11 year olds with possible felony

Set the time machine for 5^th grade in Mrs Anderson’s class. Doug was there with all of his great friends. I think of some of the things that we were expected to know and do in the 5^th grade. We are supposed to know the difference before right and wrong. According to Scholastic Parents we should be able to differentiate between fiction and non-fiction. We should now then be able to present a comprehensive report, long division, and retain facts from science from the year before. How many of you would have survived through the fifth, sixth, and seventh without a felony? When pornography appeared in an elementary school last week in American Fork, the parents weren’t called, the police were. Two fifth graders showed some classmates pornography and the school suspended them. Since the police were involved, this was brought to juvenile court. Now that it is in the legal system the prosecutors could charge the two with dealing harmful materials and could be charged with a second degree felony. The police say that most likely this will be the case. These images are disturbing and this is never appropriate, but to charge them with a felony! Reportedly these kids had never been in trouble before!

You talk to anybody and there is probably a story like this in anyone’s family. A police officer was able to use a little bit of judgment and instead of taking the kids to the station, he drags them home to the parents because the penalty will often be more effective. The laws are so tough these days that the officers have no choice.

Caller Ann knows one of the kids and affirmed that he had never been in trouble. The fact is that they don’t know a whole lot. Shouldn’t the teacher be charged with a felony too?

Caller Les thought that many time children are charged with the maximum because once lawyers become involved that the punishment is going to be reduced considerably. Everybody has to be able to claim a win and how they slapped with the maximum penalty but because they wanted to be lenient it was reduced.

One of the moms called in and told her take on the story. She went into the office and found her son in there and thought that he had gotten into a fight. He told her that he typed in a word on the computer and pictures of naked women came on the screen. The mother said that they were looking up cars and one of the peers suggested that he type in the word “lesbian” in the Google search box, which brought up pictures of naked women. Her first reaction was why would you do this and then she thought of how could you do this? The programs should be better than that. When it first happened she didn’t know what was going on. After waiting a couple of hours, the police officers read her son his rights and asked his about what had happened. After the questioning the kids were told that they would be charged with a felony for the distribution of pornographic material. These kids had never been in any kind of formal trouble ever.