Worst. Prosecution. Ever.
Man faces up to 10 years in prison for possession of Simpsons porn:
A former middle school teacher in Meridian has pleaded guilty to possession of visual representations of child sex abuse.
The U.S. Attorney's office said Steven Kutzner, 33, had downloaded more than 70 animated cartoon pornographic images on his computer. Many of them depicted child characters from The Simpsons.
Kutzner was a former middle school teacher at Lake Hazel Middle School in Meridian. He resigned immediately after the search warrant was served at his home.
Kutzner will be sentenced Jan. 5, 2011. He faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000.
Didn't Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition rule out these sorts of prosecutions?
MORE: According to the U.S. Attorney's office, though investigators only found the cartoons, as part of his plea bargain Kutzner "admitted installing two different cleaning programs on his computer and using them to erase child pornography files that he had downloaded."
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
What in the fuck?
No violated children apparently.
I brought this issue of what with modern animation, what happens when people view underage animated porn.
Somebody responded to me that the supreme court had ruled that drawn representations of people can't be porn.
Apparently, the person who responded to me didn't know what they were talking about, or local prosecutors pay no attention to higher court rulings.
The simpsons porn? Practically every site I go to has cartoon sex. What happens when they see stewie f*cking goofy (goofy, the disney dog)?
Well fresnodan, maybe you should read the attachments before you mouth off. The attachment sure seems clear to me that you shouldn't prosecute someone for cartoons.
But this is one of the main flaws of our protection - nothing happens to the prosecutor for a crazy prosecution...not even fired.
The linked story is short on details, as are several other search results, but this perhaps relevant item did come up:
The U.S. Attorney's Office said investigators determined that his IP address had been used to share child pornography in a peer-to-peer file-sharing network in October 2008.
http://www.idahostatesman.com/.....acher.html
Secure your Wireless Network.
Yeah. And IP address are never recycled.
Fucking morons.
Practically every site I go to has cartoon sex.
Consider diversifying your bookmarks.
What about my Bam Bam/Jabberjaw slash comic?
I thought it was Jabberjaw/Daphne from Scooby Doo slash fic.
I only do child cartoon erotica: Pebbles, Bam Bam, Muppet Babies, Diaper Man, Rugrats, Stewie Griffin...
To be on the safe side you should switch from porn to having those characters fight to the death in cockfighting rings with razors attached to their arms and up the viscera to the limits.
I hated that MTV claymation show from the 90's with a similar theme. The writers worshiped the talentless mediocrity Marilyn Manson for some inexplicable reason.
Celebrity Deathmatch!
"I'll allow it!"
Didn't Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition rule out these sorts of prosecutions?
Silly Radely, That would involve prosecutors actually following the law.
rule 34 strikes again
Shit, be right back, gotta wipe my hard drive.
People I know talk about Iraq War sniper videos they have seen/downloaded. Weird, sick shit.
If this dumb bastard had videos of peoples' heads exploding on his computer, nobody would say "Boo", but they come down like a ton of bricks for cartoon "porn"?
Holy fuck.
This is Bart and Lisa we're talking about. Those kids deserve better. Ten years is too short a sentence.
how is sniper videos sick shit? It's like an action movie, but fuckin' REAL, which makes it cooler. And the moral satisfaction of the bad guy dying is even better because he's real and he actually gets blown away.
*I'm assuming you mean videos of American snipers, killing the terrorists, not the other way around.
ugggh. fucked. up.
Really?
Do you really give a shit what happens to psychotic, self-aggrandizing maniacs who murder people like it's burger king and stone women as a pass-time?
Would terrorist snipers shooting Americans be acceptable to view?
(The answer: yes)
now THAT'S fucked up
if you hate this country so much why don't you just leave? ditto for the guy below
+1
Worst. Prosecution Defense. Ever.
This. It's Idaho, what do you expect from the prosecution. But his defense attorney should be disbarred for retardedness.
OFFS.
If they crack the encryption on my Judy Jetson stash, I'm a goner.
Little Mermaid and Princess Jasmine all the way.
I'm more of a Teen Titans man, myself.
What? No love for the Wonder Twins?
Who?
What? No love for the Wonder Twins?
I like to keep things contemporary, more in the "now".
Excuse me, two words: Jessica Rabbit
More than likely, you've been getting it from a Fed all along.
I prefer women without fish vaginas.
