She got what she wanted? I'd love to know how the judge figured that one out. Even if it were true, I have to say so fucking what? She's ten. She probably wants to eat nothing but jelly beans all day. As adults, it is our reponsibility to take care of children, precisely because they cannot take care of themselves.

Look at how little is expected of men here--ignorance suddenly becomes a legal defense. It's your responsibility to find out how old the girl you're having sex with is. Why can't we hold men to even a minimal standard of decent human behavior? What the fuck was this, a one-night-stand? What was the risk in finding out if she was really old enough, that he might not get laid?

I'd also love how if a girl has been molested/raped previously, it makes it OK to rape or molest her again. Or if she goes through puberty early, it makes it OK to rape her, because how is the poor fellow supposed to know any better?

How utterly sick. How is it that, if she *had* been 16, it was okay to rape her? I hate the "well, he's *sorry* now" defense. Fuck that.

OK, one more thing, from the article:

Edgecombe, a painter, raised the subject of the girl's age but she asked him: "Does it matter?" and the pair had intercourse twice.

So apparently it wasn't so fucking obvious, was it? If he was that sure she was over 16, why did he feel the need to ask, not once, but twice? And what did he think it meant that she refused to tell him?

I'd like to retire from the human race now, if no one minds. What are my other options?

While I agree that the judge's comments were abhorant and there was no reason for the defense to bring up the status of the girl's virginity, after reading the article I don't think the situation is as horrible as it seems. The article implies that the girl and the 20 year old had consensual sex so this would make the case statuatory rape, which is why it would be ok if the girl was 16. Still, there is that ick factor about the whole thing. As EG noted, the guy wasn't really sure of her age or he wouldn't have asked. I have a hard time believing that any man can't tell that a 10 year old is a bit on the young side. Even if she has gone through puberty early. 'I thought she was legal' is no excuse. He didn't try very hard to find out, did he?

This makes me want Wales to devolve much more drastically. ie float off into the ocean.

Not that the rest of the UK is much better...

Mmmmm... Doesn't look good but I suspect that there's possibly more going on here than appears at first glance.

"The prosecution accepts that you believed she was 16 and that that belief was reasonable."

For all its faults (and believe me, they are manifold) I don't believe the UK legal system would allow a court to pass a sentence like this unless there really were exceptional circumstances.

It sounds like both parties to varying degrees, are victims. The real guilty parties lie somewhere in the back story.

I've had sexual experiences before. Looks like I need to start wearing a t-shirt that says, "RAPE ME!"

Seriously, "she got what she wanted"? Ugh. Just...ugh.

Unfortunately, this judge is completely misogynist. Previously, he acquitted a man accused of raping a student who was very drunk, because "She said she could not remember giving consent and that is fatal for the prosecution's case." By the way, this woman was so drunk that she had passed out. Here is the link to the story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/4464402.stm Anyway, disgusting though this latest story is, sadly I am not shocked to see that particular judge's name pop up again.

Just goes back to that same stupid idea that if a girl isn't "pure" she isn't worth protecting. Even, apparently, ten-year-olds with obvious problems (she was already in the care of authorities).

Note how much of the article was spent on how traumatized and sad the poor twenty-year-old childfucker felt.

"This was not her first sexual experience."

No, because her FIRST sexual experience was probably when she was forcibly raped by someone in her home. And that's why she's in state care now (where, more likely than not, she's been raped some more).

The court heard Edgecombe, who admitted rape, was "visibly traumatised" when he was told the girl's real age.

Maybe he castrated himself...?

It sounds like both parties to varying degrees, are victims.

Oh, bullshit. She's a victim of whoever raped her before as well as this asshole, and he's a victim of his own desire to get laid. I don't see how the two things are at all comparable.

I tell you what I suspect, from his "visible" distress combined with the fact that he clearly suspect that she was not of age. I bet he knew she was underage, but thought that she was 13 or 14, and somehow, in his mind, that's not "so bad," probably because there's a "teen" on the end of those numbers. It should be needless to say that kids that young can't consent either and that he's scum.

"No, because her FIRST sexual experience was probably when she was forcibly raped by someone in her home. And that's why she's in state care now (where, more likely than not, she's been raped some more)."

you're assuming a lot more than you can possibly reasonably assume.

Jesus H. Christina!

Judges gone wild seem to be sweaping the international stage--1st the Maryland case in which consent for one act equals consent for anything a man can forcibly do to a woman, then the German judge and her Islam says its okay to beat your wife, so Muslims living in Germany don't have the protection of the law like Christians, Jews, or non-affliated, and now this Welsh judge and his multiple misogynist rulings, the most recent being the most reckless. Well, I guess those conservatives are right about activist judges--yet they all seem to be conservatives! What is the recall procedure in the UK for judges? Heck in the US? Law Fairy out there to help?

Good to see you're keeping your priorities straight, Coast.

Um, I agree with Kimmy. Is there any such thing as species reassignment?

Coast, if a ten-year-old girl (who is already in the care of the authorities) is seeking out and/or going along with sex with a man (let alone with a twenty-year-old) that she met outside of a pub...

You think it's unreasonable to assume that there's some traumatic event in the past, possibly or even probably of a sexual nature? Sounds 100% reasonable to me. And since most young girls who are molested are victims of people they know, frequently family members or close family friends, it is also not unreasonable to assume that it took place in the home.

Where's the unreasonable part again?

you're assuming a lot more than you can possibly reasonably assume.

And you're assuming that it matters one bit whether she was forcibly raped or not. The girl is ten years old. Whether someone was violent with her or not is completely beside the point- a twenty year old man had sex with her even though he had reason to believe that she was under-age. He asked her how old she was, and she wouldn't tell him. A reasonable person, in that situation, does not jump to the conclusion that "This girl must be legal!"

So, yes, please... nitpick comments and ignore the rather more significant issue of, you know, a judge letting a man who raped a ten year-old girl walk free.

And once a rapist, always a rapist. If they couldn't see that it was rape, they should at least give him time just for the fact that he did have sex with a ten year old, which can't be tolerated at all, whether the person knew it or not.

It's actually not that huge of an assumption. Not so long ago this (almost exact) same thing happened in Canada. A 12 year old native girl was picked up by three 20-something white men on false pretenses. They took her out to the middle of nowhere and raped her. Her rapists largely got off because the judge and the media insisted on calling the 12 year old a "woman" and the 20 year olds "boys," as well as because she had previous sexual experience. Her previous experience? She was repeatedly raped by a family member. Oh yeah, and since she was native, she was obviously sexually precocious.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/03/18/3776463-cp.html

Not all of the things I've mentioned are in this link, but google any of the rapists names for more.

"And you're assuming that it matters one bit whether she was forcibly raped or not. "
no, it doesn't matter in the least. It's still ridiculous to say that because a 10 year old is in foster care and seeking sex that she has "probably" been raped before.

"Good to see you're keeping your priorities straight, Coast."

Just because the judge in this case is a misogynist asshole, doesn't mean that it's ok to run around making wild speculations about the case. There's plenty here to be critical of without dreaming up rape scenarios that aren't even hinted at in the available information.

"The girl is ten years old. Whether someone was violent with her or not is completely beside the point- a twenty year old man had sex with her even though he had reason to believe that she was under-age. He asked her how old she was, and she wouldn't tell him. A reasonable person, in that situation, does not jump to the conclusion that "This girl must be legal!""

well, he could have been asking because he thought she might have been legal, but still younger than he was comfortable with. Say someone meets someone who is 16, but is not usually comfortable having sex with anyone under 17. The older person asks their age, and they reply "does it matter"
The older person could assume that the younger person is probably younger than 17 while still assuming that they are at least 16 plus a day.

This very thing happened to a good friend of mine, he was at a party and somewhat inebriated with close friends, I was there as well. All of the friends were of the same age, but one girl had brought a much younger girl along without telling anyone how old she was. She certainly looked to be only a year or two younger than all of us. A normally very conservative, guy met her, they both had some alcohol and they had consensual sex together. He asked how old she was and she replied very similarly to the girl in this case. The next day he felt horrible at having his first ever one night stand, and feels horrible that she was probably two years younger than he was, which is outside his usual comfort range. In the days ahead it comes out that she was actually 5 years younger than him. I was shocked to hear her age as I certainly wouldn't have put her at anywhere near that young. He was mortified and guilt ridden.

So I know of at least one case similar to this one in which I would never place blame on the man.

"No, because her FIRST sexual experience was probably when she was forcibly raped by someone in her home. And that's why she's in state care now (where, more likely than not, she's been raped some more)."

you're assuming a lot more than you can possibly reasonably assume.

Um, actually CTC, she isn't. She's making a VERY reasonable assumption. This kid is TEN. Which means that if someone much older than her has sex with her, it is rape, period. Maybe kids are different nowadays, but waaaaaaaay back in the early nineties when I was ten, the boys my age had ZERO interest in girls. If I'd wanted to try to have sex with someone, he'd probably have to have been at least four or five years older than me to have any interest in sex. I'm not a hundred percent familiar with UK law, but I'm willing to wager that much of an age gap, at her age, is sufficient to constitute legal rape.

Hardly a "lot" more than can be "reasonably assume[d]."

Heather, it depends on the kind of judge. Federal judges, unfortunately, are basically for life or until they decide to retire (or are appointed to a higher court). The Constitution says they stay for a term of "good behavior" so theoretically they can be impeached and convicted and then removed from their position (just like the president). In the history of the United States, this has happened less than a dozen times.

For state court judges, it's specific by state. To be perfectly honest, I'm not even completely sure how it works here in California. I believe we vote for superior court judges, who serve for fixed terms, and the governor appoints Cal Supreme Court justices, who are subject to periodic retention votes. I'm not sure if we elect appellate court judges or if they're appointed.

what is sad to me is that a 10 year old did want to have sex, and what could have happened to her previously that made her sexually active at such a young age. the judges comments are disgusting, however, this is statutory rape and i believe the person who said this

"And once a rapist, always a rapist."

is full of crap, bc if (and i am saying if bc who knows) it is indeed statutory rape, then no, hes not "always a rapist". what this kid did (which was stupid, what if she HAD said she was 16, would it still be this bad?) was not like someone who date rapes a girl, or who finds someone on the street. this could be a legitimate mistake, and i think its really just ignorant to say once a rapist always a rapist. he even admitted it for the love of god. i think hes clearly a scumbag, but rapist and one who will always be, i think not. as for the girl, who clearly did want to have sex (which she should not, and god help her i cant imagine what she went thru to be sexually active at 10) i hope she finds the help she needs. out of all the things that have hurt her in her life, this is probably the least of it.

"Man who raped 10 year-old gets no jail time"

I think the headline is misleading. Wouldn't a better one be "Man guilty of statutory rape of 10 year old gets no jail time"?

It's less outrageous, but more accurate.

I hate to tell you this, RM, but statutory rape is still rape. Sex with someone who cannot consent (which a ten-year-old cannot), is rape. Period.

Children under the age of 13 cannot consent to sex in England and Wales. This means that you cannot use the term "consensual sex" to describe the crime of rape that occurred.

This case is one of the reasons I support Jessica's Law. Then it wouldn't matter if the judge in the case sympathized with the defendant or thought that prison systems don't rehabilitate sexual offenders. Mandatory minimum sentences for all offenders that sexually assault minors.

In support of my "unreasonable assumption" -- which seems to be intuitively reasonable to everyone here except Coast, who has helpfully identified the reasons for his/her bias --

http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2007/04/03/child_prostitution/index.html

yes, but he didnt know she was 10. thats the whole point. and if someone who you think is an ok age says yes, then you wouldnt know any better. clearly, he should have pressed her for her age, but yes is yes, and it is consent, and frankly, i think the 10 year old knows exactly what she is doing, i just feel sorry that she has been through so much that she DOES know. i had sex with my 16 year old boyfriend when i was 15, technically its statutory rape, but i take complete and utter offense to the fact that you believe i was raped. who are you to tell me? clearly, 10 is different from 15, but it appears as though the girl has been through enough to have the mentality of a 16 year old. she will suffer for it later on, she already is, and again i hope she gets help. i am sure she was honest to god raped an molested in the past, just not by this idiot.

"I hate to tell you this, RM, but statutory rape is still rape."

Why do you think there's a distinction between rape and statutory rape (and the penalties for each)?

i am wondering why everyone honestly thinks this guy is an honest to god rapist who will keep doing it and or is a pedophile.

yes, but he didnt know she was 10. thats the whole point.

That's funny, katie. The other day I got a ticket for making a U-turn in a business district. It's a $135 ticket. I think it's pretty fucking stupid. First, I didn't know that such a law existed, and second, I didn't know I was in a business district. There were no signs. I explained this to the cop, who didn't care and wrote me the ticket anyway.

But I didn't KNOOOOOOOW! Shouldn't that be an excuse for breaking the law?

You know what I notice about the two terms, RM? They both have the word rape in them! How about that! I don't think the phrase "statutory rape" would have the word "rape" in it if it wasn't considered rape. There are differences in how it's defined (mostly that consent is irrelevent in statutory rape), but that doesn't change what the word "rape" means.

no it doesnt. honestly too, i dont like commenting on situations like this, bc he could be horribly sorry, or he couldnt be. i mean i have no idea of the context really. do i think he should go to jail, yeah, i do, do i think hes a rapist necessarily (again i dont know they guy) no, i dont. he needs to be taught a lesson, by no means do i think he should get away with it with no punishment, but i think people are being harsh here.

"What was the risk in finding out if she was really old enough, that he might not get laid?"

EG was right, first comment. If there was any doubt, why didn't he take the time to find out for himself?

It's just related to that whole, icky view of male sexuality being somehow 'uncontrollable' etc etc etc. Men don't die if they don't get laid for one night. Sheesh.

"yes, but he didnt know she was 10. thats the whole point."

Do you honestly think it's possible to confuse 10 with 16, even in a girl who's hit puberty very early? If so...well, the most generous thing I can say about you is that you clearly haven't spent much time around 10-year-olds lately.

My sister is ten, and I've spent a fair amount of time volunteering in primary schools, and I can say (along, I assume, with anyone else with the barest experience with children) that it's impossible to seriously think a 10-year-old is 16. Hell, it's barely possible to think she's 13. That excuse doesn't even begin to wash.

well, is a 15 year old who has sex with or 17 year old raped then? kimmy?

katie, he committed rape. That makes him a rapist. I don't see how we're being "too harsh." He clearly suspected she was underage, and he fucked her anyway. There's no "I'm really, really, really sorry" loophole in the law.

All he had to do to not rape this girl was to make a reasonable effort to a) find out her age and b) err on the side of caution. The fact that somehow that seems like an unreasonable imposition speaks to how ingrained the assumption is that men are entitled to get sex whenever they want it.

I'm not sure why you brought up your first boyfriend--surely you can see that the two situations are not even a little bit comparable.

