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CAAFlog

Looming Issue Regarding Substantive Due Process & Criminalization

5/8/2024

 
Can it be a crime to masturbate with a (child?) sex doll alone in your room? The majority avoids this issue, but Judge Johnson spots the glaring constitutional problem and faces it head on.

Why would CAAF want ACCA to first weigh in on a pure issue of constitutional law? This remand is a waste of everyone's time. The sooner CAAF can clean up the poorly-reasoned Marcum ​test, the better. And if they won't, maybe the Supreme Court will.
Scott
5/8/2024 22:44:12

Although it was briefed extensively, thr constitutional issue wasn't really included in the scope of the certification.

I guess CAAF could have specified it, but the normal course of things would be for the lower court to decide it and then the higher court can weigh in if necessary.

When issues the lower court did not decide because they were mooted are "un-mooted" due to reversal by the higher court, remand to decide the previously undecided issues seems procedurally appropriate.

Otherwise the appellant wouldn't really get a full 66 review because the lower court didn't reach the issue (or I believe multiple issues).

Tami a/k/a Princess Leia
6/19/2024 15:24:16

Scott, similar questions were raised in Armendariz, 82 M.J. 712 (NMCCA 2022).

Tami a/k/a Princess Leia
5/9/2024 11:58:36

I was very disappointed in the majority opinion. That being said, the AFCCA (not ACCA) did not address whether the conduct was constitutionally protected (I agree with Judge Johnson that it is) or whether the evidence was legally and factually sufficient (it wasn't, especially the "service-discrediting" element).

Brenner M. Fissell
5/9/2024 12:01:08

Yes Scott they should've specified. Anyway, I guess we will stay tuned on this one.

Scott
5/9/2024 17:34:16

Should every constitutional or important issue just skip the CCA and go straight to CAAF?

Should CAAF have specified all the issues the CCA did not decide and just done the 66 review themselves?

Unconstitutional?
5/9/2024 15:43:28

How can something be constitutionally protected when at least 6 states now have laws proscribing the possession of the dolls? Are all those laws unconstitutional?

Tami a/k/a Princess Leia
5/9/2024 16:16:44

Unconstitutional, the charge against Rocha wasn't about possession of the doll, which no jurisdiction outlawed at the time. The issue is that he was charged with having sex with it, a piece of silicone, in the privacy of his bedroom. And if you look closely at the jurisdictions that have criminalized the possession, sale, transport etc. of "childlike sex dolls," you will see that NONE of them criminalized having sex with those dolls.

Unconstitutional?
5/9/2024 16:38:37

So it is constitutionally protected to masturbate to CSAM? So if a CSAM case was charged as “masturbating to CSAM” then that would proscribe constitutionally-protected conduct? After all, it is just masturbating using an inanimate object - a computer. Is bestiality constitutionally protected? Defiling a corpse?

Tami a/k/a Princess Leia
5/9/2024 17:10:15

The doll isn't CSAM, no matter what it's size or how offensive some people might think. There are quite a few people who prefer to have "relationships" with, including sex, inanimate objects, including dolls. At the end of the day, this doll is nothing more than a TOY. It doesn't matter if it represents an adult, a child, an infant, an animal, a corpse, an alien, an elf, or some other fantasy creature. There are no circumstances that justify persecuting this kid for "indecent acts."

Trial Counsel
5/10/2024 00:30:29

The "toy" was so lifelike that it startled the MA arriving at the scene to think it was a real child. That's all sorts of messed up.

And as the Court points out, it was also "indecent" as the President described the word in the MCM at the time of the offense. ("“[T]hat form of immorality relating to sexual impurity which is Grossly vulgar, obscene, and repugnant to common propriety, and tends to excite sexual desire or deprave morals with respect to sexual relations.”)

Tami a/k/a Princess Leia
5/10/2024 11:44:26

Trial counsel, "messed up" isn't synonymous with criminal. Sexual conduct with an inanimate object that occurs in private isn't actionable.


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    Disclaimer: Posts are the authors' personal opinions and do not reflect the position of any organization or government agency.
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