This one is a maybe, but where does it say it was her second offense? It seems liek there are considering multiple counts for the same crime?
Why is it ‘on the fence’? Your critiera was simply having sex with someone under 16.
And it looks like you are correct, I had misread the case (she is on probation from on jurisdiction for being with the same boy). It also seems she started when he was 14 not 15 (as I said earlier).
Right, and I was unsure of exactly when the violations occured (they met when he was 14, but how old was he when they had sex?). But as you can see, we have gone beyond just this one case. In this case, I’d leave it up the the Judges discretion during sentencing.
I have a real problem with making an arbitrary age the sole criterion to establish whether or not a person can or can’t do a certain thing–it seems more than a little disingenuous to pretend that a person changes in any marked way in a day. However, that’s just what the law is stating–that a person who is 17 years and 364 days old is a child who must be protected from sex and a day later is all of a sudden in a different category entirely.
People ought to be able to decide for themselves whether or not they’re ready to have sex. I submit that any person past puberty (a reasonable, physical and hormonal dividing line) who can sit down and pass a test which encompasses basic facts on reproduction, birth control, STDs, and sexual anatomy including the mechanics of arousal and orgasm in both sexes is probably savvy enough to decide they’re ready to be a sexually responsible person. Any person who has passed such a test and has declared themselves legally and socially responsible should not be then victimized by the state when he/she exercises his/her right to sexual expression.* Any person, of any age, who has sex with anyone else of any age who has NOT made this declaration and passed their test is guilty of child molestation. This protects those who for whatever reason choose to remain sexually inactive until such time as they feel comfortable joining the ranks of the randy, and also protects those who might otherwise be locked up and branded for life because they had consensual sex.
If I had been born later by twenty years, it’s quite likely that my first lover would have been prosecuted for sleeping with me, as he was over eighteen and I was just fifteen. Never mind that I instigated the relationship after interviewing his previous girlfriends and establishing that he was a darned good candidate to give me an enjoyable first run–as far as current law is concerned HE would be the criminal and I would be a victim. The fact that I was nothing of the sort and would have fought any prosecution of him tooth and nail would be ignored, because being fifteen means you’re too stupid to know what you want. Of course, when I got MARRIED (to someone else) just after I turned seventeen that was perfectly okay–how in hell is that correct? If people can get married at sixteen, and in many states they can, are they supposed to wait two years to consummate the marriage? Or are they de facto criminals for doing what married people do? Does marriage makes it “different” somehow–and if the law can be set aside because a couple has a religious ceremony performed doesn’t that violate the separation of church and state?
The law is an ass in very many cases, and this is definitely one of them.
*of course, it could just be that I think having a license to fuck is way cool… heh heh…