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I was horrified when I heard that Measure 73 could end up sending teenagers to jail for sexting and other, while undesirable, immature behaviors like texting photos back and forth!  I felt like I spend a reasonable amount of time reading over the measure before voting on it, and I never read that this could be a side effect of it passing!  I would not have voted for it if I had known.

Your discussion of the way various laws come together to create such a potential situation and how one 19 year old girl is facing charges because of such laws hit too close to home for me, and I'd love to see you do a future show on how teenagers are getting swept up in tougher sex offender laws.  I am 110%+  for stronger sex offender laws when it truly applies to a real pedophile, but I feel like teenagers lives are being unfairly ruined due to the lack of common sense in applying the law when it comes to teenagers dating (again, dating - a consensual relationship; I'm all for proper charges if a teenager does something obviously violent and wrong, such as rape).

I'm not familiar with Oregon law, but if it's anything like Idaho law, we have a serious flaw in these laws and how it effects teenagers and I think it needs to be brought to everyones attention.

My too close to home story is that one of my nephews living in Idaho turned 18 years old while he was in his senior year of high school. I don't think it really clicks or makes sense to these kids (frankly to me either) why one day it's okay for them to date a classmate and then after your 18 year birthday, you're considered a criminal by continuing to date or have consensual interaction with a classmate under 18 years of age. In my nephews case, he simply made out with a classmate who confirms it was consensual, but because of a serious of events that's too long to go into here, he's now facing a felony charge that could require him to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life!  My nephew is a great kid that is known and loved by all his classmates, teachers; who was suppose to ship out to basic training 3 months after this happened (but now instead has a dishonorable discharge in addition to the pending felony charge)... the girl isn't pressing charges, the girls parents aren't pressing charges - they've in fact signed an affidavit that they don't feel he's done anything inappropriate and don't wish to see him charged... but the police and local prosecutors are determined to apply sex offender laws to this case and ruin his life!!!  It's just wrong!!!!

If Oregon laws are anything similar, this should be examined and brought to the publics attention; especially to our teens attention so they truly understand the legal, life-ruining risk of what used to be normal, acceptable interactions among teenagers.

posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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