Katie-

I think the reason people are being harsh here (and imagine I'm saying this really slowly in order to help you comprehend): The law states that a 10 year old cannot consent to sex. In Wales (where this crime occurred), when you have sex with a 10 year old (or any person under the age of 13), you can be charged with rape. He admitted that he had sex with a 10 year old, which means that he admitted that he raped a 10 year old. And a person who commits rape is...wait for it, wait for it...a rapist.

In fact, I know that at least NY state has more complex statutory rape laws for just that reason: it's something like, if you're over 16 and he's under 20, it's not statutory rape, I think.

Let's keep our eye on the ball, folks. katie, are you seriously arguing that a 10-year-old could give meaningful consent?

Can't we castrate both the rapist and the judge?

There's no mens rea requirement for statutory rape. I don't care if she looks 40; you still get jail time.

I don't want to vomit... I want this guy removed from the bench.

I would add that UK statutory rape laws make it very clear it doesn't matter if the older party thought the younger was overage.

Exactly, EG. It's possible to argue that two teenagers or children of similar ages may give consent, or, at least, may not be guilty of a crime when/if they have sexual contact. That's not what happened here. What we have here is an adult having sex with a child.

As an adult, it's my responsibility to make sure that anyone I'm thinking about having sex with is able to give full, informed, and enthusiastic consent. That means I don't have sex with anyone that's been drinking heavily. That means I don't have sex with someone who is taking chemical stimulants. That also means that I don't have sex with someone if I'm not sure how old she is, or if I'm not sure how clear her mind is, or if I'm not sure of any number of other things. If there was even a shadow of a doubt about this girl's age- and at TEN, there should have been a lot of doubt- then he shouldn't have tried to have sex with her.

It doesn't matter if a ten year old girl thinks she wants to have sex with a twenty year-old man. She's ten and he's twenty, and it's his responsibility not to take advantage of a child.

"The fact that somehow that seems like an unreasonable imposition speaks to how ingrained the assumption is that men are entitled to get sex whenever they want it."

It's a lot closer to speaking to how PEOPLE are entitled to engage in consensual activities after taking reasonable steps to ensure that both participants are of age.

I also take issue with saying that statutory rape is no different from any other rape. There are worlds of difference between naively believing that someone is of age and having mutually consensual sex with them, and violently holding someone down while you sodomize them.

TLF: the only way you could make that analogy work is if the driver had enquired around to a few policemen if they could legally make U turns in the area, the policeman said "probably" or "does it matter" and was then ticketed for making a U turn.

"But I didn't KNOOOOOOOW! Shouldn't that be an excuse for breaking the law?"

Of course not. You should have been ticketed, just as this guy should have done some time.

Both you and Edgecomb are guilty of bad judgement, and deserve appropriate punishment for your misdeeds. But those of us who don't know either of you aren't in any position to know if you are bad people or if you just made a mistake.

The one person who obviously is a bad person is the judge, based on his comments.

Thanks, EG, you stated it beautifully.

To answer katie's question for me, this isn't the same as a sixteen year old and a fifteen year old, or even an eighteen year old and a sixteen year old. We're talking about a ten year age difference here, and a ten year old is, by anyone's estimation, still a young child.

Teenagers having sex with each other is one situation, and depending on age differences it has to be approached carefully (and often is, in the eyes of the law, where the law is at all progressive and not stuck in the stone ages). Twenty-year-olds having sex with ten-year-olds, however, is pretty much a no-brainer.

"I would add that UK statutory rape laws make it very clear it doesn't matter if the older party thought the younger was overage."

In which case he should most definitely be convicted of statutory rape. I don't necessarily agree with that law, but under that law, this is a clear cut case of SR.
Noting that, he does have to register as a sex offender.

The article implies that the girl and the 20 year old had consensual sex so...

No... She's 10 years old. She cannot consent! That's the whole point! It doesn't matter what the man thought or how he feels afterwards, he should've gone to whatever lengths it took to verify her age, and she didn't. He is a rapist, and he's being excused for a rape.

Why do you think I was sickened enough by this article to email this to Jessica in the first place? Just for friendly discussion?

"Man who raped 10 year-old gets no jail time"

I think the headline is misleading. Wouldn't a better one be "Man guilty of statutory rape of 10 year old gets no jail time"?

It's less outrageous, but more accurate.

Holy shit. Rape is rape is rape is rape is rape. How dare you try to lessen it?!

TLF: the only way you could make that analogy work is if the driver had enquired around to a few policemen if they could legally make U turns in the area, the policeman said "probably" or "does it matter" and was then ticketed for making a U turn.

Actually, CTC, that doesn't fit. As a general rule of thumb for drivers, it's common sense reasonable to watch for signs informing you when you're in an area where X is not legal (factual mistake issue). Just like as a general rule of thumb for people looking to get laid, it's common sense reasonable to watch for signs informing you when you're dealing with someone who is not old enough to consent to sex (factual mistake). One such sign you watch for is his or her response to the question of whether he or she is above the age of consent -- just like one such sign in driving is a post on the side of the road telling you you're in a business district where you can't make an illegal U-turn. If I take the risk of making a U-turn due to the absence of such a sign (just as when someone takes the risk of having sex with someone due to the absence of a response that the other person is under the age of consent), I get to deal with the consequences of any possible mistake of fact.

The difference is that my risk is much more reasonable and less harmful than this man's risk was. Thus, the penalty for my risk is much lower. Oh wait -- except that I HAVE A 135 DOLLAR TICKET AND ASSWIPE GOT OFF SCOT-FREE.

So essentially, I'm worse than a CHILD RAPIST. Boy, I'm having a great morning.

RM, I'm with you until you got to the "bad person" bit. As I noted above with the risk thing, taking a risk of making an illegal U-turn, at least where there is good visibility and it's clearly safe, if not legal, to do so (as was the case in my recent excursion), is taking a risk of causing much less harm than taking the risk of sleeping with someone who looks like she might be too young to consent. Making a safe but illegal U-turn is a "mistake." Having sex with a ten-year-old is something entirely different.

Shit, now I'm kind of regretting bringing up my analogy. I really dislike being compared to a rapist as though we're morally equivalent.

This debate is two pronged:
Q1) Is the statutory rape of a girl (10) by a man (20) potentially excusable where an honest mistake over the girl's age occurs?

Q2) Is a waiver of prison time potentially permissible where a statutory rape violator demonstrates sincere mental trauma over acts committed under mistaken belief?

I believe these questions are best addressed separately.

A1) For public policy reasons, we cannot in good conscience permit a defense of mistake in cases of statutory rape. A minor seeking a sexual encounter is likely to misrepresent their age and capacity to consent to a potential partner. However, their inability to consent, contract, etc. recursively voids the reliability of any such statements. For this reason, it is the obligation of the non-minor to seek other forms of age verification. A store clerk requires ID of any alcohol purchaser that looks under 30. A similar practice is not unreasonable to expect of someone preceding sexual conduct as a responsible adult. Thus, there is no potential for excuse. We do not need to presume prior sexual abuse, nor should we and in that respect Coast is correct. For example, it's very possible her prior sexual experience involved her initiation with another 10 year old girl. It could not be less relevant to the necessity of finding the statutory rapist guilty for the sake of public policy and the judge's discussion of prior sexual history was wholly inappropriate.

A2) There is no question this guy fucked up big time and this girl will most likely be deeply affected to her detriment by what has transpired. However, I cannot close myself to the possibility that a judge may perceive that the convicted regrets their actions to such a profound degree that imprisonment would be unnecessary & perhaps even cruel. I am not saying that this exception applies to the present statutory rapist (particularly considering the incredibly young age of the victim), but recognition of the possibility has value.
Consider the following hypothetical (inspired by CSI:NY episode "And Here's To You, Mrs. Azrael"):

Two best friends, Jane Doe & Rachel Roe, are in a car crash. Jane's mother Julia & Rachel's mother Regina, themselves long time enemies, arrive at the hospital. Witnesses reported that, unbeknownst to sober Rachel, Jane was driving intoxicated. Though the girls were long-time friends & looked nearly identical, Jane was [fill in every horrible trait imaginable], while Rachel was her polar opposite. The hospital informs the mothers that Rachel died in the crash, but Jane miraculously survived, though she is temporarily paralyzed. Julia mocks Regina's loss, and shortly after, in a rage over the incredible injustice, Regina smothers Jane to death. The autopsy then reveals that the survivor was actually Rachel, thus Julia mistakenly suffocated her own daughter. Julia is traumatized by her own actions.

"The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
What matter where, if I be still the same[.]"

So essentially, I'm worse than a CHILD RAPIST. Boy, I'm having a great morning.

Hug? Hug?

Where in LA was this? Let me know where to NOT make a U-turn, please!

Adding to the end of my second to last paragraph,

Is it completely unimaginable that a woman could make the same honest mistake (with a 10 year old boy) and such persuasive evidence as to the personal horror she experiences at her own error could persuade a judge to resist sentencing her?

I think roymacIII's April 6, 2007 01:57 PM post is dead on.

"I really dislike being compared to a rapist as though we're morally equivalent."

You'll get used to it. I did.

It's a lot closer to speaking to how PEOPLE are entitled to engage in consensual activities after taking reasonable steps to ensure that both participants are of age.

And here the reasonable steps consisted of ignoring some pretty heavy cues that the kids was, I cannot stress this enough, ten.

Is it completely unimaginable that a woman could make the same honest mistake (with a 10 year old boy) and such persuasive evidence as to the personal horror she experiences at her own error could persuade a judge to resist sentencing her?

Yes. It is. Because either she's lying, or she has terrible judgment. In either case, she's a danger to minors and should be locked up.

Chesire, your hypothetical case is bizarre, impossible, and has absolutely nothing to do with the situation at hand. Best friends cannot look exactly alike unless they are identical twins. And an adult woman smothered a teenager, in your hypothetical. It does not make it OK that she thought it wasn't her daughter when she did it. People who smother other people need to go to jail, because they are a danger. Period.

And I believe your Milton quote is actually spoken by Satan, after he's been thrown out of heaven, in a sour grapes moment.

Coast, you said:

There are worlds of difference between naively believing that someone is of age and having mutually consensual sex with them, and violently holding someone down while you sodomize them.

I would ask that you please refrain from saying things like this. It perpetuates a stereotypical myth of "real" rape as always being overtly physically violent. That's very upsetting to me personally, for a lot of reasons. You probably didn't mean to say anything of the kind, but I'd appreciate if you didn't use phrases like that again.

Secondly, what about the guy who rapes the girl who passed out from drink or drugs? What if he's very gentle? That's a world of difference from what you described too, but it's no less rape.

Finally, you know what the quotes in the story told me? He asked if she was of age. She asked if it mattered. He, by his actions (of having sex with her), answered that no, it did not matter to him. This was not a naive mistake, it was an active choice.

And, again, even if it were just a mistake, it is still the adult's responsibility to ensure that they are not fucking a child. This is not an excessive burden to expect someone to bear. If they can't be bothered to do so, then I don't feel bad at all calling them rapists. He made a choice. He doesn't like the results. Too fucking bad.

"Rape is rape is rape is rape is rape. How dare you try to lessen it?!"

Here in Canada, the maximum sentence for rape is life without parole. The maximum sentence for statutory rape is 10 years. Why do you think that is?

I feel like some people are reacting to the idea that statutory offenses are the same as Ted Bundy types of offenses. As a person who has had first hand experience with having sexual interaction with someone who might not have been 18 at the time (I was 31), I agree that some statutory rape situations can be qualitatively different than non-statutory-rape rapes. That being said, what I also feel from having been in a questionable situation is that if the guy I messed around with (no intercourse, but other stuff) had turned out to be thirteen instead of eighteen (I worried afterwards that he might have still been seventeen), I would not feel like a person who had made a mistake. I would feel like a child molester. Christ's sake, I already half-felt like a child molester, and the guy assured me several times that he was eighteen and a half. But because he claimed to have lost his driver's license (he was at least driving age, which last I heard was 17 in California to drive alone in a car, sixteen with an adult in the car), I stopped seeing him after the second time. This was a teenaged guy, and the party line is that teenage guys are dying to have sex all the time, so a seventeen year old getting to bang a cute thirty something woman would have been a good thing for him. But I look back, and I do feel horror about it. Not because I had any indication that he came out of it the worse for wear - but because I had that doubt about his age when I first met him, but I pushed it aside because of my desires, because he made it easy.

The point is not that everyone who exploits someone else's vulnerability is always the exact same kind of evil. It's that there are often, and justly, other consequences to exploitation of all kinds besides guilty feelings.

I am super glad that the guy I messed around with did not turn out to be a thirteen year old who stole a car a couple of times. But if he had, I would not feel victimized by legal consequences for the choice I made. I would feel like, I can't fucking believe I just went ahead with molesting a thirteen year old because he SAID SOME WORDS. Which is what "I'm eighteen and a half and lost my license," or "does it matter how old I am?" amounts to, saying some words. I would feel like, of course people want to prosecute me, I molested a thirteen year old and I'm thirty one.

I'm not on board with the way the lifetime sex offender labeling gets slapped on some statutory offenders the same as on Ted Bundy types, but that does not mean that most statutory rapes are misunderstandings between innocents, either. The judge is a criminal, in my mind, but so is the defendant. Do I feel empathy for him? Yes. What does my empathy have to do with the choice he made and the consequences for it? But more to the point - the judge's lack of empathy for the child in this case had everything to do with the consequences. That is a horrible thing for her, and for humanity in general.

Oh, and finally, Coast, as has been pointed out to you many times: there is no such thing as consensual sex with a ten year old. Cannot happen. Ten year olds cannot give consent. So you cannot describe what happened in this situation as consensual sex.

Statutory rape is distinct from other forms of non-consensual sex. It is based upon inconsistent arbitrary age limitations and is categorically different in kind from date rape, spousal rape, etc. as well as forms of violent rape. While I agree with Kimmy that perpetuating the stereotype of violent rape as the only "real" rape is patently dangerous, I sadly must disagree over her request that debate be self-censored to avoid offense. This is a venue of discourse and a free flow of thought is necessary, even where those ideas are conveyed less than tactfully.

Thank you, JoanKelly. The experience you've shared helps flesh out my conception of personal anguish vividly.

You find using accurate and reasonable phrases to refer to rape to be "self censorship"? You find asking someone not to perpetuate harmful stereotypes to be censorship?

I ask that the discourse be factual, rational, and reasonable. I fail to see how you could possibly have a problem with that.

On top of that, in a world in which so many women have been sexually assaulted in so many ways, throwing around horrible and descriptive phrases like that for the purpose of shocking people is both harmful, cruel, and completely unnecessary.

I gave Coast the benefit of the doubt that it was unintentional. I guess I'll know differently in your case.

The kid's ten. Ten. All of you who keep making these academic arguments about how statutory rape isn't all that bad, or how the age limits are arbitrary, or whatever, are you actually saying a ten-year-old can give meaningful consent? I want to be perfectly clear on this: is that the argument you're making?

