State v. Vanburen
| Decision Date | 07 June 2019 |
| Docket Number | No. 2016-253,2016-253 |
| Citation | 2018 VT 95 |
| Parties | State of Vermont v. Rebekah S. VanBuren |
| Court | Vermont Supreme Court |
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P. 40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions by email at: JUD.Reporter@vermont.gov or by mail at: Vermont Supreme Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801, of any errors in order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.
Original Jurisdiction
Superior Court, Bennington Unit, Criminal Division
William H. Sorrell, Attorney General, and Benjamin D. Battles, Assistant Attorney General, Montpelier, and Erica Marthage, Bennington County State's Attorney, and Alexander Burke, Deputy State's Attorney, Bennington, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Matthew F. Valerio, Defender General, and Dawn Matthews, Appellate Defender, Montpelier, for Defendant-Appellee.
Bridget C. Asay of Donofrio Asay PLC, Montpelier, for Amici Curiae Cyber Civil Rights Initiative and Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence.
PRESENT: Reiber, C.J., Dooley, Skoglund, Robinson and Eaton, JJ.
¶ 1. This case raises a facial challenge to Vermont's statute banning disclosure of nonconsensual pornography. 13 V.S.A. § 2606. We conclude that the statute is constitutional on its face and grant the State's petition for extraordinary relief.
¶ 2. "Revenge porn" is a popular label describing a subset of nonconsensual pornography published for vengeful purposes. "Nonconsensual pornography" may be defined generally as "distribution of sexually graphic images of individuals without their consent." D. Citron & M. Franks, Criminalizing Revenge Porn, 49 Wake Forest L. Rev. 345, 346 (2014). The term "nonconsensual pornography" encompasses "images originally obtained without consent (e.g., hidden recordings or recordings of sexual assaults) as well as images originally obtained with consent, usually within the context of a private or confidential relationship." Id.1 The nonconsensual dissemination of such intimate images—to a victim's employer, coworkers, family members, friends, or even strangers—can cause "public degradation, social isolation, and professional humiliation for the victims." C. Alter, " 'It's Like Having an Incurable Disease': Inside the Fight Against Revenge Porn," Time.com, http://time.com/4811561/revenge-porn/ [https://perma.cc/G9UP-L984]. The images may haunt victims throughout their lives. Id. ().
¶ 3. This problem is widespread, with one recent study finding that "4% of U.S. internet users—roughly 10.4 million Americans—have been threatened with or experienced the posting of explicit images without their consent." See Data & Society, "New Report Shows That 4% of U.S. Internet Users Have Been a Victim of 'Revenge Porn,' " (Dec. 13, 2016), https://datasociety.net/blog/2016/12/13/nonconsensual-image-sharing/ [https://perma.cc/26FC-937V]; see also C. Alter, supra (). Revenge porn is overwhelmingly targeted at women. D. Citron & M. Franks, supra, at 353-54 ().
¶ 4. Forty states, including Vermont, have enacted legislation to address this issue. See Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, 40 States + DC Have Revenge Porn Laws, https://www.cybercivilrights.org/revenge-porn-laws/ [https://perma.cc/83UK-KKUS] (collecting state statutes). Federal legislation has also been proposed. See Intimate Privacy Protection Act of2016, H.R. 5896, 114th Cong. (2016), https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5896 [https://perma.cc/RM6V-865X] (proposing to "amend the federal criminal code to make it unlawful to knowingly distribute a photograph, film, or video of a person engaging in sexually explicit conduct or of a person's naked genitals or post-pubescent female nipple with reckless disregard for the person's lack of consent if the person is identifiable from the image itself or from information displayed in connection with the image," with certain exceptions); Servicemember Intimate Privacy Protection Act, H.R. 1588, 115th Cong. (2017), https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1588 [https://perma.cc/7ZBK-KT49] (proposing to "amend the Uniform Code of Military Justice to prohibit the nonconsensual distribution of private sexual images").
