OMAHA – A man who digitally altered a pornographic photo of a woman by adding the head of a young female child – who is the man’s half-sister – lost his appeal in court Thursday, and did not have his free speech rights violated when he was sent to prison for ten years, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.
Jeffrey Anderson, age 28, entered a conditional guilty plea to one count of distributing child pornography last year and was sent to prison for 10 years. On Thursday, the federal appeals court upheld his conviction.
According to court documents, in June of 2012, the Nebraska State Patrol received a report from the mother of an eleven-year-old girl identified in the record as “M.A.” that the girl had received unsolicited, sexually explicit messages and images on Facebook from an account registered under the name Bob Shepherd. Subsequent investigation revealed that “Bob Shepherd” was actually Anderson. Anderson is M.A.’s half-brother.
With the permission of M.A.’s mother, an officer assumed control over M.A.’s Facebook account and received an image from Anderson. The image originally had depicted an adult male and adult female engaged in sexual intercourse, but Anderson digitally superimposed M.A.’s face over the face of the female. Anderson transmitted the image to M.A.’s account with a caption that said in substance: “This is what we will do.” During an interview with law enforcement officers, Anderson admitted to creating the image and sending it to M.A.’s Facebook account. Digitally altered depictions of this sort are commonly referred to as “morphed images.”
In August 2012, a grand jury charged Anderson in a four-count indictment with distribution of child pornography, distribution of child pornography to a minor, production of child pornography, and enticement of a minor to engage in unlawful sexual activity.
A district court ruled that the morphed image was child pornography that was not protected speech under the First Amendment.
Anderson entered a conditional guilty plea to distribution of child pornography as charged in Count I of the indictment, reserving the right to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss.
The First Amendment’s protection of freedom of expression does not extend to “certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem”, and child pornography is one of those classes. Anderson’s appeal was denied.
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