Banished for a thought crime

Jack McClellan says he is a pedophile — that he is sexually attracted to children. But he has never been charged with molestation.

McClellan, 45, has been unemployed and living out of his car since arriving in Southern California from Washington state this summer.

The fellow came to the attention of authorities for a Web site where he posted photos of children in public places and discussed how he liked to stake out parks, public libraries, fast-food restaurants and other areas where little girls congregated. His Internet service provider took down his Web site more than a month ago.

McClellan maintains he launched the site as a form of therapy; he wouldn’t actually do anything illegal.

So far as anyone can determine, he never has.

But on Friday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Melvin Sandvig issued a permanent injunction and a three-year restraining order that prohibit McClellan from coming within 30 feet of schools, playgrounds and other places where children congregate.

The judge’s ruling narrowed an injunction issued earlier in the month that barred McClellan from coming near anyone under age 18 anywhere in the state. McClellan spent 10 days in jail for violating that injunction when he was arrested earlier this month near a child care center at the UCLA.

Judge Sandvig’s new ruling also bars McClellan from contacting, videotaping or photographing children or publishing their photos without written consent from a guardian or parent. McClellan could be arrested if he violates that prohibition.

So McClellan is leaving the state.

Many will say, “Good riddance.”

But remember, Jack McClellan stands accused of no crime. He has said he has no intention of committing any crime.

We now live in an era in which police officers pretend to be teenage girls, trolling the Internet in search of adult men who will exchange lewd or suggestive e-mails. The men are invited to visit these non-existent teenagers, and then arrested when they show up.

Does this take a criminal out of circulation before he can victimize a real child — or create a made-up “crime” that would never have occurred without such creative police work?

If it’s now a crime merely to think unacceptable sexual thoughts, will the authorities next start to ban books and movies that depict such activities, either to “keep impressionable people from getting ideas,” or — worse yet — prosecuting the writers or filmmakers for “conspiring to commit these crimes, even if they haven’t actually gotten around to them yet”?

In this day of sophisticated computer programs, it’s easy to create realistic images of things that never were. Is it now a crime to possess such images? Does it depend on what we think when we look at them?

The old rule was that a crime hasn’t occurred till the would-be offender takes some concrete criminal action.

It was a pretty good rule.