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@parisa4justice 1/15 This is our story. Sharing this wasn’t an easy decision, but it is important for folks to know what is happening in Arlington today and Stamos’ approach makes a mockery of the goals of rehabilitation and education that the juvenile justice system is supposed to be about
@parisa4justice 2/15 Our son was sent intimate images by a classmate, some of which he kept on his phone and were found during a search at school. While completely consensual, he knew it was wrong – but was only 13, curious, and made some bad decisions.
@parisa4justice 3/15 Ms Stamos’ office decided to charge him and some of the other kids in the same position. She didn’t HAVE to lay charges – most jurisdictions view this as something that the schools and parents should handle.
@parisa4justice 4/15 Even other prosecutors think prosecution is not the best way forward, including those in the counties around Arlington. But apparently here in Arlington under Ms Stamos, prosecuting ‘sexting’ is official policy and as we found out, this was hardly the first time
@parisa4justice 5/15 As she does in adult cases it seems, she essentially forced a plea deal by threatening to charge him with the maximum possible charges – one felony for possession of child pornography per image. That took defending him in court off the table
@parisa4justice 6/15 even though there were some questions our lawyer had about how the search of his phone was conducted. He is very much a first time offender, didn’t share the images with anyone else – none of that appeared to matter much.
@parisa4justice 7/15 Even the plea deal itself included terms that can only be seen as attempts to punish – supervised probation and nothing even remotely aimed at trying to educate him on why what he had done was wrong.
@parisa4justice 8/15 But the craziest piece is that we also had to give up our right to ask for the expungement of his record (after a year, charges will be dropped, but there are still records retained by the county). Normally, the burden is on the CA to show why they need these records.
@parisa4justice 9/15 But we had to sign a (potentially unconstitutional) waiver agreeing to not request expungement – potentially putting college admission at risk even though he will have never been found guilty of anything. This was 100% vindictive - there is no legal rationale for doing this.
@parisa4justice 10/15 Again, this is a policy choice Stamos has made, NOT something she was compelled to do. It was made clear to us that none of this was negotiable – either take it or take your chances with multiple felony charges. Situations like this are why prosecutorial discretion exists.
@parisa4justice 11/15 I don’t believe that this approach is what Arlingtonians want or deserve. It certainly isn’t representative of the Arlington we know. Stamos is presenting herself as a reformer, and she is lying. And believe me when I say that if it happened to us, it can happen to you too.
@parisa4justice 12/15 We never thought we’d need to have a ‘how to handle a police search’ discussion with our kids, but I strongly encourage you all do that ASAP. If you are in APS, there is a module in canvas now that covers basic rights in school.
@parisa4justice 13/15 Don’t count on APS staff to make sure your child is aware of their rights or to try and protect their rights – they probably won’t. Also talk to your kids, especially the boys, about sexting and the pressure girls especially face to send pictures and videos
@parisa4justice 14/15 It isn’t right and we all have a role to play in stopping it. We thought we’d done enough, but hadn’t. Don’t think your kid ‘would never do that’ – it is incredibly pervasive, even in middle school and is a legitimate problem that we have to find a solution to.
@parisa4justice 15/15 Finally, if you have read all of this, please vote for @parisa4justice to represent us as Commonwealth’s Attorney. She offers a way out of the system that we have now, where even kids are just statistics and the legal system is used to harm rather than heal too often.
