Legal Question in Criminal Law in Georgia

Internet chat

Scenario:

A person poses as a ficticious 15 year old girl and engages in sexual discussion with anonymous men who claim to be 18+. This person, when asked for a picture, sends a non-pornographic photo of an unknown young woman from a public 18+ picture posting site.

Question:

If a man who engaged in these chats became obsessed and somehow identified the picture of the young woman, would the person from the scenario be criminally culpable for his actions, no matter how extreme? In a worst case scenario could this person be charged with involuntary manslaughter or even felony murder?


Asked on 6/26/07, 3:32 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Ann Fitz The Federal Law Group

Re: Internet chat

No, criminal liability would not transfer to the 15 year-old girl posing as the woman in the picture if the picture was posted on a site that was available to the public. In order to be charged with involuntary manslaughter or felony murder, the person would have to have aided and abetted or somehow participated in a felony where it could be reasonably foreseeable that the death of the woman in the picture would occur. This would be difficult for the prosecution to prove because (1) the picture was available to the public and the 15 year old was not the only source from where the man could have seen the image, (2) the 15 year old girl was engaging in sexual conversation, presumably not conversation about murder, and (3) the man who became "obsessed" with the woman in the picture had a pyschological disorder and was not operating from a "reasonable" person's perspective, therefore it was not reasonably foreseeable that using the image would result in the woman's murder.

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Answered on 6/26/07, 10:14 pm


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