A 14-year-old New Jersey girl was arrested after posting nude pictures of herself on her Myspace profile in an attempt to tease her boyfriend. The charge? Distributing child pornography.

Three Pennsylvania teens face similar charges after sending some seriously dirty texts.

Yikes! I’ve been known to send what I suppose some could classify as a dirty text every now and then, and while it’s not illegal being I am an adult who can do whatever she pleases with her unlimited text plan, I can’t help but sympathize with these girls.

We all make stupid decisions when we’re in love…or lust.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children claims to have “seen a rise in cases of teenagers who, because of severe bad judgment or downright stupidity, place semi-nude or nude photos of themselves on the web or send racy cell phone pictures of themselves to friends.” I agree that this was really, really bad judgment (I mean, these girls do know that texts can be forwarded, right?), but is jail time really going to help them understand where they went wrong?

We’ve all made some pretty stupid decisions growing up. One instance at summer camp in 5th grade comes to mind. Let’s just say it involved a phone-sex hot line, a pay phone and a very serious game of truth or dare gone awry. Thank god our parents were called instead of the police, or I’d be in a hell of a lot more trouble than having my allowance taken away.

Even as adults we continue to make poor decisions (every weekend) and pray to god they don’t catch up with us. Binge drinking, hooking up with strangers, meeting people off the internet… and then posting all the incriminating photos on Facebook. Photos that automatically get shared with far more people than a simple text.

Photos that can easily come back to haunt us…

The point is, there are plenty of ways to punish someone (like letting the situation pan out and letting embarassment set in) and jail time seems a bit too harsh for a little adolescent naivety. Do you really think a 14-year-old girl who sends a naughty pic of herself to her super-serious middle school BF deserves the same fate as T.I.?

And, let’s be honest for a moment here, isn’t music by Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers punishment enough for today’s youth? I’m just sayin’…

What do you think? Should we punish kids for stupidity?

To give you a little background, it all started in 2002 when music critic Jim DeRogatis was given a video by a currently unnamed source featuring what appeared to be R. Kelly giving an allegedly underage girl money, then getting a BJ from her, having sex with her, and pissing on her. DeRogatis broke the story in the Chicago Sun-Times, and shortly thereafter R. Kelly was charged with soliciting a minor for child pornography, seven counts of videotaping the acts, and seven counts of producing child pornography. Now, six years after the initial indictment, the trial has begun and it’s like the sexy remix of the O.J. Simpson trial.

Proceedings began in late May with a viewing of the tape so the jurors could see exactly what they’re working with. What they saw was a half hour long video featuring a man that looks a hell of a lot like R. Kelly and a girl that looks a hell of a lot like the alleged victim doing things that are definitely not legal for a 31-year-old man and a 14-year-old girl to do together. However, both Kelly and the girl claim that the individuals in the video are not them, and the defense’s major claim is that the tape is part of an elaborate scheme by the girl’s family to extort money from the singer.

The interesting thing about this claim is that not all of the members of the victim’s family can agree that the girl on the tape is her. While Shonna, Leroy, and Charlotte Edwards (uncle, cousin, and aunt, respectively) deny that the girl on the tape is the alleged victim, four other relatives, including Stephanie “Sparkle” Edwards, a former protégé of Kelly’s, say that their relative and the girl on the tape are most certainly one in the same. This allegation is also backed up by the girl’s former BFF Simha Jamison (who, BTW, said she recognized the girl on the video by her mullet haircut) and by Lisa Van Allen, who claims that she was involved in numerous videotaped threesomes with Kelly and the victim.

Kelly’s former assistant Lindsay Perryman also identified the alleged victim as the girl in the video, and the man as her employer. She said she recognized the girl from back in the day when she would hang out at the studio after school doing her homework and babysitting the singer’s children.

And then there’s the mole.

In a few scenes, a large mole can be seen on the lower back of the man in the video – police photos of Kelly’s naked torso reveal that he has a mole on his back in the same location. While this would seem to be pretty cut and dry evidence that the man in the video is Kelly, the defense retaliated by having a forensic video expert come in and break the film down frame by frame, showing that sometimes the mole is there, and then other times it isn’t. The expert contested that the mole isn’t a mole at all, but rather an “artifact” from poor lighting and recording equipment.

Not convinced yet that the trial is a total madhouse? Have I mentioned that the alleged victim is Kelly’s guitarist’s daughter and the singer’s goddaughter? Or that a fan broke in to the courthouse to scream “Free R. Kelly!” at the jurors? Or that one of Kelly’s lawyers actually referenced the movie magic of the Wayans brother’s Little Man when talking about how the film footage could be doctored? If you haven’t been keeping track of this story, I suggest you start. It’s enough to make you think twice about your would-be amateur porn videos. And love for R. Kelly. And, of course, pissing on kids.

[A special thanks to celebritysmackblog.com for the awesome pic.]

Judging by his recent foray into rap musical sagas, one can only imagine that the guy either takes himself way, way, way too seriously, or has biggest sense of humor ever.

But here’s something else Kelly has a lot of: pending child pornography charges.

So, why hasn’t he even stepped foot inside a courthouse?

The obvious answer is that our justice system is screwed up, and lawyers can keep you running from charges that are over 5 years old for as long as your money holds out.

Besides the 21 counts of child pornography filed in June of 2002 (over a sex tape allegedly made in 1997, which prosecutors claim shows Kelly having sex with a girl around 14 years old), there were 12 other counts (filed in 2003, but not included in the main trail) of allged pornography attached to photographs of the singer and another naked under-aged girl.

While most offenders face a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted of such acts, Kelly has successfully pushed his trail back time and time again; a jury selection scheduled for September 17 the most recent postponement.

Not to sound like your mom, but if he’s guilty or not isn’t even the question anymore—it’s the principal of the matter. You get charged with something, you go to court and testify. Not that I would know anything about this, but even people with one too many speeding tickets find themselves pleading before a judge.

Going 50 in and 30 mph zone probably isn’t a good thing, but neither is having sex with a 14-year-old girl and taping it.

If your neighbor had been charged with something like that, you can bet his day and court would have come and gone years ago. And even if he wasn’t convicted, he certainly wouldn’t win any friends in the neighborhood…or get people to go out and buy his newest CD.