¶ 5. Vermont's law, enacted in 2015, makes it a crime punishable by not more than two years' imprisonment and a fine of $2,000 or both to "knowingly disclose a visual image of an identifiable person who is nude or who is engaged in sexual conduct, without his or her consent, with the intent to harm, harass, intimidate, threaten, or coerce the person depicted, and the disclosure would cause a reasonable person to suffer harm." 13 V.S.A. § 2606(b)(1).2 "Nude" and "sexual conduct" are both expressly defined. The law makes clear that "[c]onsent to recording of the visual image does not, by itself, constitute consent for disclosure of the image." Id. Violation of § 2606(b)(1) is a misdemeanor, unless a person acts "with the intent of disclosing the image for financial profit," in which case it is a felony.
¶ 6. Section 2606 does not apply to:
Id. § 2606(d)(1)-(4).3
¶ 7. The law also provides a private right of action "against a defendant who knowingly discloses, without the plaintiff's consent, an identifiable visual image of the plaintiff while he or she is nude or engaged in sexual conduct and the disclosure causes the plaintiff harm." Id. § 2606(e)(1). In such cases, the court may order equitable relief, including restraining orders and injunctions, "[i]n addition to any other relief available at law." Id. § 2606(e)(2).
¶ 8. In late 2015, defendant was charged by information with violating 13 V.S.A. § 2606(b)(1). In support of the charge, the State submitted an affidavit from a police officer and a sworn statement from complainant, which was incorporated into the officer's affidavit by reference. The parties agreed that the trial court could rely on these affidavits in ruling on the motion to dismiss; the parties later stipulated to certain additional facts as well.
¶ 9. The police officer averred as follows. Complainant contacted police after she discovered that someone had posted naked pictures of her on a Facebook account belonging to Anthony Coon and "tagged" her in the picture.4 Complainant called Mr. Coon and left a messageasking that the pictures be deleted. Shortly thereafter, defendant called complainant back on Mr. Coon's phone; she called complainant a "moraless pig" and told her that she was going to contact complainant's employer, a child-care facility. When complainant asked defendant to remove the pictures, defendant responded that she was going to ruin complainant and get revenge.
¶ 10. Complainant told police that she had taken naked pictures of herself and sent them to Mr. Coon through Facebook Messenger. She advised that the pictures had been sent privately so that no one else could view them. Defendant admitted to the officer that she saw complainant's pictures on Mr. Coon's Facebook account and that she posted them on Facebook using Mr. Coon's account. Defendant asked the officer if he thought complainant had "learned her lesson."
¶ 11. In her sworn statement, complainant provided additional details concerning the allegations above. She described her efforts to delete the pictures from Facebook and to delete her own Facebook account. Complainant stated that the night before the pictures were publicly posted, she learned through a friend that defendant was asking about her. Defendant described herself as Mr. Coon's girlfriend. Complainant asked Mr. Coon about defendant, and Mr. Coon said that defendant was obsessed with him and that he had never slept with her. Complainant "took it as him being honest so we moved on." The next day, complainant discovered that defendant posted her nude images on Mr. Coon's Facebook page. A judge found probable cause for the charge against defendant in December 2015.
¶ 12. In February 2016, defendant filed a motion to dismiss. She argued that 13 V.S.A. § 2606 violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because it restricted protected speech and it could not survive strict scrutiny. Defendant also asserted that complainant had no reasonable expectation of privacy because she took the pictures herself and messaged them to Mr. Coon without any promise on his part to keep the pictures private. Defendant cited 13 V.S.A. § 2606(d)(1), which provides an exception from liability for individuals who disclose "[i]magesinvolving voluntary nudity or sexual conduct in public or commercial settings or in a place where a person does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy."5
¶ 13. The State opposed the motion. With respect...
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In re A.M., 2019-139
...parent at disposition in this CHINS proceeding is a question of law that we review without deference to the trial court. See State v. VanBuren, 2018 VT 95, ¶ 19, ___ Vt. ___, 214 A.3d 791 (explaining that we review pure questions of law without deference to trial court). ¶ 9. We agree with ......