AURORA | Aurora City Council members agreed at a study session Monday, April 4, to defer to state lawmakers before moving forward with an ordinance to give police more flexibility for punishments when investigating cases of teen “sexting.”
“We might have a good faith argument, but it would help us out if the state law passed first,” said Nancy Rodgers, senior assistant Aurora City Attorney, during the study session. Rodgers was referring to House Bill 1058, which would create a new misdemeanor crime of “misuse of electronic images” by teens and would be similar to but also different than the city’s measure. That bill has yet to be passed in the state House.
Aurora’s measure would also allow police to file misdemeanor charges in municipal court. Under the current law, Aurora police and prosecutors have no options beside a felony charge, which is often too harsh, city officials say.
Aurora Police Agent Patrick McGinty said he would like the law to be flexible enough to look at the details of each sexting case and deem whether or not it is worthy of a felony or just a misdemeanor.
“A picture of two juveniles mooning somebody is a felony,” he said.
In Aurora, there is no requirement that the juvenile defendant be within four years in age of the juvenile who is depicted in the image, unlike the proposed state measure. And while a defendant who tries to delete the images within 72 hours can use the deletion as an affirmative defense against the crime according to the state, in Aurora that deletion would not be a deciding factor.
Colorado’s bill was prompted by a scandal last year at a Canon City high school where more than 100 students were found with explicit images of other teens. The news sent shockwaves through the city of 16,000. Dozens of students were suspended, and the football team forfeited the final game of the season.
Fremont County prosecutors ultimately decided against filing any criminal charges, saying Colorado law doesn’t properly distinguish between adult sexual predators and misbehaving teenagers.
The city measure was originally set to be approved at a regular city council meeting following the April 4 study session.
– Aurora Sentinel Staff Writer Brandon Johansson contributed to this story.