Man Challenges 15-Year Term for High-Tech Peeping

Jan. 18, 2008— -- In 2003, a Ridgeland, Miss., constable named Eddie Gilmer sat in his car and videotaped a young woman talking on the phone in her apartment.

Though the tapes zoomed in on the woman's chest and crotch, court records say she was fully clothed and sitting in front of a partially-open balcony door, where she could be seen from the parking lot where Gilmer was sitting.

After he was caught filming her several times, Gilmer was sentenced to 15 years in prison under the state's video voyeurism law, in what appears to be one of the country's toughest punishments for high-tech peeping.

"They've put people who have killed people in jail for less time than that," said Gilmer's attorney, Julie Epps, who has appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. "If you don't want people looking through an open window, you have a responsibility to put blinds or curtains on the windows. There has to be some balance in there somewhere."

As surveillance technology has advanced, it has become easier than ever for high-tech peeping Toms to spy on unsuspecting victims. Those electronic spying cases have at times frustrated prosecutors and victims alike because laws either didn't apply to or provided limited penalties for the latest forms of video surveillance.

Some states have responded by seeking harsher penalties for so-called video voyeurs. At least 34 states now make it a felony under some circumstances to secretly film or distribute images of people in places where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as bathrooms and tanning salons, according to the National Center for Victims of Crime. Most of those laws require the victim to be at least partially undressed.

In addition to Gilmer's case, a man in Louisiana was reportedly sentenced last month to 15 years in prison for secretly taping his stepdaughter. In Illinois, beginning this month, a video voyeurism conviction will carry up to three years in prison.

Some states and the federal government have begun to criminalize taking pictures of the private areas of a person's body even when they are in public, where courts have often said the people have no legal privacy rights. "The expectation of privacy as to what a person can hear or see is one thing, but our expectations about privacy when we talk about what technology makes possible is a whole other matter," said Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to consider Friday whether it will hear Gilmer's challenge to Mississippi's surveillance law. Gilmer and his attorneys argue that the law, as interpreted by the state's supreme court, violates his First Amendment and due process rights.

The voyeurism law makes it illegal to secretly tape someone, with a lewd purpose, in a place where they would intend to be undressed and expect privacy. In Gilmer's case, the victim admitted that she was fully clothed and that she would not take her clothes off in front of an open window or door, according to court records.

The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld Gilmer's conviction, saying the state legislature intended for anyone inside their home to be free from unwanted "lewd" surveillance. Three judges dissented.

"What an absurdity for the law to allow one to stand and look with impunity at a person who knows they are being looked at, but the moment a picture is taken or a video is made, the looker becomes a voyeur, that is to say, a criminal," wrote Justice Jess Dickinson.

The case "has alarming implications for all persons who use a video camera or any other recording device," Justice Oliver Diaz wrote. "This law was to protect persons from intrusive and invasive private recording -- a peeping Tom law for this ever-more digital world. Yet under the majority's interpretation of the statute, virtually any use of a recording device could prove to be a felony."

Mississippi's Attorney General Jim Hood said the need to prove a "lewd" or "indecent" intent ensured that it would not be inappropriately applied to journalists and photographers. In Gilmer's case, according to court records, Gilmer tried to hide what he was doing and zoomed in on the victim's crotch and chest. On the night of his arrest, he told a police officer, "Ain't it funny what p**** will make you do?" court records say.