When a law turns into a Paradox - Youth and Sexuality

Started by Nachtmahr, February 19, 2012, 09:39:51 AM

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Oniya

Actually, it can (at least here in the States).  If I hit someone with my car because I hit a patch of black ice (i.e., no intent to hit them), I would get a far different sentence than if I chased someone through a parking lot and ran over them, backed up, and ran over them again (i.e., clear and obvious intent).
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SilentScreams

Her intent doesn't matter. She satisfies the intent requirement of the statute, which is what matters. She knowingly, or with intent, took naked pictures of someone under the age of consent for pornography and she knowingly, or with intent, distributed those pictures. What she thought doesn't matter. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that is how the system works.

Hitting a patch of black ice and hitting someone isn't a crime. It's a tort. It would be settled or go to trial in civil court. The only way that could become a crime is if the prosecution could prove 1) you knowingly, or with intent, or recklessly steered your car into the ice so that 2) you would knowingly, or with intent, or with recklessness strike a person with your car. Not gonna happen.
Intentionally running someone down  in the street or parking lot, or wherever is vehicular homicide, or vehicular manslaughter which are criminal offenses. I'm sure there are other charges that would also work but I don't know a whole lot about criminal law.


Callie Del Noire

Quote from: SilentScreams on February 29, 2012, 07:57:38 AM
Her intent doesn't matter. She satisfies the intent requirement of the statute, which is what matters. She knowingly, or with intent, took naked pictures of someone under the age of consent for pornography and she knowingly, or with intent, distributed those pictures. What she thought doesn't matter. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that is how the system works.

Hitting a patch of black ice and hitting someone isn't a crime. It's a tort. It would be settled or go to trial in civil court. The only way that could become a crime is if the prosecution could prove 1) you knowingly, or with intent, or recklessly steered your car into the ice so that 2) you would knowingly, or with intent, or with recklessness strike a person with your car. Not gonna happen.
Intentionally running someone down  in the street or parking lot, or wherever is vehicular homicide, or vehicular manslaughter which are criminal offenses. I'm sure there are other charges that would also work but I don't know a whole lot about criminal law.

So put something more in line with the action. A stupid action like this isn't supposed to ruin your life forever. Community service, possibly a little jail time to 'shock' them. Not branding them with an eternal Scarlet 'A' that won't let them ever participate with their children in a public setting, restrict them to a very limited (and constantly shrinking) choice of living places and jobs.

Once upon a time, common sense was used in rendering judgments. Tell me how ANYONE is served in ruining lives for what everyone admit is a mistake.

SilentScreams

I'm not saying anyone is served by this. I'm attempting to explain how the law works. I don't think anything should have happened to this girl. While I don't agree with it I can explain it because I know how the legal system works. Judges can't put something more in line with the action because foe many crimes the legislature sets minimum sentencing requirements that, as a matter of legislative intent, must be enforced regardless of the circumstances or the perpetrator.

Caela

My personal opinion is that the sex offender registry needs to be dismantled and thrown out. People get put on it for specious reasons and for things that should not be considered crimes. A friend of mine's fiance is on it for having consensual sex with his gf as a teenager. Our age of consent laws are a bit weird here. A legal adult cannot have sex with a minor but two minors can have sex if they are within a 2 year age difference with the lowest age of consent being 15 or 16. He and his gf were both 17 (minors) but he turned 18 about 2 months before she did making him a legal adult. They'd already been having sex and her parents knew it and didn't like him. Once he turned 18 they nailed him with a statutory rape suit which their daughter had no say in because she was a minor. It didn't matter that she had consented, or that they'd been having perfectly legal sex until he turned 18. He'd broken the letter of the law. The judge gave him the absolute minimum sentence he was allowed to but the guy is now on the sex offenders list for having consensual sex with his, then, girlfriend.

His life hasn't been entirely ruined but only because a lot of people don't check that thing when they meet him because they see his fiance and their daughter. They see a happy little family and a great dad and don't go digging. When they do though it has caused him problems, most often in getting jobs. That registry is nothing but a menace.

As for the original OP, part of the problem is that technology moves a lot faster than legalities can keep up with. I'm sure a lot of 16 year old have taken pictures of themselves for their boyfriends in the past, but there is a vast difference between a polaroid and cell phones ability to plaster those pictures across the web. Personally I would like to see the laws changed so that a girl sending a picture to her boyfriend didn't get prosecuted, while someone posting said pictures onto the web (mass distribution) did.

SilentScreams

I totally agree, the data base is absurd. There are literally hundreds of cases where people, most often males, were added to it for catching a public exposure charge along with a urinating in public charge. In many jurisdictions, espically cities, the police are encouraged to stack offenses to give the judge or the D.A. the most options possible in charging and prosecuting an offender. Unfortunately the results are almost always over zealous prosecution of offenses that, even ten years ago, only resulted in a ticket and maybe community service. I see it every day even though I don't deal with criminal matters. It's absurd.

Many of the things that can get you added to the sex offender data base are just silly. Exposing yourself in a bar, or at a private party, your neighbor sees you naked inside your home, your neighbor sees you topless sunbathing ON YOUR PROPERTY in a fenced in yard. The list is endless. It's a travesty.