Here in Canada, the maximum sentence for rape is life without parole. The maximum sentence for statutory rape is 10 years. Why do you think that is?

And yet, it's still called "statutory rape" and is still a criminal sexual offense. Why do you think that is?

Sure, statutory rape may not always take place in exactly the same way as other forms of rape. That doesn't make it "less rape" or make it okay for someone to engage in it. Murder, theft, assault, etc. can all take different forms, too, and may have a different maximum penalty. Does that mean that it's not murder just because it's second-degree instead of first-degree? Please.

It's pretty crystal clear:

Twenty year-old adult + sex + Ten year-old child = Statutory rape.

Unless you're arguing that a ten year-old child can give meaningful, informed, enthusiastic consent to a twenty year-old adult, it's rape, and yet, he's walking free.

Bah.

To everyone who keeps pointing to the fact that the girl consented and "knew what she wanted" I have an 11 year old sister. She has boobs, she has her period. She looks 13 or 14. However, when she talks, she sounds like she's 12 AT BEST. I was just like her and men fed me the "oh, but you're so mature, I didn't know you were only blah" line all the time when I was 13 or 14 and it's shit. Men know. This man knew that he thought her age was questionable. He just didn't want to admit it to himself until he was forced to. So yeah, he feels guilty, he should. And he should be sent to jail to think about it for a long long time, so next time he's with a girl he gets a real age instead of "does it matter?" Because it fucking DOES MATTER.

EG - it's certainly not the argument that I'm making. In fact, it might be the polar opposite of the argument I'm making.

Another personal example - my cousin and I both went through puberty early enough that by the age of twelve, boys three and even four years older found us attractive. Exciting for us, because they were much more manly than the twelve and thirteen year old guys we knew. Then we were at a beach one day, and a guy who was obviously in his twenties started flirting with my twelve year old cousin. It made us all queasy, even though he clearly thought my cousin looked older, and even though she had a second of feeling flattered that she "looked that mature." (We wanted to look mature back then.) Even as a narcissistic and hormone-dazed twelve year old, I could tell that a much older guy is fucking creepy for doing anything but ignoring a twelve year old, never mind a ten year old. As an adult, I do not accept that this man did not know she was ten, or that any attempt on her part to blur or conceal that fact is relevant. I would not care if she chased him down a street and flung herself at him. I don't care if she went through puberty as early as I did, or earlier. I don't care if she looked sixteen. She was ten. He was grown. Young, but grown. People who end up "having sex with"/statutory rape-ing ten year olds are not people minding their own business out in the world and falling into a horribly unfortunate circumstance. Twenty year olds who are totally harmless are out fucking other twenty year olds. A ten year old who "appears" older and is being even sexually aggressive (which I have no reason to believe she even was) is a person who has been through some fucked up stuff. You cannot NOT recognize a fucked up ten year old - they are not sophisticated enough to pull off an I'm-a-normal-seventeen-year-old facade. Either he fucked her because he thought he could get away with it even though he knew she was a child, or he put aside his misgivings because something's going on with him that made this opportunity appealing in a way it would not be to a harmless twenty year old. "Something's not right about this girl...it's not like I want to beat her up or kill her or something...hey, she's agreeing to it...why should I have to pass up this chance..." versus "Something's not right with this girl...best of luck to her, I'll be on my way now."

Oh, yeah, Joan, I got that loud and clear from your post. I didn't think of you as one of the posters talking about how statutory rape really isn't so bad.

you know what i just thought of? what if it was a 10 year old boy that "consented"? how fast do you think this guy wouldve been thrown in jail then hah

Ten-year olds are supposed to have stupid crushes on older men. Twelve-year-old girls are supposed to salivate after movie stars. That doesn't mean that a movie star or Justin Timberlake has free rein to screw every elementary school girl in the United States because she "consented" and "wanted it." Sexual curiosity and harmless little crushes are part of being a kid.

It's up the ADULT to know the difference between a child and an adult, and between consent and fantasy.

It's just stupid for him to say that he didn't know she was 10. Yeah, if she were 15 and lying about being 16, I could see it, but 10-year-olds are just learning long division.

I agree with Joan Kelly re: age differences. When 35-year-old men hit on me, I think it's because I'm a bit more mature than people my age. When 55-year-old men hit on me (and it happens a lot), it's creepy because normal, emotionally healthy men that age don't do that.

This is also another argument for having strict constructionist judges: the law says that statutory rape is punishable, regardless of mens rea, so off to jail with you! :)

Kimmy, Coast was quite clearly making a visceral distinction to demonstrate that equating all rape convictions is mistaken. His illustrative method was tactless, but not malicious. Suggesting a ban of use of persuasive description is excessive & unnecessary.

At this point in the discussion, I don't think anyone is saying that a 10 year old can consent to sex ever. Statutory rape is illegal & wrong. We can all say this together. However, some have taken offense to the claim that statutory rape is described as being always as grievous an offense as any other form of non-consensual sex. Thus, the argument that a 17 year old girl having sex with her 16 year old boyfriend (in a jurisdiction where lawful consent manifest at 17 with no difference of years exception) is no different than, for example, frat boy date (roofie) rape. Yes, in both cases there was no consent, but the two cases carry different sentencing limitations, because there is a very real difference between them. The degree of statutory rape's wrongfulness is controversial for a reason. The thought of Mary Kay Letourneau living happily with the student she statutorily raped makes me ill, but it also makes me uncertain that sweeping generalizations about the horrificness of statutory rape are appropriate.

Uh-huh. And when we're discussing a case involving a fifteen-year-old girl and her sixteen-year-old boyfriend, that would be a perfectly appropriate time to discuss those concerns. The fact that such cases rarely exist should tell you how much of a concern they are. I was one of the first to talk about how appalling it was to arrest those two thirteen-year-olds a while back. But we're not talking about one of those rare cases. We're talking about a 20 year old man who fucked a 10 year old girl.

Suggesting a ban of use of persuasive description is excessive & unnecessary.

Fortunately for us all, no one has suggested such a ban. When someone does, I'll be sure to speak out against it.

What you're doing is conflating a single thing with the entire realm of thought known as persuasive description. This is a logical fallacy. You are defending against an idea I never uttered.

One must be careful when dealing with issues such as rape. It is only reasonable and right to do so. I simply reminded Coast that using that particular method was a bad idea. Especially in a forum where many women have admitted to experiencing sexual assaults of one degree or another.

It's called being a decent human being, Cheshire Katz, not censorship. Most rational, reasonable people can manage to be both decent and argumentative at the same time.

That's funny, katie. The other day I got a ticket for making a U-turn in a business district. It's a $135 ticket. I think it's pretty fucking stupid. First, I didn't know that such a law existed, and second, I didn't know I was in a business district. There were no signs. I explained this to the cop, who didn't care and wrote me the ticket anyway.

But I didn't KNOOOOOOOW! Shouldn't that be an excuse for breaking the law?

Not for a strict liability offense, which is what traffic infractions are. Is statutory rape a strict liability offense in Britain? (It frequently is in the United States.)

-- ACS

you know, its funny, because I was just thinking exactly what EG just posted: no one really is concerned about the 15 or 16 year having sex with another teenager. What we are dealing with here is a 20 year old having sex with a 10 year old. And for all of the mouth-breathers posting here that come up with the brilliant argument of "Maybe she looked 16!" I have a little story for you. When I was 10 I was getting ready to go to the roller rink with a friend. We were pumped because our moms were letting us go alone. We were trying to feather our hair while donna summers moaned on radio. My friend, who was actually very developed for a ten year old, turned to me with a face full of make-up and asked me how old she looked. "You totally look thirteen! no question!" So there you have it. Even a developed ten year old is going to look way too young. There's even evidence the dude knew this, he asked not once, but twice, so he had to know on some level that she was not 16.
CTC wanted to dismiss the idea brought up by some of the other posters that this girl had probably been a past victim of sexual abuse by pointing out that there isn't any proof of that in the case. Well, let me just say, as someone who has worked with young victims of sexual abuse, that children do not engage in the actual act of intercourse (sex play, yes, intercourse, no) unless they have been exposed to something that is going to make jumping into that unkown territory easier. Just from the fact that this 10 year old initated sex with a stranger tell us that some boundary has been crossed because normal, even "mature" 10 year olds, won't do that. You can argue all you want with that point CT, but it will just make you look like more of an asshole.

I was actually just talking with someone about the problem with bringing up cases like "What about 15 and 16 year-olds?" It's nothing but a distraction. Not only does it distract from the real issue in this case- that a twenty year-old man had sex with a child and walked away from it- but it creates the illusion that the "grey area" is much bigger than it actually is.
Quite frankly, it's insulting.
By bringing up cases like "but when I was 15 I had sex with my 17 year-old boyfriend- are you calling that rape?" you're saying that it's pretty much the same as this guy having sex with a ten year-old child.
It's not.

Every time someone brings up a distraction, it makes it harder for everyone else. It makes it harder to have a real conversation about it, because it pretends that the area of concern is much larger than it actually is. It makes it harder because it creates the illusion that two 16 year-olds having sex, or a 15 year-old and a 17 year-old having sex are somehow the same as a 20 year-old and a 10 year-old. It makes it harder because it ignores the issue that was really at hand. A judge felt that a child having already had sex before meant that an adult having sex with her was okay. That's the issue here. It's not about whether we think two kids or teens of relatively similar ages should or should not be having sex.

It's very frustrating, and I think that the person I was talking to was exactly right- conversation distractions like that hurt everyone else. If people could get a more reasonable understanding of sex, we wouldn't have to have nearly as many conversations like this. If people would quit looking for loopholes, and quit treating situations like this as though they exist in a grey area when they rather clearly don't, almost everyone would benefit. Everyone except for the assholes who think that this is a grey area, and who abuse and molest other people. They'd be out of luck.

Okay, look. I expect that I'm going to get flamed for this, and believe me, I DO understand why this is upsetting so many people. But I'd just like you all to consider, for just a moment:

Is it possible - just *possible* - that everything we all learned about this case from LESS THAN 500 WORDS is insufficient information upon which to base requests for castration? Is it POSSIBLE that the judge, prosecuting and defense attorneys ALL AGREEING that it was reasonable of the defendent to believe that this clearly unusual ten year old girl was 16 suggests that they might know something more about this situation, this girl, and this defendent, than we do, after 500 words?

I agree that a ten year old girl can't give informed consent. But she thinks she can. I think it's tragic that this happened, and I suspect, from what I've read, that it will haunt this man (and this girl) for the rest of their lives. I think he was stupid, and made a very poor judgement. But please, folks - stop with the iron judgements based on assumptions. I have trouble believing that all of people involved in the case are so much more stupid than all of us reading the article in the ways you're all implying.

But please, folks - stop with the iron judgements based on assumptions.

The assumption that 20-year-old men shouldn't fuck 10-year-old girls?

I have trouble believing that all of people involved in the case are so much more stupid than all of us reading the article in the ways you're all implying.

Well, I have no trouble whatsoever believing that the people in power in this case are caught up in the misogynist thinking that permeates our cultures. I don't think stupidity has much to do with it.

Please let me just add, in case it wasn't clear, that I don't agree with what happened, I do think it's horrifying that the judge felt that this girl's previous sexual experience was relevant or appropriate to mention, and I'm not a horrible, malicious defender of child molesters.

I do, however, think there's a very distinct difference between statutory rape and rape, and I do wonder if those who lump them all together viciously are thinking entirely clearly. I have some personal experience in this matter (from the opposite perspective of Joan Kelly; I was much, much younger than my partner - not a 15/16 yr old situation) and I really believe they are not morally equivalent. That doesn't mean one is wrong and the other isn't - just that they are equivalent.

okay iscah, no harm for you. But, let's say it again. THE GIRL WAS 10. That's pretty much below everyone's cutoff line. Plus it states in the article that the guy asked not once, but twice. He had some doubt! The onus was on him, as the adult, to say no to the situation.

The judge said: "She was a girl of 10 and you are a man of 20. Those bald facts do not properly represent the true facts of this case.

Any possibility that you'd consider that there was any truth in his words? He saw ALL the evidence. He heard the arguments, met the defendent, the victim, heard the arguments. Even if he is "caught up in misogynist thinking", there might still be a shred of truth to what he's aaying. You've reduced thsi situation to its very baldest, which often leads to fallacy.

Also, you know perfectly well that that wasn't the sort of assumption I was speaking of. Please don't shove words into other people's mouths - it's very rude. I was referring more to the assumptions that the defendent obviously knew she was 10 and didn't care, or that she couldn't possibly be reasonably mistaken for much older... or, indeed, the assumption that there's nothing more to know about this case than what is in the article.

Previous post was in response to EG.

Tabitha, I do take your point. I think it's essential, in fact. Thank you.

"Plus it states in the article that the guy asked not once, but twice."

Small quibble, but I think he asked once. In the same paragraph, it says that they had sex twice, so I think that's where the confusion is. Neither here nor there, but just to stick to the facts of the article.

No, your right kath, he only asked once, but her response was "does it matter" To a responsible adult it matters, and the court should recognize that.

[quote]The kid's ten. Ten. All of you who keep making these academic arguments about how statutory rape isn't all that bad, or how the age limits are arbitrary, or whatever, are you actually saying a ten-year-old can give meaningful consent? I want to be perfectly clear on this: is that the argument you're making?[/quote]

I know that i'm not. Of course not. But saying that all crimes with the word "rape" in the description are exactly the same from a moral standpoint is ridiculous, also from a sentencing standpoint. This is what I was taking issue with.

I didn't mean to offend with my previous post. I was simply trying to think of the least offensive case possible versus the most offensive, to illustrate the point. I don't see how it furthers the idea that the only real rape is violent rape, but I'll err on the side of caution and refrain from that type of description again.

Must correct my own comment.
and she didn't ==> and he didnt

Q1) Is the statutory rape of a girl (10) by a man (20) potentially excusable where an honest mistake over the girl's age occurs?

It wasn't an honest mistake. He did ask her age, she didn't give a real answer, and he just went with it. His assumption she is 16 was unjustified, even if we assume he really cared about her age at that point.

There is a fundamental difference between statutory rape and actual rape, and that is largely in the mentality of perpetrator. A rapist is looking to hurt someone, whereas a statutory rapist merely has consensual sex with someone much younger than they are. The article states clearly that she consented to sex with him. That there was "no doubt" that she consented. Specifically, the prosecuting attorney (barrister?) said this, not the defense.

While I think this is creepy and icky, I firmly believe that this guy is NOT a rapist in the true sense of the word. What he did was so inappropriate as to be wrong, but he did not attack her, did not coerce her, and did not force her to do anything she didn't want to, as there was "no doubt that she consented."

Conflating this with rape cheapens the experience of rape survivors, and I say that as a survivor.

