 (concluding that where a statute prohibiting child pornography requires that “[t]he visual depiction must be of an identifiable minor, not a virtual child,” the statute complies with Ashcroft); State v. Tooley, 872 N.E.2d 894, 907 (Ohio 2007) (“[M]orphed child pornography that uses images of real children ... is not covered by the Ashcroft definition of protected virtual child pornography.”), cert. denied, 128 S. Ct. 912 (2008). I would also hold, using the above-cited federal opinions for guidance only, see Ball, 124 N.H. 233 (1983), in the absence of controlling state precedent, that RSA 649-A:3 is not fatally overbroad under the State Constitution.
The defendant’s final challenge to his conviction alleges insufficiency of the evidence. That challenge is expressly conditioned, however, upon this court having “resolve[d] the constitutional issues by construing RSA 649-A:3 narrowly so that it does not reach [the defendant’s] conduct.” As I would not so construe the statute, I would not reach the defendant’s final argument. Accordingly, I would uphold the trial court’s denial of the defendant’s motions and affirm the result below.