WHAT DO YOU THINK?

[Duchess]

Did the school do the right thing? Can they force something to be deleted in the way this was?

A special needs teenager who recorded classmates tormenting him is accused of breaking the law and violating the bullies' right to privacy. Is this a case of school administrators punishing the victim?

A high school sophomore was convicted of a crime after the boy recorded his tormentors on an iPad. Christian Stanfield was forced to erase the clip by administrators who called police. He initially faced a felony charge of wiretapping, which later was reduced to disorderly conduct. A judge found him guilty.

Stanfield's mother, Shea Love, heard the seven-minute clip before it was erased and told KDKA: “Pulling his pants down and some things I can’t repeat. Laughing and cutting up like it was a big joke.”

Stanfield and Love are challenging the district's actions and want his conviction thrown out.

Story

[HairOfTheDog]

I don't understand.

There's no law against recording something going down in a public place; happens all day every day. That's not a violation of anyone's right to privacy.

I'm not seeing how any court was able to justify misdemeanor obstruction charges, much less the initial felony wiretapping charges.

IDK, seems there are a lot of key details missing in this story. Where did the incident go down? What did the kid do with the recording?

If he was really convicted of obstruction just because he recorded something on his iPad and that's it, I think that LE, the school administrators, and the court were definitely screwed up and it shouldn't be hard for a decent lawyer to get the conviction overturned by an impartial judge.

[Maggot]

I would think both sides would be punished but the tormentors should get the worst of it.

[HairOfTheDog]

Ah, hadn't seen the story linked inside the link.

http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2014/04/1...g-charges/

It was an audio (not video) recording -- so, Christian probably had his iPad concealed when the kids were reportedly harassing him. He must have then played it for people other than his mom and the alleged bullies filed complaints.

I understand the charges now. It might not be so easy to get the conviction overturned if authorities considered it a conversation taped and distributed without consent of one or more of the parties, especially if they think Christian intentionally baited the alleged bullies.

If Christian agreed to erase and stop playing the tape, I'd hope the charges against him would have been dropped. Seems like maybe he and his mom wanna make a statement against bullying instead. I wonder if they've filed charges against his harassers?

Anyway, if Christian and mom are on the up and up, I wish them good luck in their fight against legitimate bullying.

[BlueTiki]

I understand the charges now. It might not be so easy to get the conviction overturned if authorities considered it a conversation taped and distributed without consent of one or more of the parties, especially if they think Christian intentionally baited the alleged bullies.

Christian Stanfield, 15, made a seven-minute audio recording of the alleged bullying using his iPad in February at South Fayette High School in McDonald, Pa. He was later convicted of disorderly conduct and fined $25 plus court costs. He is scheduled to appear at the Pittsburgh Court of Common Pleas to appeal the conviction on April 29, at which point the charges will be dropped.

“That’s correct,” said Mike Manko, a spokesman for the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office. “We don’t believe his activity arises to a citation.”

LINK

Gotta love the admin's mentality at his school:

Meanwhile, assistant principal Skrbin testified that the district had records of Love complaining about students bullying her son, including an incident in October in which a student hit her son with 'spitwads', even after her son told him to stop.

'To be blunt, I would not classifying that as bullying,' Skrbin said.

Yeah, Skrbin . . . you're right.

It's assault.

[HairOfTheDog]

Good news that the conviction was thrown out -- sometimes the media is a very helpful ally.

I read a little more about the story at different sources last night.

Christian taped the incident inside his math classroom while class was in session. The school places kids with learning disorders and those with behavioral problems in the same special ed class. That, in itself, sucks -- but, it's common with school budgets being what they are.

Anyway, when the math teacher was helping Christian with a problem, one of his classmates said they should pull his pants down and another one said no way because it would smell. The teacher told the kids to stop talking about anything other than math. Later, one of the classmates dropped a book near Christian and it made a loud noise. The teacher reprimanded the kid who proclaimed, "what, I only wanted to scare him."

To the best of my knowledge (based on reading 6 or 7 stories), Christian only played the tape for his mom and she only played it for the principal. Wrong assumption on my part upthread that they must have played it for others and the classmates must have filed complaints in order for Christian to have wound up in court. Sounds like it was in fact the principal who decided to call police rather than address the issue with Christian's harassers and that LE pushed for obstruction charges even though it doesn't seem Christian or his mom refused to do what the officers asked.

Surprising to me that a principal, LE, and a judge would all be so asinine as to press charges and convict Christian of anything if that's the whole story, but I guess it shouldn't be.