The point of statutory rape is that she cannot give consent. Her consent is meaningless, because she is 10. He fucked someone who could not give consent. That makes him a rapist.

If I'm babysitting a 10-year-old, and her parents come home to find that she's been staying up all night eating nothing but jellybeans and watching horror movies, "she said it was OK" is not an excuse. Because she is a child.

Now, iscah, no, I don't think it's within the realm of possibility that the judge has access to some super special hidden information that makes what this schmuck did OK. There is no such information; it's not possible. There is no set of circumstances under which it's acceptable to rape a child. None. Further, if there were some truly exceptional circumstances, that would be truly noteworthy, and count as news, and would probably make it into a newspaper article.

"did not coerce her, and did not force her to do anything she didn't want to"
I repeat: she was ten. A ten-year-old does not want sex unless she's been severely traumatised, and even if this is the case it's any adult's responsibility to understand this is not good for her. See oenophile above re: teeny crushes on actors.

A rapist doesn't care about the wishes, welfare or personal integrity of their victim. I'd say fucking a ten-year-old ticks all those boxes.

A factual quibble with iscah's post:

Is it POSSIBLE that the judge, prosecuting and defense attorneys ALL AGREEING that it was reasonable of the defendent to believe that this clearly unusual ten year old girl was 16 suggests that they might know something more about this situation, this girl, and this defendent, than we do, after 500 words?

After reading this, I re-read the article and I don't see the prosecution agreeing to this point (indeed, I can't think of a logical reason why the prosecution would, given the judge's bizarre belief that a mistake of fact can excuse you from a strict liability crime -- which I assume this is in Wales, which shares much of its common law with us in the US). The prosecutor did state that the girl "consented" (a semantic mis-step, but not crucial), but the prosecutor never agreed the girl looked older. Of course the defense will argue that she did. So you have the defense attorney doing her job, and the prosecutor doing his -- and you have a judge making creepy factual findings and just plain getting the law wrong.

So, no. I don't see anything reasonable in this, even from the 500 words we have.

"fter reading this, I re-read the article and I don't see the prosecution agreeing to this point "

From the Article: ""The prosecution accepts that you believed she was 16 and that that belief was reasonable.""

Also, it seems that the judge didn't say anything about the girls past sexual history, it was the defense atourney.

EG: I'm not talking about super secret hidden information. I'm talking about THE TRIAL, which you didn't see, and haven't suggested you've read the arguments for, nor even the whole judicial ruling. I'm just asking if it's possible the judge knows more than YOU.

So you believe that "A 20 year old fucked a 10 year old" (which is how I believe you described the situation) is all the information necessary in this case? There are no subtleties, no circumstances, that in fact, all the information the judge received beyond this was unnecessary and irreleveant in this case?

TLF: The relevant quote which made me post as I did is this: ""The prosecution accepts that you believed she was 16 and that that belief was reasonable." It seemed pretty clear to me.

I'm frankly a little concerned by the absolute stone wall I'm meeting here on this issue. I like this forum, and generally respect all your opinions, but a lot of what I read here was reactive, violent, and dogmatic. This is a case where, having read Jessica's description, I was prepared to be sickened and infuriated. I came away still sickened, but for quite different reasons (what a sad, messed up girl, what a terrible situation) and not burning with the indignant fury so many of you seem to have found. I read carefully, and considered. I don't think I'm being crazy.

Iscah, you are trying to make a 20 year-old having sex with a 10 year-old into a gray area. THAT's the problem. As far as I'm concerned, this SHOULD be a stone wall. No subtleties, no circumstances.

As for the judge and barristers knowing more than we do about the case, well, I really don't give a good goddamn. There's nothing to know about this case that would excuse A TWENTY YEAR OLD HAVING SEX WITH A TEN YEAR OLD.

As for the prosecutor agreeing that it was reasonable to believe that the girl was 16, your attaching significance to that point supposes that prosecutors are some kind of white knights who actually look out for the best interests of victims, and who can't be complicit in the culture of sexual exploitation, victim-blaming, "boys will be boys" enabling, etc.

At which point, I call bullshit.

I am not a barrister in Wales, but in the US (at elast in all the states I know of) it DOES NOT MATTER how old the defendant thought the child looked. I believe someone said upthread that the same is true in the UK.

We can all cry about our 16-year-old & 19-year-old Romeo and Juliet exceptions, but as roymac and others have already said, that is a spot many countries' laws recognize as a gray area and it is NOT what the situation was here. That just distracts from everything.

Here, a judge IGNORED the law (at least as I understand it from reading) and made an exception because this man was not the FIRST person to have sex with this child. That flies in the face of so many notions about rape--not just the strict liability on age but the idea that the victim's sexual history is completely irrelevant!--that I don't even know where to start with my righteous lawyerly indignation.

BTW, re: the suggestion that her prior sexual experience might have been with another female child: Young children who have sex with other young children can be, and often are, considered molesters themselves. The fact is that much child molestation is perpetrated by victims of the same crimes. As sad as that is, it's not a reason to say "well, he's really sorry and he couldn't help it, so let's not send him to jail." So whatever her prior experience and however sorry this particular man may be, his behavior should not be excused.

For the person who said that being sorry is enough: first, I watched that CSI and if it had been Law & Order instead they would have convicted that woman. There are lots of reasons to lock people up, and pure punishment is honestly a small one. Keeping people who make such poor choices off the street is one, and setting an example for those who might consider the same course of action is another. By suspending this man's sentence, the judge is saying to other young men "if she's really f'ed up to begin with and you act really, really sorry, having sex with that hot child it fine!"

That's just not the message I'm into. I'm pretty much against prison as punishment, but the deterrent, rehabilitative, and segregative aspects are useful.

I understand what you're saying, iscah, and what I'm saying is that it doesn't matter if the judge knows more than I do, because there is no set of information which ameliorates the fact that a 20-year-old man had sex with a 16-year-old girl. Call me stone-wall hardliner if you like, but yes, I'm going to take the position that that is all the information necessary.

"Looking 16" is not a defense. She wasn't 16, he clearly suspected that, and, as put so eloquently by Kimmy, answered that to him, it didn't matter, by fucking her. Perhaps this can be an object lesson about not assuming you can know somebody's age by looking at them.

"As for the prosecutor agreeing that it was reasonable to believe that the girl was 16, your attaching significance to that point supposes that prosecutors are some kind of white knights who actually look out for the best interests of victims, and who can't be complicit in the culture of sexual exploitation, victim-blaming, "boys will be boys" enabling, etc."

No, it supposes that it's really really rare for the prosecution to give in on something like this, which indicates that maybe there is something to it.

"Here, a judge IGNORED the law (at least as I understand it from reading) and made an exception because this man was not the FIRST person to have sex with this child."

again, the judge didn't say that, the defense lawyer did.

Coast, ah, thanks -- I missed it because it was a quote from the judge and not the prosecutor.

Wasn't a smart move on the prosecutor's part, then.

What really gets me is the notion that this young person is not worth protecting as much because she's had a hard life.

Isn't the point of civilisation that we protect the weak members of our society? That it's not a free-for-all? Isn't the point of statutory rape laws that we protect those who are incapable of making their own decisions - and a girl with prior trauma falls MORE into that category than anyone else?

Doesn't her prior history, in short, make this crime worse?

It doesn't matter if she looked 16. It doesn't matter if she had a rare condition that made her look 40. She wasn't 16. End of story.

Coast, I was assuming that this factored into the judge's decision, but maybe I am wrong about that. Under any progressive rape shield law, that "evidence" wouldn't even be allowed in the door.

oenophile, this is one of those rare occasions on which you and I are in complete agreement!

Let's consider something else: let's say the defendent had been charged with selling the 10-year-old alcohol. Would "but she looked 16" be a defense then? Because I have to say, I suspect it wouldn't.

Coast, I was assuming that this factored into the judge's decision, but maybe I am wrong about that. Under any progressive rape shield law, that "evidence" wouldn't even be allowed in the door.

it's not necessarily your fault, the original feministing description of the article attributes that statement to the judge. I had to read it a few times to be sure.

I'm frankly a little concerned by the absolute stone wall I'm meeting here on this issue.

I don't understand why this is cause for concern, iscah... there's something wrong with a stone wall that says "it's wrong to have sex with a ten-year-old child"?

"Let's consider something else: let's say the defendent had been charged with selling the 10-year-old alcohol. Would "but she looked 16" be a defense then? Because I have to say, I suspect it wouldn't."

I think that the laws governing the sale of alcohol by licensed distributors and the laws governing sex between joe and jane average area little different.

Jane Average is not ten years old. That's the point.

I'd love to see that go to trial though:

"But she totally consented! She wanted to drink five pints of lager!"

"She's 10. You don't provide minors with alcohol."

"But she didn't look 10! She looked 16!"

"She's 10. No alcohol."

"But she consented!"

"Of course she did, idiot. She's 10."

"No, it supposes that it's really really rare for the prosecution to give in on something like this, which indicates that maybe there is something to it."

You don't get it. It's ONLY going to be rare for the prosecution to give in on something like this if the prosecutor takes the view that it's NOT OKAY to have sex with a ten year old even if she appears, subjectively, to "consent."

We don't know that the prosecutor DOES take this view. Nor do we know that it is rare for the prosecutor to "give in to something like this." For all we know, this prosecutor was dragged kicking and screaming into court to do his job. For all we know, he doesn't think rape by any definition should be a crime at all. For all we know, he rapes ten-year-olds every chance he gets.

So my point is, unless we assume that the prosecutor shares our values, the fact that he didn't object to the defense's characterization of the ten-year-old's appearance is IRRELEVANT.

Which should have been obvious from my original post.

I think that the laws governing the sale of alcohol by licensed distributors and the laws governing sex between joe and jane average area little different.

I should bloody well hope that the laws against having sex with a child would be actually be a little more strict than the laws against allowing a child to drink.

I'm pretty sure that it's legal to give you child wine with dinner in some places. I have trouble with the idea that it's ever okay to fuck a ten-year old when you're an adult.

If that's a stone wall, it's one that I'm pretty comfy building.

You're trying to say that selling alcohol to minors is similar in practice and in enforcement to consenting to have sex. Its not, it's a poor analogy. The fact that this case is so abnormal doesn't make it a good analogy.

I think that the laws governing the sale of alcohol by licensed distributors and the laws governing sex between joe and jane average area little different.

precisely. and i'd say that fucking a 10 year old is way worse than giving a 10 year old booze. i'd certainly hope that the statutory rape laws would be much more harsh than underage drinking laws.

frankly, i can't believe that this is even up for discussion. i really don't know what's wrong with the world when this guy somehow avoided jail AND there are people out there defending the decision to not send him to jail. there are no "mitigating circumstances" in a case like this, unless the guy was just severely bludgeoned over the head or given some kind of strong drug against his will so that he had no fucking clue what he was doing (neither of which was the case), there is no way in which he was not responsible for this. none. N O N E. the suggestion that there could possible be some kind of excuse for it is absolutely appalling.

Coast, the laws governing sale of acohol and those governing statutory rape are actually identical in most of the US, with repsect to knowing the age the other party to the "transaction."

Most common law-based systems (anything based off UK from the last 800+ years) assume that we Joes and Janes Average are able to understand the law and act rationally. The fact is that not everyone memorizes statutes and/or acts perfectly rationally all the time. But for the sake of public safety, we have decided that people who cannot maintain what are, IMHO, very minimum standards of decent conduct toward one another, should not be walking about free and undeterred.

Thanks, EG. :)

As for the prosecutor giving in re: how old she looked: y'all miss the point. Under strict liability, it's a non-issue. The defence could have also wanted the prosecution to admit that the girl used to play basketball but wants to be a ballet dancer, and the prosecution could have "given in," with as much legal significance as giving in on the issue of her appearance.

Sure, say she looked 16 or 30 - doesn't matter, she's a kid and if you have sex with her, you go to jail. What's the issue? Why would the prosecution spend time fighting that, when it must have assumed that a reasonable judge would follow the law (yeah, strict constructionalist here) and not given a flying f---?

"So my point is, unless we assume that the prosecutor shares our values, the fact that he didn't object to the defense's characterization of the ten-year-old's appearance is IRRELEVANT."

I should have said, "unless we assume that the prosecutor shares our values or is willing to act like he does in his professional capacity."

But whatever. All I'm saying is, bias permeates the whole rotten system, and prosecutors are no exception. So as long as iscah's going to make an issue of what we do and don't know about the particulars of the case, this is ALSO a particular we don't know, so there's no point inferring the 20-year-old's reduced culpability from the prosecutor's characterization of the facts.

Like I said, the only facts I need to know are that he was 20, she was 10, and they had intercourse.

"The point of statutory rape is that she cannot give consent. Her consent is meaningless, because she is 10. He fucked someone who could not give consent. That makes him a rapist."

English law doesn't work that way, there are two possible crimes. One is 'rape' - essentially sex without consent. The other is 'rape of a child under thirteen' - essentially sex with a child under thirteen (the law contains no reference to consent at all). You can commit the second without committing the first.

The idea that someone under X cannot consent is just a legal fiction, and isn't one which is present in English law. Consent is thought of as understanding what is happening, having the ability to make a choice, and making that choice. People under X can consent in both reality and English law, even though having sex with them is still a crime regardless of whether they did.

Leederick, unless I'm missing something, you're parsing it rather fine here. You've essentially just described a statutory scheme which is similar to that in the United States, in which rape is defined as sex without consent and sex with a child under thirteen is defined as rape.

I would think that the logical inference from those definitions would be that a child under 13 cannot, legally speaking, consent.

It doesn't make sense to me to say that the child *can* consent "in both reality and English law," and yet sex with that child is rape...which is defined as sex without consent.

Are you legally trained? Am I missing something?

leederick, saying a child under 13 cannot consent doesn't mean we say she is incapable of uttering the words "I consent" or even taht she cannot believe, genuinely, that she wants sex. It means that, under English law or US, consent is not an element because no matter what the child says it is unacceptable. That even a genuine desire from a child so young is not healthy and should not be indulged by an adult, ever.

In other words, I think you're seeing a difference without a distinction. Whether you say "it's illegal to have sex with someone who doesn't consent, and a child under 13 cannot consent" or you say "it's illegal to have sex with a child under 13 regardless of whether she consents," it's illegal. And I would be willing to bet that it's illegal because the lawmakers believe an adult having sex with someone under 13 is wrong, no matter the circumstance.

I would be willing to bet that it's illegal because the lawmakers believe an adult having sex with someone under 13 is wrong, no matter the circumstance.

Unfortunately, we seem to have a judge with a difference of opinion, there.

According to Duhaime's Canadian Law Dictionary:

Statutory rape
The common law definition of rape has not proven adequate to reflect modern values. It is limited to sex without consent and with a woman, and only where the victim is not the wife of the rapist. Many states have enacted laws which include under the charge of rape, sex with a minor even if done with the minor's consent, sex without consent regardless of whether the victim is male or female, and sex without consent regardless of the matrimonial bond between victim and rapist.

