quote:Criminalizing sex acts *with* a minor is different than criminalizing sex acts *between* minors.
The second is a subset of the first.
I don't think there's anything wrong with the law saying that X years old is too young to have sex*, and it's a crime to have sex with someone that age. Even if you're that age yourself.
posted
We could even charge both of the participants, wouldn't that be a lark.
Luckily, in many (most?) states they don't criminalize such acts in most cases -- only given certain ages, or certain age differences, or certain authority relationships, typically.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: I don't know.
edit: I don't think that should bar me from participating in the discussion, including expressing my disagreement with what others are convinced of.
edit2: It seems like you are talking about two different things -- I haven't expressed anything about this specific case. I've been talking about generalities such as the idea that criminalizing sexual activities between two adolescents is crazy and that since something is commonplace, it shouldn't be illegal. I do have views about that.
Of course it shouldn't bar you. But it does get frustrating when it sounds like all you are saying is, "That's wrong, but I won't tell you anymore."
So go ahead. Express something specific about this case. What do you specifically think should be the punishment for this case? Do you think the punishment he got was appropriate. What age should X be for when sex should be punishable as a felony? How would you design the rules?
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posted
Yes, I've been speaking in generalities, but I've been responding to generalities. I don't know why you're frustrated about that.
I haven't said much about this specific case because I don't really have much to say.
Nevertheless, I'll answer your questions:
quote:What do you specifically think should be the punishment for this case?
I don't have any opinion on this.
quote:Do you think the punishment he got was appropriate.
No, but that's been covered quite well by others.
quote:What age should X be for when sex should be punishable as a felony?
I don't know.
Replace felony with misdemeanor, and I still don't know.
quote:How would you design the rules?
Goodness. I haven't even come *close* to saying what the rules should be. There's a world of difference between saying "There's nothing wrong with the rules being like X." and "If I were making the rules, I'd make them like X."
I have no idea how I'd make the rules.
As you can see, I really don't have much to say about this specific case. At least not that's worth saying.
posted
So it sounds like you don't have an opinion of what is right - even generalities - but you can tell when other people are wrong?
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posted
I don't see anything contradictory about believing that it's not wrong for it to be illegal to have sex with somebody who is too young, even without having come to a conclusion about how young is too young.
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quote:So it sounds like you don't have an opinion of what is right - even generalities - but you can tell when other people are wrong?
If only more people had such restraint and willingness to admit that they are - not to mention the thoughtfulness to actually be - unsure, we wouldn't have the hundreds of bad laws that get passed in response to outrageous incidents.
People made a lot of very general statements in this thread. At least one of them - that something should not be illegal simply because it's extremely common - is a horrible principle that can lead to great injustice. One doesn't have to have thought through every possible permutation to be able to reasonably and confidently declare that to be an immoral axiom upon which to base laws.
The fact that an axiom can be used to reach a good conclusion does not mean that the axiom itself is good.
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posted
Agreed. ( ETA:with what it said the first time, that we expect too much from it-- not sure what you meant by the edit)
I'm also in agreement with mph, in that I don't know a lot of answers to those questions. Me, I'm not even sure sex acts with consent between two minors that are close in age, but making those things discretionary leaves the door open for inequitable application of the law.
I think it's really cool to be able to say that you don't know, when you don't know, instead of feeling obligated to make up a plan to fix the world's ills.
I can tell when my bike is broken, even though I don't know how to fix it.
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posted
I think there should be a wide gap between immoral and illegal. We may not like the idea of teenagers experimenting with sex, but I think it's exceedingly short sighted of society to ruin the lives of young adults curious about their sexuality.
In many countries, and even sometimes in the United States, 15, 16 and 17 year olds get married. How does it make sense that a 17 year old can get married, but can't legally have sex?
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quote:I doubt the kid will actually serve 10 years, he will most likely be pardoned by the governor as long as enough noise is made.
What difference does that make? Have you ever been to jail or prison? It's a terrible thing, despite all the hooplah we get in America about how cushy our prisoners have it. I'm aware you're not saying this makes it OK, you're just making a statement. But still, the statement got to me.
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posted
If you read the article, also, you'd know that the governor doesn't have pardoning powers in Georgia. That's one of the avenues they were considering for his release, to try to get a law passed reinstating them. So, basically, unless the prosecutor relents or they can get a new law passed, he's screwed.
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posted
What's silly is the law that was made to make sure this never happens again. It was specifically legislated in reaction to this case, but they specifically didn't make it retroactive. I think the article said there was a bill introduced in their state congress to make it retroactive, but that doesn't give the kid back the time stolen from him, or a bright future that is surely no more.
Many states allow teens younger than 18 get married, often without parental consent, but it's still illegal for some of those same married teens to actually have sex, how's that for a confused set of rules?
