Child-porn conviction overturned

A decision in Maryland's highest court could be a major setback for US law-enforcement agencies' practice of catching online predators by posing in chatrooms as teenage girls. The Maryland Court of Appeals "unanimously overturned the Frederick County Circuit Court conviction of Richard J. Moore, saying he could not be found guilty of committing a crime with a nonexistent victim," the Washington Post reports. Moore had thought he was chatting online with a 14-year-old who was actually chatting with an officer trying to lure him into a physical meeting for the purposes of an arrest. He was arrested and convicted - the conviction that was just overturned. The Post said the court's decision was based on the experience of the state's legislature, which had "tried but failed six times to broaden the law and make it illegal to proposition an adult who the suspect believes is a minor."