According to the Sexual Offences Act of 2003, a child under 13 is raped if there is penile penetration of a bodily orifice.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts2003/30042--b.htm#5

I love the internet... nothing like it for proving b.s. wrong. :)

Point well taken, roymac. Luckily (what kind of luck??) he's a law interpreter more so than a lawmaker (though you're right that in a common law system judges are lawmakers) and thus can *only* do damage one rape at a time.

I'm laughing, but it's a sad and tired laugh.

You're trying to say that selling alcohol to minors is similar in practice and in enforcement to consenting to have sex.

Coast, this is really interesting, actually. Statutory rape has to do with age rather than apparent consent, the idea being that a child CANNOT consent.

Earlier in this thread, YOU were the one who was playing up this distinction, touting it as a reason not to view this guy as a "rapist" and as the creep he is.

Now you want us to ignore the distinction and treat statutory rape the same as adult rape for purposes of striking down a valid analogy that's been interposed.

Sorry, but you have to choose, Coast. Do you want to have the cake, or do you want to eat it?

I should add that Britain's Sexual Offences Act requires NO mens rea for a child under 13 - the act alone is sufficient.

"Coast, this is really interesting, actually. Statutory rape has to do with age rather than apparent consent, the idea being that a child CANNOT consent."

You're being foolish. Earlier in the thread, I was saying that rape as defined by sex with an agreeable minor is morally different than forced violent sex. That is not the same as agreeing with your silly analogy.
Are you trying to cheapen the crime of rape to comparing it to peddling some booze to a youth?

"foolish," huh Coast?

Well, at least I'm not intellectually dishonest.

Actually, CoastToCoast, I would think that sex with a 10-year-old is as traumatic as being date raped. Both are crimes; is the fact that the young girl didn't know any better somehow make it better for her?

I think that LawFairy's point re: alcohol is that we would consider the sale of alcohol to a 10-year-old to be a pretty bad crime and certainly worthy of punishment; rape is clearly worse, so it should be clearly punishable.

"foolish," huh Coast?

Well, at least I'm not intellectually dishonest."

You must be the king of the playground with witty comebacks like that.

"I think that LawFairy's point re: alcohol is that we would consider the sale of alcohol to a 10-year-old to be a pretty bad crime and certainly worthy of punishment; rape is clearly worse, so it should be clearly punishable."

That really wasn't the argument.

Also, I don't want to take credit for an argument I didn't make. The analogy to serving underage children is a good one, but I didn't come up with it.

So what was the argument?

Whose argument, anyway? I mean, it's a bit rich of you to say that Law Fairy was arguing something that she wasn't arguing, then cut her down for that, and snipe at me when I try to point out that there is a rational and valid interpretation of her words.

leederick-

You state: "The idea that someone under X cannot consent is just a legal fiction, and isn't one which is present in English law."

You may want to inform the Home Office of this; they seem to be laboring under the impression that "children under 13 can now never legally consent to sexual activity." Please visit the Home Office's website for a handy link to the Sexual Offences Act 2003 as well as a handy interpretation of portions of the act in layman's terms.

It was EG who originally made the comparison between statutory rape and selling alcohol to a minor.

My take on the post was that she was suggesting pretty much what oenophile said she was suggesting: If we wouldn't excuse such a sale on the grounds that the purchaser "looked 16" (or whatever the legal age was), we sure the hell shouldn't excuse statutory rape on that basis.

Coast, I really don't know what your objection to that argument is. Your remark that the comparison trivializes rape struck me as classic Concern Troll, but maybe I've got the wrong impression. If you'd like to discuss it, please clarify. And please refrain from calling the Law Fairy "foolish" -- she most certainly is not.

But if i'm arguing that someones point is logically inconsistent, then you come along and say "but look! some of what she said can be applied"

Sure it can. That wasn't the point.

Trev ~ beat you to it with my link a few posts up. :)

Thanks, Katty. It seems as if three of us have the same take on the argument, while one dissenter just disagrees.

Dahlin, you sound like a little kid who is stamping his feet and yelling, "No!" but will offer no justification for his stance.

Simply: What is the argument, as you see it?

Coast, all you've said so far, unless I'm missing a comment (which is possible; if so, please link to it) is that the alcohol serving/statutory rape analogy is a poor one.

Well, all analogies break down at some point; that's their nature. I thought the analogy was a useful one for EG's point. So you'll have to clarify for what purposes you consider it a poor analogy.

It's the end of the day and I'm sure some of us are tired. (I am.) But if you're not willing to argue for your position, Coast, then I think you should quit posting. Simply asserting your thesis repeatedly is not advancing the ball here.

Law Fairy and Oenophile, it's been a pleasure. You too, Legally Blondeez. And I'm sure I'm forgetting others.

"And please refrain from calling the Law Fairy "foolish" -- she most certainly is not."

she had misrepresented something i had said earlier, then attacked that misrepresentation. That is foolish. Perhaps she didn't do it on purpose.

My problem with this analogy is that two people consenting to have sex is entirely different from a licensed establishment selling someone alcohol. The burden of proof is different, the nature of the transaction is different etc etc. The analogy was originally used to say that we woudln't find the sale of alcohol to a 10 year old acceptable, why would we find it acceptable for this guy to beieve this girl was of age?

The two arguments aren't parallel. It was originally a poor analogy, and I really can't argue against it because, as with most analogies, the similarities break down as soon as you try to apply some scrutiny, and then you're left wondering if you're arguing liquor laws or what the definitionof "reasonable" is in saying that a reasonable person could believe that someone is of age.

The analogies work quite well. It is entirely legal for a liquor store owner to sell me alcohol, as I'm 25 (26 on Easter!). It is entirely illegal for him to sell alcohol to my super-cute sister, who is in fifth grade. Even if she misrepresents her age (i.e. really really WANTS that Strawberry Puckers), the liquor store owner is still criminally liable.

If I did not want alcohol but someone gave it to me, they would be liable for a crime, even though I'm capable of consenting to alcoholic intake.

Likewise, I can consent to sex and have legal sex; I can refuse sex and be raped; but my little sister cannot have legal sex.

Happy Birthday oenophile!

And well-done with the explanation of the analogy. I don't think anyone is saying alcohol and sex are equally harmful to minors, but they are both harms that are treated similarly in terms of how the law views people who negligently commit them. As in, you're going down whether she looked 8 or 80, dude. You shoulda been sure.

And with that, I'm out. Happy Easter, Happy belated Passover, and Happy all the other spring rites with which I am not familiar enough to well-wish individually.

Coast, I'm still not hearing you. There are a lot of words in your last post, but the real substance is one sentence: "The burden of proof is different, the nature of the transaction is different etc etc."

The burden of proof, at least insofar as the criminal penalties (as opposed to the administrative penalties of having the liquor establishment's license revoked, etc.) is the same: beyond a reasonable doubt.

The nature of the transaction strikes me as being similar in significant ways: The older person in both transactions would *like* to consummate the transaction; the younger person (in this scenario, not to be confused with a typical scenario) would *like*, insofar as a person of that age is capable, to consummate the transaction. Yet the transaction is illegal.

The most significant difference, to my mind, is that in the sexual scenario, it is more reasonable to conclude that the willingness of a ten-year-old to "complete the transaction" is a symptom of that child being emotionally fucked up. And while presumably all kids who buy alcohol buy it because they want it, not all kids with whom adults have sex want it at all. (In fact, it seems obvious that the vast majority emphatically want no such thing, and are utterly traumatized by it.) And while it might be okay, under some circumstances, for an adult of almost any age (e.g., a parent) to give the child some liquor, it is emphatically *not* okay for an adult (and I would say even a significantly older child) to have intercourse with that child. Also, the child is more likely to suffer permanent emotional damage from the sexual transaction -- though perhaps more likely to suffer permanent physical damage, e.g., death from alcohol poisoning, from the alcohol-related transaction.

Yet, despite the fact that all this suggests that sex with an adult is much worse for the child than alcohol, this judge has demonstrated a willingness to see the child's "consent" as a mitigating circumstances in the former scenario. EG presumes, and I with her, that this would not be a mitigating circumstance in the latter scenario. Hence, the judge's decision in this case is fucked up.

So, I still think it's a useful analogy for her point.

You know, the other day my 11 year old sister told me she wanted to be a heart surgeon. And, you know, she's pretty damn smart, watches a lot of the Discovery Health channel and has anatomy books, so she knows what she's talking about. I said "alright" and took her down to the hospital to get a pair of rib spreaders in her hands and let her be a heart surgeon, just like she wanted.

Oh wait, only not, because she's 11 and she actually has no idea what she's talking about. The next week, she told me she wanted to be a rock star/artist. Kids say and do dumb shit, that's why we're supposed to protect them and steer them in the right direction until they're old enough to understand. Just because someone didn't do that with this girl does not make her legally able to consent to anything. I don't care if she yanked his pants down herself while he was asking how old she was, all that means to me is that she was horribly mistreated at some point in her short life.

I'm 20 myself, and of all the men I know my age, not a damn one of them doesn't know when a girl looks too young. There is no excusing this man. I'm disgusted that the other adults involved in this case can't see that, and don't understand how anyone on this board can argue otherwise if they've spent any time around precocious 10 year olds. Go spend some time around 5th graders, review in your head what you've said about this poor girl, and then try not to vomit. It's that abhorrent, and yes, it is a stone wall.

Couple things:

The perp didn't just get a walk. His sentence was a conditional discharge, but he's an admitted felon. He's to register as a sex offender.

Here's a quick explanation of a conditional discharge:
http://www.crimeinfo.org.uk/dictionary/#C

Basically, any repeat performance and he's probably going to be serving the max; also, he'd be considered a predicate felon, which increases the minimum sentence, and, in my home state at least, precludes you from the possibility for probation or the like.

I'm in New York, so let's exam how this would have played out in my state.

To follow along at home, NYS Penal law is all online:
http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menugetf.cgi?COMMONQUERY=LAWS

Sexual intercourse between someone over 18 and under 15 qualifies as Rape in the Second Degree (per Part 3, Title H, Article 130). That is a Class D Felony.

NYS Penal Law, Part 2, Title E, Article 70.80 deals with sex offense sentencing.

A criminal who committed a Class D Felony sexual offense would face a prison term of two to seven years, but a non-violent Class D is eligible for probation, and, persuant to Section 4, subsection C,

If the court, having regard to the nature and circumstances of
the crime and to the history and character of the defendant, is of the
opinion that a sentence of imprisonment is necessary but that it would
be unduly harsh to impose a determinate sentence upon a person convicted
of a class D or class E felony sex offense, the court may impose a
definite sentence of imprisonment and fix a term of one year or less.

So if this had happened in NYS, he'd potentially have ended up with probation for LESS TIME THAN HE HAS NOW.

Also, and this to me is VERY important, and negates the entire feminist appeal of the situation: per the article, the perp cooperated with authorities AND THE VICTIM DIDN'T. The prosecutor was obligated to prosecute the case, and did so, over the objections and outright non-assistance of the victim. A prosecutor isn't obligated to seek the harshest penalties, and I don't think sending this guy to Ye Olde Pound Me In The Ass Prison, Retributionshire, would really help England's social fabric any.

You're all very outraged and bloodthirsty, so I ask: what's an appropriate punishment? Bear in mind that the ideals of a penal system include rehabilition, and revenge, at least outside fundamentalist societies, is treated as a last-ditch option.

DataShade, before I engage your comment/question, a question for you: Is that the only statute that applies? In other words, is there no provision that applies specifically to, say, children under 12? Because I find it counterintuitive to suppose that the law treats an 18 year old fucking a 14 year old exactly the same way as, say, a 40 year old fucking a two year old.

But then, I have some minimal acquaintance with NYS sexual offense laws, and they are truly fucked up. If I remember correctly, in NY it is not rape to have sex with a person who is unconscious from drugs or alcohol provided that they ingested the substance voluntarily.

Right, just as I thought, you missed the relevant provision:

§ 130.35 Rape in the first degree.
A person is guilty of rape in the first degree when he or she engages
in sexual intercourse with another person:
1. By forcible compulsion; or
2. Who is incapable of consent by reason of being physically helpless;
or
3. Who is less than eleven years old; or
4. Who is less than thirteen years old and the actor is eighteen years
old or more.
Rape in the first degree is a class B felony.

This scenario is FIRST DEGREE RAPE. It is a CLASS B FELONY in NY.

I'm eating while I write this and watching so I might have missed something, and I'm not a lawyer so much as I am a smart-ass raised by lawyers, and my godmother, who's now running a Child Protective Services office for my county...

But an 18-year-old and 14-year-old wouldn't even be counted as a crime, since NYS has a four-year-rule built in, with the age of consent fixed at 17; if the vic is under 17 and the perp is under 21, it's tossed unless the perp is over 18 and the vic is under 12, I think.

I might have missed or misread the statutes, though, so feel free to look through and correct me.

The bigger point I was trying to make is that probation is definitely on the table for non-repeat non-violent sexual offenses. And the job of the system is to reform and rehabilitate. The guy in the England case was convicted and his prison time conditionally discharged, and he's on a sex-offender list. His future is going to be pretty fucked up, but he won't go to jail. The vic didn't even want to cooperate with the cops... I don't think society's interest is better-served by incarcerating him.

heh, that reminds me of a case I saw a few days ago, where 4 kids had sex in a classroom while the teacher stepped out - they were like 11, 12, 12, and 13.

I wonder if the people here advocating mandatory minimum sentencing for sex crimes would want them all be charged with first-degree rape since they're all too young to consent so they all technically raped someone?

oh, sorry; 11, 11, 12, and 13.

here's the link:

http://www.nbc11.com/news/11514432/detail.html

Ahem. Since you spent several paragraphs telling us how the twenty-year-old would have gotten off EVEN MORE EASILY in New York State, DataShade, I think the polite thing to do would be to concede my point.

Then I'll engage your question.

You're all very outraged and bloodthirsty

ooh you got me interested in reading the whole thread.

i'm sure the ladies are justified in their outrage.

Datashade, let me revise that: I'm NOT going to engage your question. Quite apart from your unwillingness, in three separate posts, to acknowledge that you posted factual misinformation (not a peripheral fact, mind you, but one crucial to your stance), you strike me as rather smug.

Where do you get off suggesting that we would want 11, 12, and 13-year-olds who had sex with each other to be charged with first-degree rape?

If your read the threads, you'll see that there is unanimity as regards adolescent sex between people of roughly comparable ages. And the only mention of first-degree-rape was my citation of the NYS statute, which (duh) I didn't write.

Look: grownups read the threads before they jump in, and they respond directly to arguments actually advanced in those threads. They engage in conversation and debate. They don't show up, set up strawfeminists, and then knock them down.

You ARE a smartass, and I've met a hundred kids just like you. I'm not sticking around for your show.

