A North Carolina teenager has been prosecuted for having naked selfies on his mobile phone.

Cormega Copening – who was just 16 when the shots were found – was forced to strike a plea deal to avoid potential prison time and the possibility of being registered as a sex offender. And, just to be clear: this was for having naked images of HIMSELF on HIS OWN phone.

Copening was charged with four counts of possessing images of himself, and one count of possessing an image of his 16-year-old girlfriend. And, despite only being a teenager, the charges saw him facing federal child pornography felony laws for sexually exploiting a minor (the minor being himself).

The case was dismissed by experts as completely insane – because obvious – but it didn't stop the courts from going ahead and issuing the 17-year-old with warrantless searches for a year anyway. 

“It’s ludicrous,” computer security expert Fred Lane told The Guardian. “It’s crazy. It’s an overreach. This goes back to the supreme court making child pornography unconstitutional in 1983 and each state legislating in line with that for the public good – in order to protect children from adults producing, possessing or distributing nude images of them. But that was before anyone thought kids would be making and sending nude photos of themselves with publicly available digital technology.”

Authorities found the photos while investigating a bigger problem at the school, which involved sexual imagery that had been shared without the subject's permission – though Copening was not part of that case. 

Lane added: “There are about 10 or 12 mostly conservative states where they will prosecute kids for this, and it’s a kind of moral values thing – they are trying to make an example of them because it’s believed to be inappropriate behaviour.”

“There is a streak of moralising that runs through this country that is disturbing sometimes.”

...Well yeah.