I'd pay twenty grand to ass fuck Dora the Explorer. Twenty grand.
dude, jeez
that was funny, but ugh come on, you also grossed me out. I just ate lunch.
Comedy isn't always pretty, kid.
To the Prosecutors: Don't have a cow, man.
Don't have a calf.
Was an x-rated cartoon of Lionel Hutz this guy's defense lawyer?
^^Thread winner^^
Easily the funniest comment I've read all year.
This is blatantly unconstitutional. What the hell is going on?
My thought was that there might have been some actual child porn among the simpsons images, but the news report left it out. KATU seems to focus on "wacky" news, not hard reporting.
Blame KBOI-TV in Boise: They're the ones responsible for the original story; co-owned KATU in Portland just reprinted it.
I would advise everyone to get a brain wipe if you have ever viewed ANY Japanese anime...cause somewhere in there, a little girl is gonna get a tenticle.
Do you know how hard it is to explain to young people what the world was like before Sailor Moon Bukkake?
Sauce?
Hell yeah I do! I mean...
Yeah, right? I wonder if Amnesty International's Japanese contingent will protest this and consider this guy a political prisoner?
The anime contingent.
They'd have to turn their eyes away from their rape porn first.
What the hell are you talking about?
Skitty on Wailord is the hottest thing ever.
Four words:
Pedo Nazi skull fucking
It. Cannot. Be. Unseen.
I can't look for it right now, but I'm pretty sure Congress passed a law that made underage cartoon porn illegal, even if the character didn't really exist. All I remember is 4chan, of course, making a big stink about it.
I did find this 2 year old article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28319199/
Not sure how the case has progressed since.
I did find this 2 year old
Uh...
Calm down, guys. Many of the pictures were Lisa porn. I'm sure the rest were homemade child necro-bukkake, and they just forgot to mention it.
Didn't Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition rule out these sorts of prosecutions?
Yes. And?
Your fundamental (though qualified) reverence for law and its practitioners is wrong.
No. It didn't. See my post below.
It is Holder's turn now.
"alm down, guys. Many of the pictures were Lisa porn."
Yeah, cuz if it were Bart porn he'd be a freak.
Usually it is Bart with Lisa, isn't it?
In the comments of the original article there is a link to more details about the case.
Allegedly this guy admitted to clearing ACTUAL child porn off his computer, but just kept the animated stuff.
Don't have time to look it all up right now for you guys, but there is more to this story.
http://www.idahostatesman.com/.....acher.html
Ok, I checked it out.
There was no actual child porn, just the Simpsons porn. He downloaded 2 programs to attempt to clear it from his comp.
Link
Radely,
Ashcroft v. Free Speech ruled out bans on the possession of indecent and pornographic (but NOT obscene) depictions of minors having sex. This means that you could get away with an American Beautyesque scene in a movie where a nude 17 year old (who is played by a 22 year old) emerges from a shower, but you could not get away with nothing but graphic depictions of juveniles (played by adults or drawn as they may be) having sex.
This goes back to the fact that for some dumb reason obscenity falls beyond the first amendment's protection (go back to the O'Brien standard for that one).
I found this comment in the comment section of the article. It seems he took the deal to make other possible worse charges go away.
"http://www.justice.gov/usao/id/public_info/pr10/o...
"In December 2008, the German Federal Police began investigating the distribution of a known child pornography file on peer-to-peer file sharing networks."
Key words: "Known child pornography file"
"According to the plea agreement, Kutzner's IP address was identified as offering the file for download on October 4 and 5, 2008."
They didn't search his computer until 10 months later, by which time he'd scrubbed it of actual porn. I'm willing to bet he didn't delete the cartoon porn because he didn't think he could get in trouble for that. Since that's the only hard evidence they had, that's what used to charge him. Don't go feeling sorry for this guy. Just another case of news outlets embellishing a story "OMG!! Guy arrested unjustly! News at 11! ""
If the cartoon porn was what they used to charge him, then he was unjustly arrested.
Give me a break. He was prosecuted for cartoon porn! If that's "all they had," that's f'ing wrong. Period. Don't make excuses for fascists.
The prosecutors are the real criminals here and should all be behind bars.
I don't see how this affects the analysis. They did not find evidence of the (real) underage porn on his computer. Therefore, they did not have enough to meet their burden of proof. So how does this somehow excuse bringing charges for cartoon porn? Unless we simply accept the mindset of most Americans, which is that if someone was accused of something, and the police say he did it, well, by golly, he must be guilty, and there's no reason for the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did it.