Alright. I quoted the wrong statute, and I'm sorry for that.

But since my quotation proved incorrect, please provide relevant British law for the same circumstances before rendering further judgement.

OK, well, I didn't devolve into ad hominen attacks, so I'm sorry you're resorting to the same, but here are the crucial facts, without the incorrect example:

1.) Victim refused to cooperate with investigators. If she'd not been a ward of the state, and refused to cooperate, there wouldn't have even been a prosecution. A judge showing leniency in that situation shouldn't draw cries of alarm.
2.) Penal law is supposed to rehabilitate and reform, not just function as state-sponsored revenge. That's why concepts like probation and conditional discharge are written right into the law. Please see the above quote as to when such exceptions are encouraged.
3.) The man is now a convicted felon, and a registered sex-offender. The judge's leniency only extended to saving him from jail time, and being on discharge means he can be slapped down much harder if he repeats.

So, again, with apologies for upsetting you; what's a more appropriate punishment?

All right, DataShade, I'll bite, but only because I'm interested in the subject.

First off, let me say that if you think that the outrage of the commenters here is attributable only to the lenient sentence, think again. There are lots of other reasons to be pissed off, including the judge's remarks about how she got what she asked for, the willingness of the prosecutor to roll over, and the defense attorney's apparent belief that the fact that this "wasn't her first sexual experience" was relevant. (Yes, I know, zealous advocacy, but puhleeze. I repeat: ten-year-olds only invite sex with adults if they're fucked up from prior abuse.) If you don't understand why those things are outrageous, then you need Feminism 101 and/or a reality check, and that is beyond the scope of my comments.

1.) Why should I care that she refused to cooperate with prosecutors? Is that supposed to absolve him in some way? Please don't make me repeat the line about how it's never okay for a twenty year old to fuck a ten year old no matter the circumstances until I am ACTUALLY blue in the face. Also, why would you assume that her non-cooperation means she doesn't want him prosecuted? Maybe she's afraid of cops, or lawyers, or judges. Maybe she's afraid that they might make her do something she doesn't want to, like see that asshole again. Maybe she wants to forget it ever happen.

2.) Penal law, as a matter of national policy, has not been primarily oriented to rehabilitation since the early 1970s. Nor is revenge the only other motive for incarceration; you forgot deterrence. There are two kinds: specific and general. Specific deters this guy from ever doing it again. General deters anyone who's paying attention to what happened to this guy. Your point about his not actually getting off scot-free (he has a felony conviction, has to register as a sex offender, and has to watch his P's and Q's for a while) is taken. However, it is a fairly technical point, not readily observable to the average layperson. Hence, if for no other reason, it's a good idea to give him jail/prison time lest other potential offenders think that *they* can get a pass.

Oh, and another reason for incarceration? To let victims - that little girl, every other little girl, and everyone who has ever been a little girl - know that the "justice" system might give a fraction of a flying fuck about male sexual violence against women. Which, if you hadn't noticed, isn't readily apparent.

3.) For as long as he's in jail, he *can't* "repeat." As for the other punishments, their actual significance is highly contingent. Having a felony conviction could make it hard to get a job; that's probably the worst of it, but if he's got an uncle or something who doesn't care, it makes no difference. As for discharge, it hurts him only if he does it again during a limited time period. And sex offender registration? If it works in Britain like it works here, it matters IF he registers AND the neighbors notice. Otherwise, tosh.

I would not hazard a guess as to what a more appropriate sentence would be. More than what he got, without a doubt. If I assume the best possible scenario for this guy's character, prison could be counterproductive, could make him more predatory. Happens all the time, and I don't like it one bit. But that fact is, to balance rehabilitation, punishment, and deterrence properly, you have to know who you're dealing with, and I don't. Neither do you. For all you know, he's beyond all hope of reform, and the best we can do is make sure he never has the opportunity to do it again.

In closing, I'll just put it on the table: I'm suspicious of posters like you. I don't trust your motives. Yeah, I think our criminal justice system needs reform. But I've got to wonder why you show up *here*, on this thread, to argue the point, and whether this is really about rehabilitation, or really about you not thinking rape is such a big deal.

"It doesn't make sense to me to say that the child *can* consent "in both reality and English law," and yet sex with that child is rape...which is defined as sex without consent."

It isn't. There are two crimes 'rape' and 'rape of a child under 13'. The second is not defined as sex without consent, and is not a subset of 'rape'. You would think it was a subset of the crime of 'rape' from the name, but it isn't and the contradiction isn't there.

"I think you're seeing a difference without a distinction. Whether you say "it's illegal to have sex with someone who doesn't consent, and a child under 13 cannot consent" or you say "it's illegal to have sex with a child under 13 regardless of whether she consents," it's illegal."

You're right about the distinction. The difference is that there are two different crime. If the law on consent had been amended to say "a child under 13 cannot consent". He would have been charged with a different offence, with different case law, different sentencing guidelines, and been in a different situation.

The reason I'm making an issue of this is that various people are not using the word "she cannot consent" as short hand as "it is illegal regardless of whether she consents on not". They are accusing the judge and lawyers of getting the law wrong by saying she consented. They didn't.

Consent is thought of as understanding what is happening, having the ability to make a choice, and making that choice. It's entirely open for a court to rule that this happened. Some places maintain the legal fiction that this can't happen if you're under a certain age. That's not the case in England.

You did notice Trevelynne setting you straight on that above, didn't you? Here's the link s/he was citing: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime-victims/reducing-crime/sexual-offences/#named2

So yes, they did get the law wrong.

Hello, again.

I would like to point out that the "stone wall" that I was meeting mostly had to do with the fact that I asked people to please stop making assumptions about the case, the victim and the perpetrator, all of which were completely unfounded. I was (and am) willing to at least start with the benefit of the doubt on whether this actual information, which we didn't have, was taken into consideration by the court. I said, in effect, if you want to make these assumptions, we need more information than is provided in that article. Otherwise, we must assume that the people involved know more than we, even if they still came to the wrong conclusions. That's where I was meeting my stone wall.

I never implied it was ever right or okay for a 20 year old to have sex with a ten year old. But neither did the judge. I appreciate that more people have been out for his blood than for mine, but I'm still not willing to go that far.

That said, there have been some excellent points made since, and I'm still interested in reading this thread. I'm never interested in ad hominem attacks or unjustified conclusion leaping, but good analogies and thoughtful commentary are all for the good.

Laura, I did notice Trevelynne's comments. I ignored them because they're wrong. Bullet points on PR websites written by civil servants are not a source of law. It's clear from the text of the actual law that I'm right.

It's understandable that a one sentence summary of the law isn't entirely accurate. Someone expressed the idea that 'sexual contact with children is always illegal' as 'children under 13 can now never legally consent to sexual activity' on a leaflet. That's good enough for their purposes - which is to convey that getting involved with someone under 13 is always a crime. But it's not a statement of law, and can't bear the interpretation that's being placed on it.

The actual law is in the Act. It's quite clear that consent can be give (from the Sections on consent), which is why there are two distinct crimes. If it couldn't be given what he did would just fall under 'rape' (Section 1) and there would be no need for Section 5 of the Act to exist.

Leederick, would you link to the Act, please?

JFGI, anyone? ;) http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts2003/30042--b.htm because I was commenting anyway!

Anyway. Yes, I've read the act. 'Rape' is defined in the section 1; "Rape and other offences against children under 13" is sections 5-8, with no intermediate redefinition of 'rape'. That suggests pretty strongly consent is still intrinsic to the offence of rape of a child. Consent is not mentioned at all in sections 5-8; the fairly obvious inference is that given the definition of rape, and that section 5 is defined as 'rape', that intercourse with a child can never be consensual. How is it clear from the text of the law that you're right?

Kattyben:

I'm not trying to imply that it's okay for him to do what he did. However, I don't entirely accept what you're saying about children only prompting adults for sex if they've been abused. That's why I linked to the article about the 5th-graders. I also have pretty good memories of myself in middle school, and the sheer number of my male friends who'd had wet dreams and/or started masturbating - and were willing to talk about it - by 5th grade leads me to accept as possible that a child could be at least partially sexually aware as young as ten. And, well, I'm the oldest of six, and someone who was kicked out of my mother and stepfather's house at 14 over a seriously rebellious attitude. While I in no way discount the likelihood of this child having been abused prior to this incident, I was never sexually abused or physically abused beyond being denied a few deserts and a few open-hand spankings (never hit with a belt or anything, etc), and I considered and committed several acts of defiance that did hundreds of dollars of damage and ended up in the ER a few times from crap I did to myself.

On a tangential, but related note, I spent most of my teenage years angry about the concept of ageism. I was a heavy user of internet communication; as I started taking high school biology, I began trying to pass myself off in chatrooms as a college freshman, soliciting 22+ year-old grad students for suggestions on courseloads, since, to my 14-year-old mind, if I couldn't be Batman, I was going to be a cybernetics researcher. I learned more about biology in that six-month period than I did from a full year of high school classes, and my schoolteacher recommended me for all sorts of scholastic awards because of my classroom contributions and consistent high performance on quizzes and exams. I had ideas about art and politics and science and *no one would listen to me* unless I pretended to be 4-8 years older than I was. So I did, and I got really good at it. And before you say "it wouldn't have worked in person," at 14 I was over 6 feet tall and was starting to grow facial hair. I couldn't have passed myself off as over-21 without a good fake ID, but the school I was going to had both a high school and a college. When I was out and told people I was a freshman at said school, they invariably assumed I meant the college. I was approached by Army recruiters at the mall who thought I was 18, when I'd just turned 15. Fact is, it did work in person, it just didn't occur to me to use it to get sex.

Now, I don't see in my earlier comments where I said outright that the victim was trying to protect the perp from prosecution. But, when I was 18 or 19, I went to a birthday party for a friend's older brother. Everyone there was supposed to be 2-5 years older than me, but I'd just broken up with my girlfriend and my friend thought it'd be good to get me out of the house, and besides, his ex was going to be there too and he didn't really feel like spending the whole night avoiding her. Well, I went, and one of his ex's friends was really hot, so I spent most of the night talking to her. We ended up having sex, and I never even asked how old she was; just whether or not she was single. Turns out, she was a 30+ year-old executive VP who'd just hired my friend's ex. When she talked to one of her friends about "bagging" me, her friend was just like "wait, is he even out of high school?" She freaked out and I never saw her again. It is entirely conceivable that, since the guy who'd invited me there had known me since I was 14, that I could have been to that same sort of party at 16, been a minor, and the same situation would've landed her in trouble had my parents found out. I don't think it was you, but multiple people said there's no reason for the defense attorney to bring up her prior sexual history. How would the defense even know? A sex offender or their attorney isn't going to be given the records of a minor (which, at least in NYS are automatically considered sealed). When I found out ... uh, I shouldn't use her name, I guess, we'll call her "Jean" - when I found out Jean didn't want to talk to me anymore because I was too young, I was pretty hurt (no matter how smart or self-confident you are, one thing age definitely gives you is experience in handling rejection), and upset. I called her and I told her "even if I'd been underage, do you think I'd have cooperated if my parents had tried to press charges? I'd have told the prosecutor, the judge, anyone who'd have let me that I started it. Hell, I brought the condom!" So, while I look back through my comments and I'm sure I never said the vic was protecting the perp, if I implied I felt that way, it's because of personal experience.

Now, if you're going to say "there's a world of difference between 10 and 16," I would agree, except to the point of linking the story about the 5th graders having sex. If, by your own admission, "there is unanimity as regards adolescent sex between people of roughly comparable ages," then you are either saying that children of that age aren't responsible for any biologically-driven action (which could be logically argued to include violent acts) or that they're capable of giving at least limited consent. 10 is far off my personal examples of later years, but 10 and 11-13 aren't that far off. (Not to mention that those 4 students are responsible for exposing, against their will and presumably without their consent, the other students in that classroom to sexual acts which, if not rape, is still a sex offense.)

The problem that I'm having with your #2 is that while every underlying Truth you're speaking towards is something I agree with, it's something I feel is irrelevant. Violence of any kind against anyone should be prosecuted, and sexual violence is particularly repugnant; however, this crime wasn't violent. You are correct that deterring crime is one of the major purposes of a penal system; however, since the criminal in this case never intended to commit a crime and showed significant remorse once confronted with the nature of the crime. In a "specific" sense he is deterred; in a "general" sense, the news article serves that purpose, to my mind, better than stuffing him in PMITA prison for 25 years. If you would argue that people might not notice the story or would forget about it, I would argue: then what's the point of the longer sentence? If people read a headline that says "rapist walks free" I bet more will go "what the fuck!" and read the article - and hopefully internalize the message "know someone at least well enough to know their name and age before you fuck," than if it had said "kiddie raper sentenced to life."

Now, I'm on my way out to easter dinner with the girlfriend's family, so I don't have time to cover everything else, but one of your parting shots really got under my skin; this accusation that I don't take rape seriously. Now, I've never been raped so maybe my perspective isn't the same as yours. But I've never raped anybody, either - never even considered it. What I have done, is had to deal with the effects rape has on the victims. I'm going to try to protect privacy of the people I'm talking about here so I'll be a little vague. I've dated 5 girls over the last dozen years, for never less than a year for each of them, and aside from "Jean" described above, I've not had more than one or two other one-night stands.

Of those five women I've had significant relationships with, two had been raped and one had been sexually abused by a relative.

One was date-raped on her way to the prom. They'd had sex once before but she'd decided she didn't want to again until they'd graduated; he wouldn't take no. She was afraid to come forward about it because if her parents found out that she'd had sex consensually before, she felt they'd never let her out of her sight, etc. After she started college, she was dorming, and I tried to convince her to come forward at that point - her parents wouldn't have had as much control anymore. She didn't want to, so I went out and found a friend of hers from high school who could identify the guy, and we spent several weeks plotting his abduction and brutalization. The only reason I'm not in jail is that she found out and threatened to dump me if I didn't promise I would leave the guy alone. I spent a full six months with a toxic mix of hate and sympathetic pain sloshing around in my gut. She had a boatload of emotional problems stemming from that rape and a few other things, but she'd talked with a therapist and she'd chosen her road to recovery; she felt that me taking some kind of vigilante action wasn't going to help her, it was just my way of saying she wasn't fit to choose for herself, and she told me so. We eventually broke up, but she's now happily married and, I think, making about double what her husband is. She's a strong, successful woman, and all I couldn't do anything to help her.

Another of my exes was raped at a concert. She reported the crime, but he'd used a condom and wore a hoodie that he'd used to cover most of his face. And I guess maybe she was drunk enough that she didn't get in enough defensive wounds to get a solid DNA match or anything. Nothing would have come from it, except that apparently after two or three years and no arrest, he got cocky and bragged to his friends, because halfway through college a group of 3 or 4 boys started following her around campus, leaving menacing notes and phone calls. Even after one of them kicked in a window and tried to break into her apartment, the principal perp ended up with 2 months in a minimum security prison, because he was "only" stalking. She spent four years a nervous wreck with a restraining order. She had night-terrors frequently and only just recently let the restraining order lapse.

