GOVERNMENT-SPONSORED CHILD PORN IN GEORGIA:

“We have to protect our children from district attorneys,” Sen. Emanuel Jones said Friday. If state law allows the distribution of the tape, he said, it or similar material could be available to anyone who filed a public records request — even if they wanted the material for nefarious purposes.

“I believe state laws have been violated,” Jones said. “I believe federal laws have been violated.”

He said he plans to call the legislation, which he will introduce next year, the McDade Act.

District Attorney McDade is likely to be unamused. Here’s more from the Sex Crimes Blog:

I still doubt that the U.S. Attorney’s office has the political will to prosecute a sitting state prosecutor for child porn crimes related to the tape distribution. However, this particular prosecutor has made some dumb moves in the past . . . .

I just can’t help but think of the incongruence that the Adam Walsh Act so severely limits a defendant’s access to examining child pornography evidence used against the defendant while a prosecutor may get away with distributing the tape to the public. The very clearly stated rationale for limiting the defendant’s access to child pornography evidence is that to do so is a form of revictimization. If a single defendant viewing child pornography evidence (that a guilty defendant would have already viewed many times previously) is revictimization enough for adopting a very suspect restriction on defense access to evidence, then surely a prosecutor who allowed dozens or hundreds of people to view such evidence has revictimized on such a greater level that some legal sanction is required.

Seems that way to me. Otherwise people will be saying that we have to protect our children from District Attorneys! Oh, wait . . . .

UPDATE: More from Doug Berman:

The saddest part of all this, of course, is that McDade continues to wreak havoc on Georgia justice while Genarlow Wilson remains behind bars. It is a sad shame that Georgia’s Attorney General and Governor are far less concerned about the unjustifiable activities of rogue prosecutors than about teenagers’ consensual sexual activities.

A shame, and an embarrassment for Georgia.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Charges of racism.