Public Voyeurism
Elements of misdemeanor public voyeurism
• A person who:
(1) without the consent of the individual; and
(2) with intent to peep at the private area of an individual;
peeps at the private area of an individual and records an image by means of a camera commits public voyeurism, a Class A misdemeanor.
See Sandleben v. State, 22 N.E.3d 782, 791 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014), trans. denied(citing IC 35-45-4-5(d)(1)-(2))(“In order to prove that [the defendant] committed public voyeurism, as a Class A misdemeanor, the State was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that [the defendant], without consent and with intent to peep at the private area of an individual, peeped at the private area of an individual and recorded an image by means of a camera.”)
Elements of felony public voyeurism
• [Public voyeurism] is a Level 6 felony if the person has a prior unrelated conviction under this section or in another jurisdiction, including a military court, for an offense that is substantially similar to an offense described in this section, or if the person:
(1) publishes the image;
(2) makes the image available on the Internet; or
(3) transmits or disseminates the image to another person.
Definition and interpretation of “private area”
• “Private area” means the naked or undergarment clad genitals, pubic area, or buttocks of an individual.
• [The defendant] first contends that he did not film a “private area,” as defined by the public voyeurism statute. Instead, he contends that he filmed a bathing suit and the shorts portion of a skort, neither of which, he reasons, is an undergarment. But the public voyeurism statute is written in the disjunctive: it speaks of either the undergarment-clad or the naked genitals, public [sic] area or buttocks. And, here, [the defendant's] course of conduct supports a reasonable inference that [the defendant] intended to film his victims' private areas, not a pair of shorts or a bathing suit. Thus, we agree with the trial court that [the defendant] attempted to commit public voyeurism.
Sandleben v. State, 22 N.E.3d 782, 792 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014), trans. denied(citation omitted)