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Massachusetts court says 'upskirt' photos are legal

Deuce said:
That is not how disorderly conduct is defined, no. At least not in Mass.

A general guideline is not to assume you know more about the law than the judge does, or the prosecutor. If you think the judge is wrong, find documentation to back yourself up.

Instead of, you know, declaring the judge's ruling "ridiculous" based on a separate charge that doesn't even remotely apply here.
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His ruling is ridiculous. I don't know what charge should be levied against a grown man who's peeping under ladies' skirts and photographing what he finds. But that doesn't mean I can't rightly believe his ruling that it's NOT against the law as being ridiculous.

And perhaps you should keep your own counsel:

Under Massachusetts’s laws, it is a crime to be a “disorderly person.” People are disorderly if they engage in fighting, threats, or violent or excessively noisy behavior, or create dangerous or offensive conditions without good reason, and in order to inconvenience, annoy, or alarm others. (Commonwealth v. Sinai, 714 N.E.2d 830, 47 Mass. App. Ct. 544 (1999).) For example, people who get into bar fights or leave garbage and human waste in public parks could be arrested for disorderly conduct.

It is also a crime to:

be a prostitute
keep a house of prostitution
accost or annoy another with offensive and disorderly acts or language
engage in lewd speech or behavior in public, or
commit indecent exposure.
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I'd call taking an unskirt photograph as being annoying and offensive.
 
MaggieD said:
His ruling is ridiculous. I don't know what charge should be levied against a grown man who's peeping under ladies' skirts and photographing what he finds. But that doesn't mean I can't rightly believe his ruling that it's NOT against the law as being ridiculous.

And perhaps you should keep your own counsel:



I'd call taking an unskirt photograph as being annoying and offensive.
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http://www.mass.gov/courts/courtsan...ions/criminal/pdf/7160-disorderly-conduct.pdf

It prohibits four
separate and distinct acts: It fo
rbids conduct that involves the
use of force or violence. It also prohibits making threats that
involve the immediate use of force or violence. It forbids
tumultuous and highly agitated behavior, which may not involve
physical violence, but which causes riotous commotion and
excessively unreasonable noise, and so constitutes a public
nuisance. Finally, the law prohibits any conduct that creates a
hazard to public safety or a physically offensive condition by an
act that serves no legitimate purpose of the defendant’s
 
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And even if disorderly conduct applied, the Mass. Supreme Court can't just add charges to a case they're reviewing. The guy wasn't charged with disorderly conduct. Period. The judge's ruling was absolutely correct.
 
Deuce said:
"Private" is not a term that is found in this law, so that's irrelevant.

Yes, he could have gotten a nude picture. But he didn't, and you can't prove his intent was to do that. The bathroom is not a good comparison, a reasonable person expects that underwear is removed in the bathroom, not at the checkout counter.

Yes, there's a chance. But any photo ever taken always has a chance that it accidentally catches a nip slip.
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Intent only has to be proven when it comes to someone attempting something from a reasonable person standpoint.

attempt legal definition of attempt. attempt synonyms by the Free Online Law Dictionary.

From a reasonable person standpoint, could taking pictures of a woman purposely under her skirt, a place that is normally covered enough to not be in view of the public, have resulted in a photograph of a naked part of the body? The answer is "yes".
 
roguenuke said:
Intent only has to be proven when it comes to someone attempting something from a reasonable person standpoint.

attempt legal definition of attempt. attempt synonyms by the Free Online Law Dictionary.

From a reasonable person standpoint, could taking pictures of a woman purposely under her skirt, a place that is normally covered enough to not be in view of the public, have resulted in a photograph of a naked part of the body? The answer is "yes".
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And a reasonable person would say any particular picture has a chance to do the same.
 
Deuce said:
And a reasonable person would say any particular picture has a chance to do the same.
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Not a good chance, no. Taking a picture underneath a person's skirt specifically has about the same chance of getting a naked picture as taking pictures inside a public restroom, whereas the chances are really small when just taking random pictures in public of getting that lucky of a shot that you get a picture of something naked.
 
roguenuke said:
Not a good chance, no. Taking a picture underneath a person's skirt specifically has about the same chance of getting a naked picture as taking pictures inside a public restroom,
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I don't agree.
 
Deuce said:
I don't agree.
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If someone comes up behind a bunch of guys at a group of urinals and snaps a picture, they are not likely 9 times out of 10 to get a picture of any private parts of those men. They may get underwear or a pee stream, but the bodies of those guys would be covering the actual parts (most guys don't take down their pants to pee at a urinal, from what I've seen) (and that does not get into what the guys actually peeing might do to them, only what kind of pic they are likely to get before that). And even someone placing a camera under a stall and snapping a blind photo isn't likely to get a picture of any nakedness from that angle. It is likely going to be obstructed by the legs, clothes, and even the toilet itself (they may even just get the ceiling). Yet anyone doing that would be charged with the crime this guy was because they could still get it and the attempt, no matter how stupid in its execution, is still being made. It is the same with an upskirt shot. 9 times out of 10 (maybe less though), the guy is likely to get nothing but a shot of some girls panties, but there is still a good 10% chance of getting a naked shot due to either the woman going commando or simply having underwear that shows enough to be considered naked.

63 Fun Facts about Underwear

"Ten percent of American women have confessed to occasionally having gone “commando” to avoid visible panty lines.k"

"A majority of American women prefer to wear bikini underwear (37%). Briefs come in second (23%), followed by thongs (19%), boy shorts (17%), and other (4%).k"

I'd say that would easily account for a 10% chance.
 
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