“The definition of child porn has been expanding a little bit,” he says. This surge, according to Morales, has led to increase in conversations around the topic itself: “Maybe lawyer knows that,” he says. Morales thinks that the “huge increase in child porn cases” in recent years - mainly due to evolving technology that helps police officers pinpoint wrongdoing more quickly and efficiently - may be playing a role here.
“He’s swimming - he’s not doing anything provocative or sexual in nature,” he says.
“This is not anything remotely like any child pornography case we’ve ever handled, and handled over 1,000 of them,” he says.Ĭalifornia-based criminal law specialist Christopher Morales is similarly perplexed. Wallin says he already had conversations about this photograph with more than a dozen professionals - media, other lawyers, and teachers - and that “no reasonable person” would consider it to be child pornography. However, the the statute of limitations for breach of contract in California is four years for a written contract and two for an oral contract. If Elden just wanted to sue for an entity using his likeness for commercial purposes without the right to do so, that would be a different kind of legal case - one that probably would not result in as many head-turning headlines as the one at hand.
NIRVANA NEVERMIND COVER STORY PROFESSIONAL
“It would be very difficult for a mental health professional to say that, and the judge would have to buy it.” (There is, however, no mention of such a therapist in the lawsuit.) “If he’s outside that age, he would have to go to a therapist, who would have to give a declaration to be able to sue and explain to a judge why he has mental health issues that are just coming up now,” Wallin explains. An exception to this rule is that if the alleged victim doesn’t realize they were harmed until after their maturity, they have three years from that date of recognition.
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Wallin also brings up California’s Statute of Limitations on Sex Crimes and, more specifically, the Code of Civil Procedure 340.1, which states that people who were victims of a sex crime as a child have eight years after they become adults at 18 to file a complaint. “This is absolutely not a valid case of child pornography,” says Paul Wallin of Wallin & Klarich, which has specialized in sex crimes for 35 years. And I think it’s pretty clear that’s not the purpose.” What’s going to be at issue here is whether this album cover incites the lustful interest, sexual stimulation, or gratification of the viewer. “It has to appeal to the viewer’s prurient interest. “The case is likely going to be dismissed,” says criminal defense attorney Matthew Matejcek of Beles & Beles, pointing to the Department of Justice’s definition of child pornography. I’ve had quite a few a-ha moments in my late twenties - and my likeness was not part of a marketing for what’s now considered one of the greatest rock albums of all time.) (I, too, was born in 1991, and my therapist, who I started seeing in 2019, has helped me recognize that there’s trauma from my childhood that I brushed off as insignificant. That baby is now a grown man: Spencer Elden, now 30, filed a lawsuit this week alleging that the Nevermind cover constitutes child pornography. Psychologically speaking, he has every right to feel overwhelmed by conflicting emotions a person’s prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed until age 25, and post-1991 developments like social media have also helped to destigmatize discussion of mental health.
And a lot has changed since 1991, when Nirvana shot the album cover for Nevermind, the sophomore album that catapulted the band into superstardom - and whose image of a baby is now the subject of a lawsuit from that very baby. It’s not uncommon for people to rethink experiences from their early life.
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