Another of my exes was sexually abused by a relative when she was 14. The only reason it didn't turn into a long period of systematic abuse was that she'd already been voluntarily sexually active and she knew it was "bad touch." Her mother's a respected psychiatrist and her father's a criminal lawyer (meaning he handles crimes, not commits them; at least, not since he stopped dropping acid back in the 60s); her stated awareness of the wrongness of the assault was enough to get it to stop, but it's still something that haunts her and her relationships.

Of the two remaining girlfriends, one is an artist and activist who's sort-of related to Ani DiFranco. She used to get free advance copies of Ani's new albums and I used to borrow them because I liked the music and the message. The other was working on a graduate degree in sociology, now a social worker for a DC-area women's shelter. Even after we broke up, she would call me to talk to me about her papers because she felt I agreed with the underlying feminist principles but would use logic instead of zeal to argue the points. I think you could safely consider both of them feminists, and I'd like to think neither of them would say I'm disrespectful or insensitive towards women.

I'm read sites like this because I'm interested in The Cause, and because my family's full of politically connected lawyers (my mother worked for the state attorney general, my godmother heads up Child Protective Services here in my county), when I read reports of indefensibly vile actions I occasionally find myself in a position to do something about it. By the time I saw this thread, it had accumulated over ONE HUNDRED posts; looking back at the last several weeks of posts, I think I saw three that broke 50. I expected to read something so incredibly heinous it would turn my hair white or so enraging it would have me chewing my desk and spitting nails like bullets. Instead, I found something that looked like someone submitting a guilty plea for an accidental felony and being given a reduced sentence after the court took into account his history and character.

"Why should we lock her away for life when she will punish herself wherever she is."

Incarceration is useful for prevention as well as punishment. You know, for not leaving the perpetrator free to commit another case of the offense.

"And an adult woman smothered a teenager, in your hypothetical. It does not make it OK that she thought it wasn't her daughter when she did it. People who smother other people need to go to jail, because they are a danger. Period."

Exactly.

"Statutory rape is distinct from other forms of non-consensual sex. It is based upon inconsistent arbitrary age limitations and is categorically different in kind from date rape, spousal rape, etc. as well as forms of violent rape."

Just curious, what do you think about when statutory rape *is* spousal rape? Some other cases of adult men having sex with 10-year-old girls are the wedding nights of arranged marriages, after all.

"whereas a statutory rapist merely has consensual sex with someone much younger than they are."

...or in some cases, sex with someone much younger who "consents" because her parents want her to and she's too young to survive getting disowned.

Haha! Datashade - The "I'm best friends with feminists/POC/homosexuals/etc, so I would never do or say anything misogynist/racist/homophobic/etc" argument. Brilliant! Oh, it gets me every time. Thanks for the laugh!

Many thanks to all of you who so splendidly clarified my analogy after I went home last night.

I don't entirely accept what you're saying about children only prompting adults for sex if they've been abused. That's why I linked to the article about the 5th-graders. I also have pretty good memories of myself in middle school, and the sheer number of my male friends who'd had wet dreams and/or started masturbating - and were willing to talk about it - by 5th grade leads me to accept as possible that a child could be at least partially sexually aware as young as ten.

Right. Children are very sexually aware far younger than 10--which has nothing to do with the issue at hand. Nobody said that kids aren't sexually aware and curious: what we said was the children do not solicit actual, genital sex from adults unless they've been sexually abused in the past. So: masturbation and wet dreams? Not an instance of children soliciting sex from adults. Four kids having sex or fooling around? Not an instance of children soliciting sex from adults. Kids talking about sex? Not an instance of children soliciting sex from adults. A ten-year-old ward of the state sneaking out and finding a twenty-year-old sufficiently immoral to bang her without pursuing too many awkward questions? Now that's an instance of a child soliciting sex from an adult. Worlds of difference there.

The fact that children can consent to each other has no bearing on whether or not they can consent to adults. The power balance is entirely different. Suggesting that because a twelve-year-old can consent to a 13-year-old, that same twelve-year-old can consent meaningfully, no problem, no massive power differential there, to an actual adult is either absurd or willfully obtuse. Children are each other's peers; adults are an entirely different category.

I've gotta say, I really object to the long post detailing your feminist credentials, that comes down to "some of my best friends/girlfriends have been raped and theeeeeeeyyyyyyy think I'm sensitive." OK. You can officially be a Nice Guy (tm). But it's self-centered posturing that has nothing to do with the thread.

Happy Birthday, oenophile.

Heh. Trevalynne got there first, and far more pithily!

ha! i was just going to say what a Nice Guy(tm) he sounded like! you stole my chance, EG :)

EG- :)

Yesterday I resolved not to come back to this thread. I was afraid of concussing myself from all of the *head desk* action.

But I'm glad I returned. I had completely forgotten about the "nice guy (tm)" phrase. Wunderbar!

DataShade -- do you really think that the most important 2200 words you can come up with to contribute to a discussion on statutory rape consist of a detailing of internet usage during your youth, ex-girlfriends, Your Righteous Interest In The Cause, and your family's "connections"? *yawn*

But becca, don't you understand? The world does revolve around him!

DataShade, I'm not inclined to be *quite* as hard on your for parading your feminist cred as others here, though Nice Guy (tm) is certainly a character I've encountered online and in real life.

But I questioned whether you were arguing your position in good faith, and you countered, not surprisingly, with an appeal to ethos. Of course, ethical appeals online are inherently dubious, because no one has any way of knowing whether there's an ounce of truth in a poster's assertions about him/herself. But I think it's reasonable to give you the benefit of the doubt. It's not that I think all that cred means you're without bias, but then none of us is.

So, once more into the fray:

1.) Everything EG said about the irrelevance of your examples. You DO tend to strew red herrings through your arguments. It's a symptom of either inexact thinking, haste, or bias. But as I'm sure you've noticed, around here you'll get called on that shit.

2.) "Rapist walks free," as you put it, is NOT an effective headline for purposes of deterrence. You think it's better than "Child rapist jailed for life," because people will notice it. They sure the hell will. People who think it's outrageous will notice it for that reason. People who think it's a license to rape will notice it for THAT reason. Its outrageousness thus does not enhance its deterrent effect, because outrage is in the eye of the beholder.

3.) I assumed that your emphasis on the fact that the girl didn't want to prosecute was because you read that as an indication that she didn't want the male (I won't say "man") to be punished, hence leniency is appropriate. You seem puzzled by this. But you DID make a big deal of this point. So what are you getting at? Why is this fact "crucial" to you?

It's certainly not crucial from a strategy standpoint. They had sex; it's a strict liability crime; done.

Look, there are two opposing points of view in this thread: some people think that it should make a difference (to the male's culpability) that the little girl invited sex, and some people don't. I'm one of the people who don't.

Why? Three reasons:
A.) Sex with twenty-year-olds is BAD for ten-years-olds. (Why? See B below.) Criminal justice isn't just about culpability; it's also about harm.
B.) Ten-year-olds CANNOT meaningfully consent. First of all (I repeat) a 10-year-old who invites sex with an adult is fucked up. I.e., I am perfectly happy to second-guess her judgment and say that in her case, yes does not mean yes. Even emotionally healthy ten-year-olds do all kinds of unbelievably stupid shit without any appreciation of the risks, consequences, etc. That's why grown-ups have to be grown-ups and NOT FUCK THEM.

3.) I engaged your question because I'm interested in questions like it, i.e., we can all agree that the system is broken, and imagine a better one, but what are people who participate in the criminal justice system NOW supposed to do in any given case? I already answered that question where this case is concerned.

4.) I am SO not keen to open the door for child rapists of all sorts to claim mitigation of their crime on the grounds that the kid consented. Some things SHOULD be black and white. And frankly, even if one in a million child rape cases involves a truly consensual encounter (that's IF such a thing exists, and I'm skeptical), and somebody goes to prison for it, I won't lose a minute of sleep over it. First of all, it beats the alternative, in which every goddam child rapist claims s/he wanted it, just the way every other rapist does. Second, there are a lot of legally fuckable people in this world, and it's not going to kill anybody to limit themselves to that pool. Whether any adult fucks a ten-year-old is completely within that adult's control. This guy knew something was up, but he didn't really care. That's HIS problem.

So, we can talk about what's best, on the front lines of a sentencing judge's decision, for the social fabric, OR we can talk about whether anything mitigates the culpability of a twenty-year-old who fucks a ten-year-old. But let's not confuse those two issues.

"Why? Three reasons:"

Oops, I mean two.

Haha! Datashade - The "I'm best friends with feminists/POC/homosexuals/etc, so I would never do or say anything misogynist/racist/homophobic/etc" argument. Brilliant! Oh, it gets me every time. Thanks for the laugh!

Posted by: Trevelynne

Thanks for putting words in my mouth. At every stage of my adult life I've been intimately emotionally involved with someone who's either been sexually assaulted or dedicated time or their entire professional life to helping people who were. I'm accused of being pro-rape because I think that it's okay for a judge and prosecutor to accept a guilty plea and give only probation and sex-offender status for what everyone involved in the case believes was a mistake.

The perp obviously has terrible judgment and I'm not in any way defending his actions. All I'm saying is that many of the people posting here didn't read anything in the article past the judge's inflammatory comments and don't seem to have any sense that justice can be accomplished short of the utter annihilation of the criminal's future.

Right. Children are very sexually aware far younger than 10--which has nothing to do with the issue at hand. Nobody said that kids aren't sexually aware and curious: what we said was the children do not solicit actual, genital sex from adults unless they've been sexually abused in the past. So: masturbation and wet dreams? Not an instance of children soliciting sex from adults. Four kids having sex or fooling around? Not an instance of children soliciting sex from adults. Kids talking about sex? Not an instance of children soliciting sex from adults. A ten-year-old ward of the state sneaking out and finding a twenty-year-old sufficiently immoral to bang her without pursuing too many awkward questions? Now that's an instance of a child soliciting sex from an adult. Worlds of difference there.

But what's the world of difference? You don't have any evidence at all as to why the girl was a ward of the state. You don't know how old she thought he was. What's the world of difference? I had friends in middle school who one-upped each other by trying to convince their college-aged babysitters into performing sex acts on them. Obviously, the babysitters turned them down every time, but we're talking 10-12 year old kids trying to get a handjob or a blowjob from an 18-22 year old just because they want bragging rights; none of these kids were emotionally or sexually abused, or at least I didn't have any evidence that they were. If one of those kids could have passed himself off as 18, do you honestly think they wouldn't have been down at the arcade or the town pool or the roller-rink trying to pick up girls, without caring how old those girls were? Reining in their destructive and self-destructive impulses is the job of a good parent, but it's expected children will push boundaries because it's what they do. Why is it that when it's a girl who's the aggressive one the only possible reason for her actions is that she's been damaged somehow?

Prosecutors in homicide cases exercise prosecutorial discretion and bring lesser charges all the time, in the interest of a swift conviction or a plea bargain. Without knowing more than is contained in the news article, why is this topic generating 100 posts more than anything else on this site?

4.) I am SO not keen to open the door for child rapists of all sorts to claim mitigation of their crime on the grounds that the kid consented. Some things SHOULD be black and white. And frankly, even if one in a million child rape cases involves a truly consensual encounter (that's IF such a thing exists, and I'm skeptical), and somebody goes to prison for it, I won't lose a minute of sleep over it. First of all, it beats the alternative, in which every goddam child rapist claims s/he wanted it, just the way every other rapist does. Second, there are a lot of legally fuckable people in this world, and it's not going to kill anybody to limit themselves to that pool. Whether any adult fucks a ten-year-old is completely within that adult's control. This guy knew something was up, but he didn't really care. That's HIS problem.

I think the difference here was the the prosecutor agreed to the mitigating circumstances. Like in my last post; a prosecutor can chose to file charges of manslaughter instead of murder if they feel it's warranted. According to the article, everyone involved in this case felt this guy made a mistake - a mistake that lead to a revolting and despicable act, but still, only a mistake - and that the harshest penalties of the law wouldn't make for greater justice.

If you can locate additional information about this case, enough to indicate that the reduced sentence was unjust, then I will happily withdraw my arguments.

So, we can talk about what's best, on the front lines of a sentencing judge's decision, for the social fabric, OR we can talk about whether anything mitigates the culpability of a twenty-year-old who fucks a ten-year-old. But let's not confuse those two issues.

Well, okay, let's tackle the possibility of mitigation. Bear with me here, please, I tend to get a little absurd when I do this sort of thing.

Let's say there's a webcam running in this guy's bedroom when the girl slips in through an open window while he's sleeping, fondles him to arousal, then engages in intercourse while he's asleep. Maybe he wakes up, maybe he sleeps through it thinking it's a wet dream. But it's on camera, and streaming live out on the internet, and so he gets caught.

Now, that's a ridiculous scenario, but, no matter how improbable, within the realm of possibility; no invisible pink unicorns or immaculate conceptions. Within the ontext of that scenario, would he be culpable? I would hope you could say that, no, he is not.

Let's take it a step down in ridiculousness, but still a little absurd. Let's say the 20-year-old was developmentally challenged and the 10-year-old fucked him on a dare from her friends. The 20-year-old might not even be legally able to provide consent, but you know (and pardon the snark), I bet if it happened in Texas in 1996, not only would he have gotten 25 to life, George W Bush would have been on hand with the lethal injection himself.

Let's swap that one around, and say the 20-year-old was a developmentally challenged FEMALE, and the 10-year-old was male, and the male initiating the sex was having his friends tape it to spread around school to laugh at the retard. Wouldn't you maybe even say that that the 10-year-old be tried for rape as an adult? I would certainly love to dig through case law to find precedent and put that little shit in a juvenile home.

Now that we've established there are indeed mitigating circumstances wherein a 20-year-old might not be legally culpable for sexual intercourse with a minor, let's get back to questions of justice, society's welfare, and a judge's boorish comments in trying to accommodate the two.

DataShade, of course I have points to counter your points. And I could spend the next forty minutes typing them up, but I'm sure you would then have YOUR counter-points, and ... Well, I don't have time for all that. No snark intended.

So, thanks for adding a new dimension to the discussion here, and I'll see you on some other thread. Cheers.

DataShade, none of those highly-unlikely-but-vaguely-possible scenarios are what happened in this case, and so don't really have any bearing on this one.

Your suggestion that this is analogous to a manslaughter charge, is, however apt-- but not for the reasons you suggest. Manslaughter is a charge that is brought when an individual intends to commit a lesser crime (say assault), and ends up killing their victim. So if I got really mad at you and punched you in the head, and I killed you, even though I meant to simply give you a black eye, I'd face a manslaughter charger, rather than an assault charge. I'd face harsher penalties as a result.

