Arizona prosecutor: Legislative inaction on revenge porn interfering with cases
Jun 25, 2015, 7:32 AM | Updated: 7:32 am
PHOENIX — Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery says inaction by the Arizona Legislature to change the state’s “Revenge Porn” law is preventing him from prosecuting cases.
The law that was passed last year would prevent people from posting nude or sexually-explicit photos of their former lovers for revenge. The ACLU sued, claiming the law was poorly written and unconstitutional.
“Some of the problems with it, as alleged by the ACLU, had to deal with how some of the terms were written,” said Montgomery. “They were potentially overly broad or vague, and prosecutors recognized that there could be circumstances where that’s true.”
A Federal judge put the law on hold until it could be rewritten by the legislature.
Since then, Montgomery said that his office has been unable to prosecute at least 10 revenge porn cases.
“That just reflects a fraction of the overall cases,” said Montgomery. “I’m sure that there are many more that haven’t been submitted to our office for review because of awareness by law enforcement that there were problems with the statute.”
Montgomery said that the legislature needs to change the law because it is “unconstitutionally vague” and could apply to more than just revenge porn cases. An attempt to pass a rewritten law failed in the legislature.
“It got lost among a few other bills, and it wasn’t addressed before the legislature ended the session. We need to get that fixed,” Montgomery said.
