I actually know a young man in a similar (not identical) predicament. He met the young lady at a fraternity party at the college. He was drinking, she was drinking, they got down and dirty.
She was 15.
What she was doing drinking at a fraternity party, with a bouncer and bartender who were at least nominally checking IDs, was never satisfactorily explained. The DA didn’t bother to make an example of him, so he pleaded to statutory rape and received a pretty nominal sentence (90 days, maybe?), but he’s been on the sex offender registry for well over a decade, with no end in sight.
At that particular party, the rule was that the bouncer at the door checked IDs; if you were over 21 and thus entitled to get booze, you got one color of wristband, if you were 18-21 you got a different color to mark you as underage, and if you were under 18 you weren’t supposed to be allowed in at all. She had an “over-21” wristband. (I don’t know for sure whether he asked, although I seriously doubt there was much coherent conversation at all.)
I know a guy that lost his future in the military kind of like this. He met a girl at a bar, they left together, had sex. The next day when she called, he blew her off. She reported him to authorities. She was underage and had a fake ID. Doesn’t matter. He was arrested, charged and was discharged from the military.
First of all, this assumes that the males get convicted. I don’t know how well the “I don’t care how old she said she was; she was 12, so that’s statutory rape” (and, in California at least, it can be a felony if the age difference is 3 years or more, even if both are minors) prosecution strategy works.
The key word here is “pleaded”. He admitted guilt, so he has to be treated as if he knew all of the details.
Yeah, see, the problem with this is, what are we supposed to do, ask each girl we sleep with for their ID? And be good at recognizing fake IDs? The whole concept of “age of consent” laws is fatally flawed in any number of ways - it’s entirely possible for women who aren’t adults to consent to or even go looking for sex. One of my friends from childhood was fairly promiscuous with people around her age at 12. To set the age of consent at 18 is ridiculous. 16 even is pushing it. The concept has some flaws.
Faulty premise. Nobody lies for that reason. People lie because they believe they have some benefit to gain from lying. There is no other motivation. Whether of not they ALSO know (or believe) it is wrong is a variable, which may influence their decision to lie, but is never the fundamental reason for doing so.
Even by the age of 12, people learn that lying often yields a desired result, and also learn how to lie effectively and what lies they can get away with, and whether the potential consequences of being caught outweigh the benefit to be gained.
If he had NOT made a plea deal, the prosecution would merely have had to show that she was under 16; in that state (as in many states), statutory rape is a strict liability crime, meaning there is NO requirement that the state prove that he knew or should have known her true age.
In other words, if he had wanted to introduce evidence at trial that she showed him a seemingly-genuine birth certificate or ID “proving” she was 21, that evidence would not have been allowed to be shown to the jury, because it was legally irrelevant. Whether or not he “knew all of the details” makes no difference.
“Under 16” = felony, reqardless of level of knowledge.
I’ve read a number of sex offender sob stories about how being on the registry, having to go to dehumanizing weekly therapy sessions, etc. is wrecking innocent (or so they claim) people’s lives, and a very frequent part of the background story is an apparently wild accusation that the defendant pled guilty to. A guilty plea basically wrecks their chances of ever raising a successful defense. People find out too late that signing up for three months in jail, ten years of sex offender probation and therapy, and a lifetime on the registry (hey, it’s just some stupid website, who the hell searches there anyway?) is basically as worse as a life sentence. If they had fought the charges in a jury trial, they could have walked free. Now they can’t even microwave a burrito without filling in five pages of psychotherapy forms listing whether they have, or have ever had, sexual fantasies that somehow involve microwave cookery and/or Mexican food, and what safety steps they plan to take to prevent children from being abused by the cookery-related behavior of their obviously dangerous offender self, who will never be cured. Then they have to get the forms approved by their court-approved therapist and probation officer, and the therapist makes the offender cry over their helplessness and beg for more restrictions elsewhere in their life to compensate for granting this freedom, which is undeserved for such a awful person.
And this girl is not lying to get sex. She is lying to trick young men into having sex with her, and then she can turn in to the authorities. Why she is choosing this method of getting revenge on these young men is an interestiong question.
Consider the case I brought up. What successful defense could he have raised that would have won? (“I really and sincerely believed she was over 21” isn’t a defense you’re even allowed to raise, because it doesn’t matter.)
If he’d fought the charges in a jury trial, he would have gotten five to ten years in prison and a lifetime on the registry. How is that “better” than taking a deal?
As a girl who passed herself off as a college student at age 15 (though I didn’t go around having sex with anyone), I don’t know why on earth you’d go around turning in guys you had sex with.
Even if I were loony enough to not realize that’s just wrong, the backlash from my parents when they found out I’d been sneaking into clubs/frat parties would be more than enough to keep me from blowing anyone’s cover.
I wonder how many of these sob stories are from cases where there is actual evidence, or if they are he said/she said cases?
There’s always jury nullification to hope for, I guess. Which might work if the girl looks old enough, but I don’t see it ever working in the case of someone screwing a 12 year old.
Not fair. Not only there wasn’t an intent, but what the fuck a teen who had once sex with another teen is doing on a sex offender registry? Besides ruining his life, it serves absolutely no useful purpose. Even assuming he was sleazy, what interest parents in the neighborhood is “who is likely to victimize our children?”, not “who was careless with sex when he was 16?”.
The problem here is with the concept of strict liability, not with the age of consent. (I can see a case for lowering the AOC to 16, but the bigger problem here is that strict liability, for any crime, seems to be unfair).
I have nothing really to suggest (other than moving to a different country) beyond, “get to know someone a bit before you sleep with them, ask how old they are, and then make sure you know them well enough to be confident they’re not lying.” Fortunately, I don’t think most people are the type to lie to potential sexual partners about something as serious as this.