Wait a minute … Limon sucked on a 14-year-old’s cock, and that qualifies as having committed a sexually violent crime?
Jesus.
This is what happens when you use the term “sodomy” to encompass more than anal sex. It confuses the lawmakers and the public.
Kansas courts aren’t entirely rational on their treatment of teen sex. There’s a Kansas case, State Ex Rel. Hermesmann v. Seyer, 252 Kan. 646, 847 P.2d 252 (1993), in which a 16 year old female babysitter began having a sexual relationship with the 12 year old boy she cared for. At 17, she became pregnant by him and gave birth. She was charged with Indecent Liberties with a Child, a felony, but allowed to plead to the lesser charge of Contributing to A Child’s Misconduct.
Then the boy was ordered to pay her child support.
Slight correction to previous post, he was ordered to pay child support to SRS.
I disagree. It’s a “bad thing” (and therefore a crime) for a person just past his 18th birthday to have consenual sex with a person just short of his 15th birthday? Regardless of the gender of the people involved, I just don’t see this as bad, or a crime.
Even if it could be argued that preventing such things by law is a moral good, I still don’t see how the good of preventing this outweights the evils of locking somebody up in a steel cage for two decades.
Yes, “repeat offender,” you said that. But what’s the offense? In the incident for which he was sent to jail for 17 years, it does not sound to me as though any offense occured. He did not rape the other boy; he did not compel or coerce the other boy into giving him oral sex. He gave the other boy oral sex. That doesn’t sound like violence or an assault to me.
I daresay this is wholly inappropriate for Great Debates, but I’ll let a Moderator say for sure.
As to the OP, the whole incident makes me sad on so many levels. Two developmentally disabled kids, one obviously struggling with his homosexuality, one (legally) an adult and one a minor (and one report said it was consensual, which is sad on an entirely new level), 17 years in jail, disparity in justice… the list goes on and on. How tragic.
Esprix
I’m going to wait and see how the Supreme Court decides Lawrence vs Texas. If the Conservative Rehnquist court does what I think they are going to do: Uphold sodomy laws and unequal protection for gays, then I’d start a campaign to encourage people to write the Kansas governor, asking for a pardon or a commuted sentence for Limon.
Hazel you want to argue whether or not this “conduct” in question should be a crime at all. That is a fair question but simply another issue. As it stands right now the conduct in question is illegal and whether or not it should be is another issue.
The fact is it is illegal conduct. It is inappropriate sexual conduct with a minor under some prescribed age as dictated by the relevant statute. Consent is not relevant as the statute simply states sexual conduct with individuals below a particular age is illegal consent or not consent. The individual has committed the same or similar offense three times now and the law has not deterred him and hence, the 17 years is not as harsh in my opinion since it seeks to deter the individual from doing this illegal conduct again.
Can someone please answer my question ? Could the sentence have been any harsher id he was forcing the 14yr old to give ** him ** fellatio ? If not, then I think the judge has commited an error. Surely in anyones book it is worse to force yourself on someone, than to “pleasure” them ???
Anyone know the answer to this ??
The Supreme Court has voided the prison sentence for Matthew Limon.
The ACLU has been challenging the sentence in this case on equal protection grounds (the law punuishes same sex blow-jobs more harshly than hetero blow-jobs).
This poor kid has already been in jail for three years. If he had performed oral sex on a girl of the same age he probably would have gotten probation. Hopefully this is the death knell for another stupid, homophobic law.
Hmmm … considering that Lawrence v. Texas was decided on privacy grounds, not equal protection grounds, the Kansas courts might just turn right around and re-convict him with the same overly-harsh sentence.
Justice O’Connor wrote a separate decison based on equal protection. maybe that could come into play?
The folks (such as irishgirl) who are “blowing” this extremely common and rather ordinary act out of all proportion really need to take a deep breath and try to face reality as it is.
Most of us males – particularly those of us who’ve ever been to Boy Scout camp – are quite familiar with pre-adult homosexual or at least homoerotic experiences including all ages from 12 and on in some cases even to 18 or 19 year-olds. Ho, hum. It’s something that most men won’t talk about, but it’s actually quite ordinary and it simply isn’t a big deal. Like everyone else, I could have taken it or left it, but there’s no question that it hasn’t caused any problems or difficulties in my life.
Everyone knows that the marking of adulthood at 18 is quite arbitrary anyway; we fix it at that age just because the public moral standards of the United States are generally far behind other more enlightened Western societies and is still largely controlled by prudish old Baptist biddies, male and female alike.
Now, I’m certainly not suggesting that the fact that these two specific teens were DD is irrelevant! However…
(1) This debate is primarily about the disgracefully unfair laws being abused by Kansas in this case, and those laws aren’t specific to DD teens, and…
(2) DD teens – just like all teens – have perfectly valid sexual desires too!
One of my toddler-age nephews is autistic, so in hopes of helping his family better cope with his condition, I read some books on the subject. One of them, written by a very wise and experienced counselor/therapist/physician, bravely dealt squarely with the thorny issue of autistic teen sexuality. She told of the not infrequently pathologically extreme fear and anxiety parents and adult relatives feel when their autistic teenagers begin exploring their sexuality. The author gently tells such people to relax and get over what is actually far more their problem rather than their loved one’s problem. She seems actually rather justifiably cross with those who would deprive their teen of their normal adolescent sexual explorations, which from reading her book would most probably include a friendly blowjob between a nearly 15 year-old and a barely 18 year-old if there’s mutual consent with no deceit or abuse or deliberate advantage-taking involved. Mind you, I’m talking about two older teens (14+) within 3-4 years age of each other, and I’m certainly not willing to support such explorations with anyone in their 20’s or older! But the situation as described, I feel, should only be illegal – even with DD teens – if the level of their disabilities differed substantially. And if neither teen is DD or autistic, in such cases as I’ve described where there is explicit mutual consent, it shouldn’t be illegal at all (although I strongly believe that our institutions have an obligation to endeavor to limit the transmission of AIDS and other STDs, but that means in cases where one doesn’t choose abstinence, condoms should be provided).
As for the report that Limon was a so-called “repeat offender” in this case – and under the assumption that all such “offenses” were with teens 14 and up who explicitly consented – wiser people will read “three-time offender” as “normal teenage boy”.
If I remember right, the appelate court decision that upheld his conviction relied heavily on Bowers.