I don't think that just because something is common practice it should be made legal. But I also think that sexual experimentation between teens is something that shouldn't be legislated. It's something Congresses should most definetely NOT have their hands in. I might not like the idea of fourteen and fifteen year olds doing these types of things, but I also think that they do know what they are doing, at least in the decision making process if not the actual act. They aren't stupid, by and large, and it's their bodies and their lives, and experimentation, learning, etc is part of maturing and growing up now. Government telling them what they can and can't do with their bodies, or that they CAN do what they want, but only with government approved people, is ridiculous, and a gross violation of their rights in my opinion.
Then again, I think the dumbest thing that happened in this whole case is the fact that the kids videotaped themselves doing it.
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posted
There's something that's been nagging at my mind, but I'm not sure how well I can express it.
Here goes:
Age of consent laws, so far as I am to understand, are designed and put into place to protect those who are not mature enough to make responsible decisions for themselves.
Children cannot consent to sexual interaction with adults, because our laws do not recognize their ability to make such decisions and take their long term consequences into consideration. So, no matter how much a 13 year old may want to have sex with a 30 year old teacher, they do not have the legal ability to grant consent.
So, in essence, children are not held as responsible for their actions because they do not have the maturity to make such decisions. This also holds true for juvenile detention vs. adult detention - juveniles are not prosecuted in the same way as adults.
That said, I don't think you can hold two minors to the same standard as an adult and a minor.
If an adult has sex with the child, the child is not punished under our laws - the adult is. If two children who do not have the ability of consent have sex, who is at fault? Neither has the legal ability to consent.
This being the case, how do you criminalize that behavior?
This particular case is just awful. Oral sex carries felony charges, while intercourse does not? How exactly is oral sex that much more criminal? If nothing else, it doesn't carry the risk of pregnancy - so shouldn't intercourse carry a higher weight of responsibility?
***
On a separate note, if everyone involved thinks it's wrong for this kid to be in jail for 10 years for this act, why do our laws hold him there? Shouldn't there be some provision to let him out? Especially now that the law that put him in jail no longer exists? And the *reason* it doesn't exist is because the people felt it was unjustly applied in his case?
This whole thing is just absurd.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I have a question... I didn't have time to read the article properly just now, so it's probably something that was covered there and maybe it's silly for me to ask, but what happened to the other boys who were convicted? I understood that they got less jail time, but did they also have to register as sex offenders? If they did wouldn't this icident affect their lives almost as badly, albeit with less years spent in jail? Or how big of a thing is it when you have to register as a sex offender? Will it still enable them to live their lives as proper people? (I don't really know since we don't have such registries in Finland.)
Also, I understand that something should not be legal simply because it is commonplace, but what I don't understand is why sex between two minors or teenagers should be illegal in the first place. If the age differences are small enough it's clearly not abuse... so what is really achieved by outlawing it? I also don't understand what could possibly be a proper punishment in such a case.
Posts: 247 | Registered: Dec 2006
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posted
Unforunately, there are three real problems (in my opinion) involving sex in this country.
1) Some laws are simply carried out in absurd ways that unjustly affect minors 2) Even the smallest offense, even with someone your age and whom has given consent, can brand you as a sex offender, and destroy much of your opportunities in life. People don't care about degrees or intentions in this country; they see the black label, and thus you are evil. 3) There is nothing to prevent people whom are falsely accused of rape. All it takes is for someone to claim you did it, and suddenly you're never looked at the same again.
posted
The limited number of false accusations of rape is a "real problem," but 200,000 sexual assaults or attempted sexual assaults each year in this country isn't?
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posted
Snail, the other boys plead guilty to rape and molestation, but were offered 5 years with the opportunity for parole. They served less than two years and are out now, though they are still on the sex offender registry.
Wilson plead not guilty, the rape charge was thrown out during trial, but he was found guilty of aggravated child molestation, which carries a minimum 10 year no parole sentence, with sex offender registration.
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posted
OK. So the injustice here is that this guy shouldn't be in jail and none of them should be on the sex offender list, right? Cause the article made it sound as if all problems will be solved when this guy is released from jail.
EDIT: Not that this guy being in jail isn't currently the biggest problem.
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quote:This particular case is just awful. Oral sex carries felony charges, while intercourse does not? How exactly is oral sex that much more criminal? If nothing else, it doesn't carry the risk of pregnancy - so shouldn't intercourse carry a higher weight of responsibility?
Yeah, I'm having a hard time understanding that oral sex is criminalized more severely than intercourse. I would agree with you - seems like it should be the other way around.
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posted
The penal system doles out punishment. It makes victims happy, deters criminal actions, engineers a sense of balance. Nice things, all of them, on the surface, it even gives the appearance of justice.