Chris Brady

Quote from: SilentScreams on March 01, 2012, 01:45:33 PM
I totally agree, the data base is absurd. There are literally hundreds of cases where people, most often males, were added to it for catching a public exposure charge along with a urinating in public charge. In many jurisdictions, espically cities, the police are encouraged to stack offenses to give the judge or the D.A. the most options possible in charging and prosecuting an offender. Unfortunately the results are almost always over zealous prosecution of offenses that, even ten years ago, only resulted in a ticket and maybe community service. I see it every day even though I don't deal with criminal matters. It's absurd.

Many of the things that can get you added to the sex offender data base are just silly. Exposing yourself in a bar, or at a private party, your neighbor sees you naked inside your home, your neighbor sees you topless sunbathing ON YOUR PROPERTY in a fenced in yard. The list is endless. It's a travesty.
Let's not forget the man who was caught, naked, in his own kitchen, by a woman who was crossing his yard with her son.  He got charged, despite the fact that she was the one trespassing on his property.
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SilentScreams

Trespassing is a funny thing, though. If the property owner knows that it is occurring and doesn't take positive steps to stop it from happening its viewed as tacit consent for the trespasser to continue trespassing. But yes, I agree that the whole situation is absurd. Catching a charge for being naked in your home, regardless if there was a trespasser or not is absolutely not what the criminal statute was written to prevent.

Pumpkin Seeds

I don't think anyone has actually agreed with the sex offender list.  So still unsure what the discussion is over in that area.

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on March 02, 2012, 06:18:30 PM
I don't think anyone has actually agreed with the sex offender list.  So still unsure what the discussion is over in that area.

I think several of us have agreed with the intent of it as a warning list or showing where the hazards might but. Most of us are a bit concerned with how it's adminstered and how deceptive it can be in some cases. And some true tragedies have occurred from it. Like the guys who were put on it for having sex with girls and they 'aged up' before said girls did. I know of one guy who that happened to in Maine, who was shot and killed by a vigilante who used the list to track offenders down.

Knowing that if it had been around when I was a 9 year old, instead of having the cops talk to my folks about something that I did stupidly then.. I'd never would have been able to leave the country, serve my country, live in five in the places I have since then (1000 yards of a school), never gotten ANY of the jobs I had, or been able to spend time with my niece and nephew as a baby sitter.

All the things I prized I'd never been able to do. Because I was stupid as a 9 year old kid.

Nachtmahr

Uhm, where are we in the discussion by now? Anyone who would care to give be a brief resumé?
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Pumpkin Seeds

The discussion is now...sex offender list  = bad.

Iniquitous

No, the sex offender list is not bad. How the law is being used to put people on it that do not honestly belong there is bad.

That’s where the discussion is now.
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Serephino

The list was created with good intentions, but the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.  I heard a case of a guy that was put on it for having sex with a 16 year old girl at a college party when he was 19.  He assumed she was a college girl, and I think she even told him she was 18. 

Her parents somehow found out and called the authorities on him.  She even testified on his behalf, but you know, being a minor and all, she couldn't stop the prosecution.  Apparently, if a girl looks young enough, you must check her ID before you can have sex.  The girl/guy lying to you is no excuse.  As the legal adult, you're supposed to know better.



Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Serephino on March 03, 2012, 01:42:40 AM
The list was created with good intentions, but the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.  I heard a case of a guy that was put on it for having sex with a 16 year old girl at a college party when he was 19.  He assumed she was a college girl, and I think she even told him she was 18. 

Her parents somehow found out and called the authorities on him.  She even testified on his behalf, but you know, being a minor and all, she couldn't stop the prosecution.  Apparently, if a girl looks young enough, you must check her ID before you can have sex.  The girl/guy lying to you is no excuse.  As the legal adult, you're supposed to know better.


I've been there.. luckily she was honest with me. BIG problem in Rota when I was based there.. the girls DON'T look underage. I was in a bar with 3 of my co-workers. We'd gotten off early (night shift) and were chatting up some girls.. most of them looked.. early to mid 20s, they were drinking with us.. the girl I was macking on goes 'I have to go.. I got school in the morning'.. I go 'you go to university?" 'No..it's what you call high school.' Turns out she was like 16.. I did better than one of my buds.. he was hitting on a 14 year old.

Needless to say we used to joke after that we we needed to card the girls in bars or they had to tattoo their age on their wrists or something.


Nachtmahr

In all honesty, then would a different kind of sec offenders list not actually be ideal? All things considered, if you made a sex offenders list for the hardcore adult pedophile madmen, and then made another 'Sex-offenders list light'? This would basically then work by either inidividuals under the age fo 18 or 21 or whatever, depending on where you live, would be put on this list, unless their offences were considered too bad to be accepted? That way a 15-16 year old girl sendign naked pictures to her 19-18 years old boyfriend would be anonymously put there to be monitored slightly later in life, like, say that a boy aged 16 gets naked pictures of multiple young girls and then starts posting them on the internet, he would be moved tot he real list, while a boy at the same age who only has a few pictures of his girl as a keepsake with her permission and concent to keep them on his cell, he would be put on the anonymous list, to be removed again if he doesn't make any 'real' offences before he becomes an adult?