So in this case, a man commits the crime of having sex with a girl that he has reason to believe is under the age of consent (remember, the article clearly states that she said her age "didn't matter"-- a classic response when a kid is actually too young to do what they're trying to do)-- however, it's very probably that he believed her to be 14 or 15, rather than 10. But she WAS 10, so it turns out that he committed a worse crime than he expected to-- and as such, he faces stronger charges, and should face tougher penalties.

What has happened here is that the judge has said that because she has sexual experience (ie, because she's been abused in the past), and because she looks older than 10 years old (although the perpetrator did not really do much to establish her age, and probably suspected she was under that AOC), he should be punished as though he was charged with a lesser crime.

It's a bit like saying that someone who kills someone by punching them should only be punished for assault, because the guy they punched had been in bar brawls before, and he had been arguing with the perpetrator beforehand, and appeared to be seeking out a fight. The fact is, if you kill them, it's manslaughter, and while you might not receive the same penalty as if you'd taken a hammer to them, you'd get a worse punishment than if your victim had simply walked away with a black eye.

Likewise with this, her apparent consent *could* be a mitigating circumstance, as you say-- he should not be punished in the same way that someone who pinned a ten year old down and raped her, BUT he also should not get punished as though his crime was having sex with a consenting 15 year old, which is basically what has happened. He had sex with a TEN year old, someone who was clearly younger than him, and he did not bother to confirm her age before doing so. In doing so, he would have increased the ill affects of abuses she has suffered in the past, by adding to them himself, and he should be punished accordingly.

So she looked older? Boo-fucking-hoo. This guy IS older, and it's his responsibility to make sure his sexual partners are of age-- if they can't prove it, he's more than capable of saying "Okay, let's not have sex tonight, let's meet up for dinner tomorrow, and you can bring some ID then so I feel more comfortable about it." And the fact that he didn't do that, and the fact that his crime turned out to have effects worse than he thought, that's his own fault (just as it's my fault if I kill someone with a punch instead of bruising them)-- and he should pay a penalty for the fact that she was indeed ten, regardless of how sexually experienced she was, or how physically developed-- that these two factors can be seen to change the nature of his crime, is an outrage.

Where to begin? Others have already called out your peripherally-related, strawman "analogous examples" as irrelevant smokescreens, DataShade, so I'll just take you to task on this gem of a paragraph:

"Also, and this to me is VERY important, and negates the entire feminist appeal of the situation: per the article, the perp cooperated with authorities AND THE VICTIM DIDN'T. The prosecutor was obligated to prosecute the case, and did so, over the objections and outright non-assistance of the victim. A prosecutor isn't obligated to seek the harshest penalties, and I don't think sending this guy to Ye Olde Pound Me In The Ass Prison, Retributionshire, would really help England's social fabric any. You're all very outraged and bloodthirsty...."

1) as to the "feminist appeal" of the situation, it might behoove you to know that children's rights groups and numerous politicians--who do not identify as feminist or espousing a feminist agenda--are also up in arms over the judgment. Because, see, they care about the welfare and safety of a ten-year-old CHILD. Once upon a time, even social conservative, anti-feminists cared about CHILDREN, for god's sake. I guess, though, that if a child has had a previous sexual experience, they relinquish the right to protection? Note that even the cold-hearted defense attorney didn't go so far as to say the girl had had previous "consensual sexual intercourse" before. She used the term previous "sexual experience." For someone so clearly hell-bent on using every device available to defend this guy's actions, that's a pretty vague description of the child's previous experience, and that is pretty telling, in my book. NOT THAT IT MATTERS, BECAUSE IT'S STILL A TEN-YEAR-OLD.

2) the victim didn't cooperate with authorities. You make her sound like a violently oppositional saboteur, when in fact the article offers a considerably more benign description. And oh yeah, she's TEN. Without a parent or any other caring, responsible guardian to help her through police questioning and the legal process. I'd like to see how you would have handled representing your own interests--on the matter of a sexual encounter, no less, while essentially parentless and homeless, and ostensibly already in trouble for running away-- in front of the police and social workers (who had let you down by putting you in an unstructured and insufficiently supervised living situation) at the age of TEN. Yes, you're right, the child should have cooperated fully. As we all know, children regularly fully volunteer information about having been sexually abused, for example...oh that's right, they don't, in part because it's an incredibly complex and shaming and frightening situation for children.

3) as for "really" helping England's "social fabric any", what do you know about it? England and Wales are different, for one thing (and residents not likely to interchange them, Oh No Sir), so clearly you don't LIVE in either one, and yet you speak so authoritatively on the subject! But really, I'd love to hear more of that line of argument. Tell us, please, about how more rigorously prosecuting statutory rapists would so damage "England's" social fabric.

4) as for how outraged and bloodthirsty everyone supposedly was, I'd say yes to the former, and "Huh?" to the latter. Someone way upthread may have alluded to castration but I don't recall bloodthirsty calls for this guy to be drawn and quartered or anything. Or is that just a term you threw in to seal the "shrill man-hating feminist harpies" deal?

I truly SO enjoy the professional Devil's Advocates who frequent this site in one shapeshifted form or another. Debate and disagreement are fine...it's just curious that you get so mad and accusatory when people debate and disagree right back!

As an aside, this story reminded me of a news item a few months ago reporting that an eight-year-old (I think I remember the age right) in South America had become pregnant...I don't remember the exact details but the news commentary was that "investigators believe the sex MAY have been non-consensual." May have been. And this was a mainstream news source. I guess in that particular case--by the same twisted logic presented on this thread--the girl COULD really have consented, because after all, she must have menstruated already, and just like prior "sexual experience" in the Wales case, that makes her an adult, right?

I've worked with plenty of adolescents (OLDER than the girl in Wales, both male and female) who had lived through hell; suffered things typically only in the adult realm of experience (terribly unlucky adults, no less). They talked and acted recklessly, took risks, hurt themselves, were provocative in a number of ways, including sexually (which YES, is commonly associated with prior sexual abuse). That didn't, and doesn't, make them adults. It makes them MORE in need of protection, not LESS. It makes people who take advantage of them MORE depraved and culpable, not LESS so.

Thanks, EG & LegallyBlondeez. :)

EG made a point about the balance of power in a relationship between a 10 year old and a 20 year old that makes it inherently non-consentual.

Any college student may date another college student. No one has issues with that. When a professor tries to date a student, the administration gets upset. In fact, many schools have enacted sexual harassment regulations, under which professor-student sexual conduct is per se harassment.

We all understand this and realise that the balance of power is off. As a relatively mature 20-something, I think I'm tough enough to push back if harassed, but there are still rules in place to protect me.

We do that with adults and sexual harassment - college students being adults. We assume that they can date each other, but not professors. This is the same rationale behind allowing 13-year-olds to have sex with each other and not be charged with rape, but forbidding adults from doing it.

If you outlaw sex with ten-year-olds, only outlaws will have sex with ten-year-olds!

So in this case, a man commits the crime of having sex with a girl that he has reason to believe is under the age of consent (remember, the article clearly states that she said her age "didn't matter"-- a classic response when a kid is actually too young to do what they're trying to do)-- however, it's very probably that he believed her to be 14 or 15, rather than 10. But she WAS 10, so it turns out that he committed a worse crime than he expected to-- and as such, he faces stronger charges, and should face tougher penalties.

Or maybe, because she was at a bar, he was going to buy her a drink, and when she wouldn't cough up an age, he decided she had to be under 21, and didn't. You're assuming facts not in evidence.

And if you don't like my examples, how about assuming the girl had a fake ID that said she was old enough to drink, but she was obviously under 21 so he asked, saw the ID and was mollified. At that point, how culpable would he be for buying her a drink, let alone having sex with her? The point is, the potential for mitigation exists in every crime.

People keep accusing me of offering irrelevant analogies and red herrings. Of course it's irrelevant, that's part of my point! Your entire outrage is based on speculation. Most, if not all, of the posts here assume facts not in evidence, and the only way to argue with that kind of fantasy is to either offer a counter-example or to tell someone to get their head out of the clouds and deal with the evidence on hand.

What worse, what made me post, is that where facts aren't provided by the article, they're supplied using pseudo-facts churned together from statistical aggregate of other statutory rape cases. I don't care that in most cases where a child tries to have sex with an adult they've been sexually abused in the past, because the article doesn't say that's the case here. The article doesn't establish why she wasn't with her parents except to say that she was "in the custody of a local authority." She could have been picked up for shoplifting, and been held pending contact with - or, if she's uncooperative, identification of - her parents. The only reason to insist she had been a prior victim of sexual abuse is reliance on statistics - or the desire to craft a narrative.

Read that again, and mix it in with what many people are saying about how it's okay for a child to have sex with another child. There is no evidence her prior sexual experience was rape or molestation.

I don't care about uneven power dynamics between 20- and 10-year-olds, because the 20-year-old wasn't looking for a 10-year-old, he was looking for a woman at a bar. That doesn't make the end result of what he did okay, but it does make what he did and what you're talking about completely separate. He doesn't get off on establishing a perverse power dynamic, he gets off on picking up strangers at a bar. If you want to be an armchair psychiatrist, at least diagnose the illness he actually has, rather than the one that's easiest to be outraged about.

Here's another thing about all this that bothers me. We all seem to agree that a young child could be sexually active, but it's okay if they have sex with another of their own age. It's okay if they have sex with someone their own age, but the only way they try to sex up an adult is if they're damaged by prior sexual abuse. Well, at least as I'd understood it, one of the core principles of feminism was that we're all enduring constant, oppressive social pressure to accept certain behavior, beauty, and gender "norms." As far as I can see, no one's responded to the point I made earlier, that kids find adults attractive and they don't need any kind of abuse to get that way. I've seen 11-year-old girls watch football and say 'he's got a cute butt,' and I've seen 10-year-olds shoplift copies of SI's Swimsuit Edition. The adult has an obligation to refuse (and I would say, educate) a child who approaches them for sex, you cannot simply deny children are sexual creatures by clicking your heels together three times and saying "there's nothing like prior sexual abuse." I'm not advocating for a repeal of statutory rape laws, but maybe, just maybe, someone doesn't need a prison sentence for what even the prosecution says was probably a mistake.

I think maybe you all just have an underestimation for how hard it is to live with a felony conviction or sex-offender status.

It's a bit like saying that someone who kills someone by punching them should only be punished for assault, because the guy they punched had been in bar brawls before, and he had been arguing with the perpetrator beforehand, and appeared to be seeking out a fight. The fact is, if you kill them, it's manslaughter, and while you might not receive the same penalty as if you'd taken a hammer to them, you'd get a worse punishment than if your victim had simply walked away with a black eye.

No, it's perfectly apt. Because if you get a bunch of guys together, a la Fight Club, to beat each other up "consentually" and one of them dies, I can guarantee the prosecutor is going to start the top count of the indictment with Murder 2, depraved indifference homicide.

Or maybe even lead the indictment with conspiracy, since any death committed in the commission of a felony is automatically Murder 1.

Then, once he's got enough corroborative evidence that accomplice testimony is admissible in court, he's going to offer a Manslaughter plea to get one of the participants to testify against the others.

At this point, it's been a couple of days, and I'm bowing out of the thread. Some of the comments have been engaging, and I'd like to thank particularly the people who were willing to actually communicate (like Kattyben). The rest of you, I'm sorry I couldn't find a way to explain myself better. Best of luck.

Actually, another quibble with your argument, DataShade before we part. The article stated he met her outside a pub, not inside one. She was essentially homeless in the city center (aka "downtown") and that's where he ran into her. The drinking age is technically 18 in the UK but most establishments do not check ID. He met this girl outside a pub, and since in the UK 14 and 15 year olds regularly go to pubs (and actually, younger children can often be found inside with their families), it should have occurred to him that the girl could have been at least that young. He met her outside a pub, and invited her back to his place for drinks. The article suggested he chose to do this rather than go out for drinks with his friends, as planned. He wasn't trying to merely innocently "buy a woman a drink." He could have stayed at the pub and done that with her if that was his primary objective. Or maybe this suggests he didn't think she looked old enough to even GET SERVED in the pub? which in the UK, means you look pretty damn young. So in conclusion, the age of "21" would never enter the equation, assuming 18 would be a BIIIG stretch, and given his actions I suspect he was guesstimating lower. Maybe not 10, bu lower, maybe low enough to think she wouldn't get served in the pub.

And ah yes, that old chestnut, thanking the people who were "actually willing to communicate", whereas everyone else ("the rest of you") was just too abrasive. Poor widdle DataShade!! A brilliant finish! Best of luck to you as well.

As far as I can see, no one's responded to the point I made earlier, that kids find adults attractive and they don't need any kind of abuse to get that way
Well, maybe they didn't say it specifically in response to your posts, but
oenophile [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 6, 2007 03:45 PM;
EG [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 7, 2007 04:04 PM
both make the distinction between kids finding adults attractive (which nobody is disputing - nice strawfeminist you've got there!) and adults taking that as license to have sex with them.

Let's also make the difference between kids finding adults attractive and kids asking adults for actual sex. The two things are not synonomous.

I think maybe you all just have an underestimation for how hard it is to live with a felony conviction or sex-offender status.

heck, i have a close family friend who was falsely brought up on rape charges... turns out, the girl's dad wanted to make some extra cash.

i also had an older friend when i was in college who was accused of rape by a student. i still don't know if it was true, but it was settled somehow... and he was ostracized from a community about which he really cared.

unfortunately, i know plenty more people who've been sexually traumatized and my experience with both survivors of rape and people who've dealt with rape accusations has taught me that surviving rape is significantly more severe.

next, the girl wasn't in the bar, she was outside the bar, according to all accounts, and could provide no verification of her age beyond saying, "does it matter?" to which the young man ought've said, "yes."

the fake id, once again, is a red herring.

according to the western telegraph:

After viewing pictures of the ten-year-old at Swansea crown court yesterday, Mr Justice Roderick Evans said he understood why Liam Edgecombe,from Haverfordwest, thought the child was over the age of consent.

now, i'm no expert on the law, but this seems dangerously close to setting a precedent that adults can have sex with children as long as the children "look" old and still not face any time. while the consequences of having a sex offense record are significant, i find that to be a very dangerous call, especially considering that the 20 year old admitted to not exercising due dilligence in confirming the young girl's age.

i can't believe this is such a big debate... we're talking about an adult fucking a 10 year old... and a judge going light because of how the girl looked. seems pretty stark to me.

I truly SO enjoy the professional Devil's Advocates who frequent this site in one shapeshifted form or another. Debate and disagreement are fine...it's just curious that you get so mad and accusatory when people debate and disagree right back!

So true. There's male privilege all over the place.

Men should stop having sex with women under 21. That will take away the possibility they are committing a felony. Stay away from young girls. Problem solved. Like that will ever happen. Biggest eye roll ever.