True justice is the natural exponent of wisdom. It's people doing the right thing because they see it's the right thing to do and have the courage to risk shame and harm to do it. Insight and fortitude are the ingredients necessary to cultivate justice.
Instead of putting our efforts a constructing this behemoth of legal system and then getting upset when it runs amok, we should be seeking justice from the source. The penal system is going to err. It's going to be biased. It's going harm good people and give bad ones a pass, and all of that is made the worse because it punishes actions and doesn't give a good faith attempt to provide insight or supply courage.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: The limited number of false accusations of rape is a "real problem," but 200,000 sexual assaults or attempted sexual assaults each year in this country isn't?
I think a lot of people don't believe the statistics on sexual assaults/attempted sexual assaults. Or they don't want to believe them. As I recall, the numbers are pretty sad.
At any rate, criminalizing consensual sex acts between minors seems utterly ridiculous to me. But I still think that we need to stop making sex dirty and wrong and bad...until we're married, and then the magical switch flips, and it's a good thing.
quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: See, I don't see 10 years in prison without the possibility of parole (and being registered as a sex offender) as a "natural consequence" of a 17 year old receiving oral sex from a 15 year old.
What's even more bizarre is that if he'd had intercourse with her, it would have been a misdemeanor.
Where's the logic in that?
I'm not defending anything here, including the logic I'm about to point out, but I believe the law was made by people who would define oral sex, not as a "lesser" thing than intercourse, but as a "perversion", that is, "unnatural". Intercourse is what male and female are supposed to do with each other, that is "normal", only to be illegal because of other factors, that is, relative ages, that the two are not married to each other, or that one or both are married to someone else, while oral sex should not happen at all, ever: it's abnormal. It's probably also influenced by the matter that it's one of the two things that gay men are able to do with each other.
Posts: 69 | Registered: Jan 2007
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posted
The situation is certainly tragic. While many people are arguing the lack of justice in this matter, I don't think anyone is saying that what this boy did was not wrong. They are simply saying the punishment is completely unfair and out of proportion to the crime. He should be punished but he should be punished in proportion to the crime.
First, to a 17 year old boy, opportunity means much much more than legality. The kid had the opportunity of sex and he seized it. However, the to a rational mind, the girl was underage, and the should have been enough to persuade the boy to decline the offer. Still 17 year old boy are not the most rational of beasts.
While a crime was certainly commited, I think the boy has some Constitutional grounds that he can argue.
He can argue the concept of 'Equal Justice Under the Law'. Clearly other people are commiting equally serious crimes, and are getting off with much softer sentences.
He can argue 'Cruel and Unusual Punishment'. Clearly the punishment is completely disproportionate to the crime; in the extreme. Further, the circumstances surrounding the crime should be reasonably considered, and should therefore moderate the sentence. This was not an act of violence, but more an act of compliance; she offerred, he accepted. That is a far cry from a similar offense in which the victim is bullied, seduced, coerced, forced or otherwise compelled to act.
Third, in line with Cruel and Unusual Punishment, I think to some extent, the harshness of the punishment is because the boy chose to fight the charges. He is not being punished so much for the actual crime, but for forcing the system to do its job and hold a trial.
This is one of the big complaints I have toward the 'Plea Bargain' system that is dominating the court system today. If you are innocent, unless you have unlimited monetary resource, you are force to admit guilt because the consequence of asserting your right to a fair trial are so astronomically BAD, that you simply can't take the chance with some randomly court appointed lawyer.
In a sense, it is a form of Blackmail. 'Take our offer or we will destroy you'. I don't think people should be excessively punished for simply asserting their right to a fair trial. That 'Fair Trial' is at the heart of our system of justice.
I think that is what is happening here. This kid is not sentenced to 10 year for having sex with an underage girl, he is being crucified for making the District Attorney and the Judge do their job; for asserting his rights as an American Citizen. When the results of asserting your rights is vindictive and spitefull to the point where innocent people will plead guilty just to avoid the oppressive consequences of asking the court system to do its job, then our country has seriously lost its legal perspective.
This also account for the District Attorney's and the courts unwillingness to set aside or modify the sentencing. A sentence that they all admit is inappropriate to the circumstances. They are adamant about the sentence because it is their vindictive justice and retribution for this kid asseting his rights and making them do their job.
That is just plain wrong, and I have to believe it is sufficient to warrent a challenge in a higher court.
The boy did commit a crime and he needs to be punished for the crime, but the punishment must be fair and in proportion to other similar cases, and any special circumstances must be taken into consideration in sentencing.
In my opinion, this is pure vindictiveness on the part of the court system, and I challenge the constitutionallity of that action.