You left out this sentence, which is pretty damming: "He also admitted installing two different cleaning programs on his computer and using them to erase child pornography files that he had downloaded."
This guy may be waiving his 1st amendment defense to get a plea deal for a charge that doesn't involve actual children which may be explainable the future.
This guy is pretty dumb though: he also waived his 4th amendment rights and allowed a forensic search of his computer.
I'm not really sure that makes a difference. It's akin to the police finding someone who claims to have flushed an unspecified amount and type of "drugs" down the toilet. Without the drugs themselves, or the evidence of what they were and the quantity, the state cannot meet its burden of proof. By analogy, the same would apply to a self-incriminating statement that some form of "child pornography" had been erased. Note as well that the term "child pornography" is itself malleable; unlike drugs which are subject to objective chemical testing, any given set of pictures may or may not be seen as child pornography depending upon the fact finder.
The cops had some physical evidence (the IP address) plus an admission. There's people on death row with less evidence. A smart defense lawyer would have assured his client that without the actual contraband, they can't convict. But with the right amount or type of computer examinations, the cops may have been able to get even that.
Faced with a conviction on genuine kid porn, or taking a plea on illustrations, a lot of people might take the latter.
"In December 2008, the German Federal Police began investigating the distribution of a known child pornography file on peer-to-peer file sharing networks."
Now you see why we want Net Neutrality?
Don't Judges have to accept plea deals? Seems like there's a lot of stupid to go around here.
Nope - they MAY accept plea deals if it's in the interest of justice.
Isn't that what I said? A plea deal doesn't start and end with a Prosecutor. It's subject to judicial review (or so I thought). Thus, there's a Judge who signed off on this idiocy.
The way you first wrote it made it sound like you thought that judges MUST accept plea deals.
Radley, are you sure that this isn't the worst prosecution ever?
Interesting that this man has an Obama/Biden sticker on the rear window of his truck.
I suppose he really believed that Obama would stop medical MJ prosecutions....
That sticker had jolly well better not end up in the hands of people who are not sick.
Team Blue,
How's that civil rights thingee working out for you not that Hope! and Change! is in charge?
Not that I speak for Team Blue, but it's looks like it's going as well as the new era of responsible government, and humble foreign policy that Bush promised us.
And if Team Blue cares as much as Team Red did about not living up to the promises, he will get another term.
Bush era foreign policy was humble.
We humbly aksed everyone in the world to shut the fuck up, and if they didn't, we'd bomb them into the stoneage.
Too bad he didn't dress up in military fatigues and intimidate voters!
Too bad he didn't dress up in military fatigues and intimidate voters!
There's no need for that. Just go to the polling place and ask them for your vote politely.
Every character on The Simpsons is at least 20 years old now.
I was just thinking that same thing :p
Cartoon years are measured against human years inversely to dog years. 7 human years = 1 cartoon year. So the Simpsons are all just a little over 3-year-old.
22 I think.
Given the insanity of the charges, that to me would actually be a logical defense.
""Bart vs. Australia" is the sixteenth episode of The Simpsons' sixth season, which originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 19, 1995.[3] In the episode, Bart is indicted for fraud in Australia, and the family travels to the country so Bart can apologize. The Australian Parliament decides to give him the additional punishment of a boot to his buttocks, but the Simpson family refuses. Bart later changes his mind and agrees to the punishment, but just as he is about to receive it, he moons the Australians and the family flees back to America."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_vs._Australia
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Ka_v.....tralia.bmp
Everyone who ever watched that episode is guilty of a Federal Offense.
Not to mention the Simpsons movie.
But nudity is neither sufficient nor necessary for a depiction to be porn.
Those Simpsons kids on in their late 20's by now, but we don't know when the pictures were, um, taken.
Since this is kind of a kick in the teeth. Anyone else see this on Best of the Web yesterday? This is sweet.
David Brooks: Gail, I must say this has been a tough week for those of us who personally admire President Obama and his advisers.
Gail Collins: David, I don't want to hear you complain about a tough week. You don't spend nearly as much time as I do in auditoriums full of semi-suicidal Democrats. Really, I'm lucky I haven't had to talk anybody off a roof ledge.
Poor Brooks. It must be so hard for him. What a tough week.
Really, I'm lucky I haven't had to talk anybody off a roof ledge.
That's why you have to be careful about talking to liberals right now; you don't want any of them to end up like this guy.
