ruled today that it’s not a crime to look at child pornography while surfing the Internet if none of the images are purposefully downloaded, printed out or paid for.

The high court said that while some states have specifically outlawed “viewing” child pornography, Oregon lawmakers only did so if someone pays for it. What’s more, the court ruled that simply looking at photos on a website does not mean a person “possessed” the photos.

“Looking for something on the Internet is like walking into a museum to look at pictures — the pictures are where the person expected them to be, and he can look at them, but that does not in any sense give him possession of them,” wrote Justice Michael Gillette, after reviewing a case of a Eugene man.

Justices Rives Kistler and Virginia Linder dissented.

The case could have wide-reaching repercussions — making it more difficult for prosecutors to pursue child-pornography charges in some cases. Alternately, state lawmakers could decide to change the law to more specifically address Internet viewing.

Prosecutors also worry that the ruling will embolden those who have been thinking about viewing child pornography on the web, but have been discouraged by the legal consequences.

“(The ruling) does absolutely nothing to discourage that activity, and we have to discourage that activity,” said Mike Pugh, the Lane County assistant district attorney who prosecuted the Eugene man. “...The ruling does nothing to enhance the protections that we try to give to the thousands and tens of thousands of kids who are abused.”

told police that there was some “weird” material on the couple’s home computer. Police were already investigating a report that Barger, had sexually abused a child.

The officer looked at the computer’s web-address history. Three addresses appeared to contain pornographic images of prepubescent girls and girls in their early teens. Investigators believed that Barger’s computer automatically stored eight images off of those websites.

Oregon law makes it illegal to possess or control such images. And the prosecution argued that Barger had possession and control over the pornography because he could have printed, saved or e-mailed it if he chose to do so.

Barger, now 39, was convicted of eight counts of second-degree encouraging child sexual abuse. He was sentenced in Lane County Circuit Court to 16 months in prison, which was to run at the same time as a 25-year prison sentence he received for sexually abusing two children who were younger than 12.

The Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s ruling. Today, the supreme court reversed those decisions, and instructed the circuit court to acquit Barger of the pornography charges.

Barger still remains in prison, however, for sexually abusing the two children.

The supreme court today also issued

. Now 36, he was convicted in 2005 of multiple counts of second-degree encouraging child sexual abuse after Clackamas County Sheriff's investigators uncovered child pornography, which was the product of surfing the web, on his computer. He was sentenced to 20 days in jail. The high court ruled that a Clackamas County Circuit Court judge shall acquit him of those convictions.

David Degner, a public defender who represented Barger, said although the ruling doesn’t affect his client’s prison sentence, the ruling is good news for those who've been accused of accessing child pornography on the Internet.

Often, Degner said, "there’s just no evidence that the people knew it was on their computer. ...You don’t even have to look at it.”

Degner said once a person has visited the site, their computer has already stored away an image from it.

--