Further, back to the concept of Equal Justice Under the Law, how does Oral Sex rate a felony while intercourse only rates a misdemeanor. That is clearly an injustice. That injustice is re-enforced by the fact that that particular 'oral' aspect of the law has been repealed. Now that may not be retroactive to the kids case, but it established the law as unfair, unreasonable, and unnecessarily vindictive. In a sense, he has been convicted of a law that the state itself has already declared unfair.
quote:However, to a rational mind, the girl was underage, and that should have been enough to persuade the boy to decline the offer.
As a former 17 year-old, I'm not sure that fifteen is too young to perform oral sex or seventeen is too young to receive it, depending on the circumstances.
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As a former 17 year-old, I'm not sure that fifteen is too young to perform oral sex or seventeen is too young to receive it, depending on the circumstances.
It is not a matter of function as to whether 15 is too young or 17 is too old, it is a matter of law. In most states in the USA, the Age of Consent is 16, if you are 16 and older and she is UNDER 16, any sexual action is against the law.
Further, these idiots were stupid enough to video tape everything (if I remember correctly) and that in and of itself is 'child pornography'. Even if the sex were legal for all parties, video taping it still constitutes 'child pornography' if any participant is under age 18.
Again, to the main point, it is not a matter of whether a 15 year old is capable or willing to commit the act, it is a matter of law, and by most laws in most states, this action was against the law.
posted
I don't honestly think he did anything wrong. Sex happens in high school, and in my opinion they were certainly close enough in age that neither did anything wrong (well I can see a strong case for video taping the act being wrong, but still).
In response to
quote:it is not a matter of whether a 15 year old is capable or willing to commit the act, it is a matter of law, and by most laws in most states, this action was against the law.
BlueWizard, you seem to be arguing at least in part that the action was wrong because it was against the law (and please, correct me if I'm misinterpreting what you're saying). But if the "victim" here is bot h"capable and willing" then I would say that she is not, in fact, a victim, and if nobody was hurt by said action, there is no reason for it to be illegal. Yes, they did break a law, but if it was a bad law (and I think it is), I see nothing wrong with that, and in my opinion, this is a case in which the guilty verdict was the wrong one.
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quote:First, to a 17 year old boy, opportunity means much much more than legality. The kid had the opportunity of sex and he seized it. However, the to a rational mind, the girl was underage, and the should have been enough to persuade the boy to decline the offer. Still 17 year old boy are not the most rational of beasts.
I don't grant this premise, BlueWizard. While I think that 15 and 17 is too young to be having sex (oral or otherwise), I don't think it should be crime, and I don't think that "to a rational mind", she was underage in those circumstances. He, too, was also underage. I don't know what his train of thought at the time was, but I don't think it follows that would've been irrational of him to think he wasn't committing a crime, or that he was underage for him.
Was it a good idea? Clearly not, and in my opinion not just because he got caught and sent to prison.
quote:...think to some extent, the harshness of the punishment is because the boy chose to fight the charges. He is not being punished so much for the actual crime, but for forcing the system to do its job and hold a trial.
I think you're wrong. There were only two likely outcomes from this in that given locale. One, he chooses not to fight. Gets a lesser sentence and is branded a sex-offender for life. Two, he choses to fight, loses because he clearly is a criminal under the law, and gets the only legal possible punishment for that 'crime'. If you mean "harshness of the punishment" by the 10 year sentence, then you're wrong-that was a mandatory minimum, unavoidable under the law given the guilty verdict. If you simply mean that he could've gotten a lesser sentence by pleading guilty to being a child molestor, then I agree with you.
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That's something I'm not sure I could do. I mean, 2 years versus 10 years, still branded a child molestor either way...but admitting I was a child molestor? We can all agree that being a child molestor is right near or at the top of the list of twisted, despicable, loathesome things anyone can be. Would eight years in a state prison be worth it to me to stand in a court in front of others and admit I was such a thing?
I don't know. I'd hope not...but prison, even jail, is awful, too.
Edit: And as for the guilty verdict...I'm not sure if I would've voted guilty. I'm a bit informed about the law, enough to know that "aggravated child abuse" (if I'm remembering the term correctly) would probably result in the label "sex-offender" for the rest of Wilson's life. To hell with the law, part of me thinks and wonders if that's what I were in a jury like this, I'm not tacking that label on him for the rest of his life for this.
I'm a fan of The Law, but I don't put it above all else.
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posted
I would love if that SOB got the hammer dropped on him in this fashion. Maybe he can get a felony conviction, and a sex-offender label.
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posted
I'm not opposed to prosecutors lobbying for changes to the criminal code, but I think lobbying to make sure one case goes a particular way is at best in poor taste and at worst an unethical conflict of interest.
If he used the video tape to accomplish his personal political ends - and that's what lobbying is - and it's a violation of the federal law, I hope he's prosecuted.
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