Or if you have a young girls concent, and are caught and dragged off to court, perhaps then she could sign a 'concent-form' if these pictures have not been shared to any third party? So, if the boy, aged 18-22 keeps he pictures of her naked, and are accused of anything, she can sign a form in court saying that she really doesn't mind, and as long as he keeps them to himself and they don't end up on the internet he is not considered an offender? And she wouldn't be either ofcourse. That way, they wouldn't be allowed to produce pornography with the intent of distributing it, but they could snap a few shots of themselves for their loved ones without too much trouble.

At any rate, i guess there will never be a real functioning solution to this..  It's scary isn't it? The kids are getting older faster and faster, puberty has moved down to what now.. 8-10? atleast it has in some places.. I think the next generation will be facing several severe issues, considering i remember how the people i knew were during puberty.
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SilentScreams

The real, functioning solution to this is for the legislators to stop passing incredibly complex, mandatory sentencing laws and give back to the judge's the discretion that they used to be able to exercise in many of these cases. Unfortunately, the way the media sells the sex offender list to the uneducated masses is in the terms of good v. evil and you have all manner of bizarre political bedfellows ranging from overly concerned mothers wishing the world was covered in pillows to protect their children to religious zealots who wish premarital sex was illegal. Conversely, we wouldn't need this list is rape was still a capital offense, as it used to be, (strange fact, more US soldiers were executed for rape during WWII then every other capital offense in the UCMJ combined) or if pedophiles got longer sentences. Most jurisdictions consider a life sentence to be 25 years. However, I know that Alaska has turned that notion upside down. Instead of getting "life" in prison offenders are sentenced to a set number of years. For things like murder and pedophilia the minimum is set by the legislature but the judge has the discretion to essentially up the sentence to whatever he wants. So there was one case where a man hacked his fiance and her father to death with a machete. The judge gave him 497 years. There was another case where a pedophile got the maximum 50 year sentence for each of his eight counts. The sentences were "stacked" so he has to complete one before the clock starts ticking for the next, thus giving him 400 years in prison. The way parole works in Alaska is you are eligible for parole after two/thirds of your sentence is complete. Under their sentencing rules, and the discretion the judges have in upping the length of the sentence, these people will die of old age at least a century before their first scheduled parole hearing.

Iniquitous

Quote from: SilentScreams on March 03, 2012, 02:46:07 PMHowever, I know that Alaska has turned that notion upside down. Instead of getting "life" in prison offenders are sentenced to a set number of years. For things like murder and pedophilia the minimum is set by the legislature but the judge has the discretion to essentially up the sentence to whatever he wants. So there was one case where a man hacked his fiance and her father to death with a machete. The judge gave him 497 years. There was another case where a pedophile got the maximum 50 year sentence for each of his eight counts. The sentences were "stacked" so he has to complete one before the clock starts ticking for the next, thus giving him 400 years in prison. The way parole works in Alaska is you are eligible for parole after two/thirds of your sentence is complete. Under their sentencing rules, and the discretion the judges have in upping the length of the sentence, these people will die of old age at least a century before their first scheduled parole hearing.

I will admit there is a part of me that likes that system. It is the part of me that says get them away from the general populace so that we are safe. Of course, the other part of me that says paying for them to live a (better than I have) life is a waste of money. Of course, this all goes towards the discussion of our penal system - rehabilitative or part of the problem. Not going to open that can of worms in this thread.
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SilentScreams

Their life isn't better. I've done some work in prisons and it's a horrible existence. Things like cable TV, video games, and weight rooms, which are so often used by outsiders to criticize the system, are needed and are used as societal controls. Cable TV and a video game are worth a lot when you have nothing and the threat of having those things taken away causes people to behave. If you have nothing there is no reason for you to behave. But, without opening the can of worms, rehabilitation is a joke. Prisons are good at one thing and one thing only. They are university for criminals. Take someone on a two year stint for selling drugs, put him in with professional criminals, when he gets out his network is expanded and he has learned the skills he needs to be a better criminal.

Interestingly, Alaska doesn't have capital punishment and will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep a prisoner alive for as long as is scientifically possible. Their rational for sending prisoners to advanced cancer treatments and for experimental, life saving surgeries is that the criminal owes a debt and nothing less then an act of God or murder, or death from old age is giong to get them out of prison.

Nachtmahr

Uhm, well, as it happens, in my country a man who hacks his wife and her father with a machete is given the maximum 'life-sentence' which is 16 years.. Quite a difference from the way the americans do things at least. I think the discussion about whether rehabilitation is a joke or not isn't really fit for this thread, nor are death penalties and such. Theres a lot of proof that pedophilia can actually be cured, and lots fo evidence that it can't, but still it's worth a shot in my world, otherwise, (I think SilentScreams pointed out something about religious zealots) we're going to live some kind of eye-for-an-eye society. While i agree that a serial killer does not necessarily deserve a second chance, there are cases of murder and such which i can get behind and support.

But anyway, we're going off the topic now people, we aren't going on about murderers or pedophiles in this topic.
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