As if state government didn't already have too much of a hand in lady business, Tulsa County has made it even easier to invade a female stranger's privacy, dismissing a felony charge against a man who, according to a Tulsa World report, snapped a photograph under a woman's dress with his cell phone.
Darwin D. Batton is the amateur shutterbug whose "upskirt" prowess landed him under arrest at Sand Springs' Warehouse Market in the fall of 2006, but claimed his skyward shot was "not illegal because it did not show her face."
On April 14, the charge against Batton was jettisoned because, said Assistant District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler, a similar case was shot down by the state Court of Criminal Appeals. In that instance, Riccardo Gino Ferrante also chose an up-the-clothing angle for his subject: a 16-year-old girl in a Target store, in the summer of 2006.
As reported by the World, District Judge Tom Gillert let Ferrante go because Target " while certainly a place where one can expect reasonable prices, CFN thinks " was not "a place where she had a reasonable expectation of privacy."
These shenanigans got the Legislature's panties in a wad, so the body OK'd a bill to prosecute people like Batton and Ferrante for using high-tech gadgets in public as if they were Richard Fegley or Arny Freytag (Google it). Gov. Brad Henry is expected to sign the legislation.
