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“God Talk” host, former priest, pleads guilty to child porn charges

flockwood

San Francisco radio personality, father of four, faces lengthy prison sentence.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 8:16 pm and is filed under Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to ““God Talk” host, former priest, pleads guilty to child porn charges”

  1. Caleb Powers Says:
    May 9th, 2008 at 6:42 pm

    Believe it or not, there’s an interesting legal question in this mess. His defense to the charges is that he did have child pornography, but he collected it while doing research on child pornography. I don’t know that I believe him, but even if he’s telling the truth, it’s still not a legal defense to the crime. The federal statute under which he is being prosecuted specifically says that one’s mental state is not a part of the offense. That is, it’s illegal to have child pornography for any reason, even a legitimate one. This flies in the face of the usual rule that good faith is a defense to any crime. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in favor of child pornography in any form, but does this mean that no legitimate journalist or sociologist can ever study it legally? This seems to be going a little far to me.

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