That's why you have to be careful about talking to liberals right now; you don't want any of them to end up like this guy.
You have to feel for them like the anachronistic apparatchik class they are. Their last great victory before 2008 was the 1974 landslide in the House. Between then and now they have had to endure Carter winning the Dem primary in '76, and again against Kennedy 1980, Reagan's victory in that same year, the assrape of Mondale in '84, then the same for Dubukis in '88, the fall of the Berlin Wall in '89, Clinton's primary victory in '92, the Republican take over in '94, GWB in 2000 and 2004. Life has been a series of disappointments for them until the Messiah showed up. They probably wont Jonestown though. They hate everyone else too much to do that.
Don't forget the tax revolt of the late 1970s.
And it wasn't like they could even have looked to the rest of the world for Messiah. There was Thatcher. And Poland went "conservative" rather than "liberal" like Solidarity. And Ratzlinger became Pope. And there were privatizations all over Europe, New Zealand, Australia, and parts of Asia.
From that article:
" [The victim, Andrew Veal (!)] was a vegetarian in part because of the way meat is processed and the way animals are treated . . ."
The irony is delicious, kind of like . . . well, you know.
He couldn't stand to live any longer with the name "Veal" so... boom!
You don't spend nearly as much time as I do in auditoriums full of semi-suicidal Democrats. Really, I'm lucky I haven't had to talk anybody off a roof ledge.
Gail, could you tell me when and where the next meet up happens to be and would they be pissed if I brought a bucket of popcorn and some junior mints?
I've gotten spam that had Bart engaged in sexual relations with a generic Springfieldian girl. Does this mean Gmail is in possession of child pornography?
Child porn assumes a child is being harmed, or wronged. Something that can't happen to a cartoon character outside cartoon land. Maybe these morons will try bringing Homer up on child abuse charges for choking Bart.
Well, I'd say that the issue with child porn and its distribution involves issues of informed consent vis-a-vis likeness rights
YAY! I managed to use vis-a-vis in a post!
Curse you, TrickyVic! I was going to say: go after people for having Road Runner or Tom 'n' Jerry crush videos.
Remember when the family values crowd was up in arm claiming Bart was going to ruin our youth?
oh yeah, that's kind of funny
now some pervy cartoonists are destroying his innocence. LULZ
I'm willing to bet he didn't delete the cartoon porn because he didn't think he could get in trouble for that. Since that's the only hard evidence they had, that's what used to charge him. Don't go feeling sorry for this guy.
Nice. The old "We all know he's guilty of SOMETHING" rule.
Won't someone please think of the children?
It's all I do.
Where's that musclely armed paperboy today, he's really pissing me off.
ooops, wrong cartoon.
bringin me some good news today?
Here's the deal.
""Kutzner was a former middle school teacher at Lake Hazel Middle School in Meridian. He resigned immediately after the search warrant was served at his home.""
He was a Middle School teacher, and we can't allow people around our kids who possess anything that remotely looks like child porn. These people are alone with our kids in a classroom!
::tap tap:: is this thing working? Dammit, this is the last time I pick up a sarcasm detector at Wal-Mart.
I'm not being sarcastic, so your detector might be ok. I do believe that's how they see it.
I just wasn't sure if that was how YOU saw it.
Yeah, exactly. While I can't condone putting him in jail, he should definitely have been fired. Probably watched rather closely too, just in case.
I didn't know it was even possible to spend 5 minutes on the web without running into cartoon porn.
LULZ
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Rule_34
LULZ
http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Rule_34
LULZ
Rule #34 - - see Encyclopedia Dramatica
Is there any truth to the rumor that in order to work for the U.S. Attorney's office you have to be a goat fucker?
No. Just a collector of animated goat porn.
Meanwhile Porky Pig is still running around without pants and nobody has been arrested.
That's because Porky has no sex organs.
Next!
Wasn't there a brief shot of Bart's wiener in the intro to the Simpson's movie?
Wasn't there a brief shot of Bart's wiener during the intro to the Simpson's Movie?
The judge in the case has yet to make a statement on the matter. He was apparently in court all week on an eminent domain case involving the red car (aka Pacific Electric Railway).
the plea agreement is available here:
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BzK8_alXwC-6NGQwMzRhYmEtZWVjZS00YTA0LWIwODEtODVkOWY4YWY4MTdh&hl=en
More thoughts here.
good....i like it....
Thanks
Thanks
arab
Thank you for this beautiful site and beautiful news