@9 – The problem again, being “vote”.

All statutory rape is consensual. 100%. If it wasn’t consensual, it would not be statutory rape!

You apparently have misunderstood something – a rape can certainly be both a forcible rape AND a statutory rape at the same time. In fact, any forcible rape of someone under the age of consent is both, every time.

Rape is forcing someone to have sex with you without their consent. Rape is “statutory” rape if the victim* is below the legal age of consent – that is, legally unable is give consent.

In general, if it’s forcible rape, we don’t care if it’s “statutory” or not, as that is irrelevant, so we don’t put that qualifier on it, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not statutory as well.

*”Victim” can, in some cases, be the wrong ethical term, though it’s always the right legal one. A minor who intentionally and convincingly lies about their age (there have even been cases where fake ID was involved!) and has consensual sex with someone (indeed, in some cases, is the one doing the seducing) is hardly a “victim” – indeed, they are sometimes the ethical criminal. This is a very hard area of law.

It’s easy to sympathize with the “true victim”, I know. But why do we have anyone on the registry? It doesn’t keep anyone safer and it makes all the sex offenders much less safe. When a person serves their sentence, they should be allowed to return to their homes and a productive life. The registry makes this impossible for too many.

Where theres 1 theres 100 Im sure

I am not a parent, but if I were I’d be a “free range” one. As a parent allowing my children to play outside I’d want to know if a young man with the physical power and hormonal drives of a 19 year old, but the mental maturity and impulse control of a much younger person, along with an admitted sexual interest in youngsters, was about. The details of this case matter in balancing public interest against the rights of this particular young man, but after considering this and the other examples I find myself more in favor of reforming the registry system than disposing of it entirely.

Or perhaps we could wait until this young man actually commits a crime against a person before we label him. Do you really find him “scary” because he was looking at illegal pictures?

You are correct about this, though:
the [sex offender registry] is so prone to corruption and misapplication that it needs to be thrown out entirely.

The “slow witted” 19 year old is scary. If he victimizes a much younger person, is the trauma suffered by that youngster any less because of the “mental age” issue?

When legal adults “date” minors, that is not statutory rape. Statutory rape is when adults have sex with minors.

As for the report from Stacie – maybe things happened exactly as she says, but I don’t find this one-sided anecdote compelling in any way. The daughter who was allegedly manipulated is still making excuses not to come forward, which could mean many things. The daughters caught in this struggle between adults (at least one of whom has behaved abominably) are the only figures here who deserve unequivocal sympathy. And, I would add as a supporter of universal mental health care, access to counseling as necessary.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20080521/NEWS/628566764

http://workrights.us/?portfolio=whose-life-is-it-anyway

In today’s job environment, employers might be able to afford to be a little more picky with their ideology, but in a more robust economy, automatically excluding 20%-25% of the available workforce is a bit asinine. Drug war convictions and this sex-offender witch hunt make it all the worse.

(cue ominous music) Judge Bleeding Heart freed a CONVICTED PEDOPHILE on a TECHNICALITY. Vote for Judge Law’n'Order to keep our children SAFE.

Any politician who votes against registries commits political suicide. The attack ads write themselves.

Destroy lives to no purpose, make communities less safe? Who cares? Vote for me!

*Actually, due to the way time zones work, etc, it’s possible for the YOUNGER person to be statutorily raping the older person, though only for a day. Yes, that’s how silly the laws are.

To clarify, the person literally born first in chronological time can have a birth date of the day after the other person – legality and actual chronology differ, due to the way time zones are handled.

It’s actually not a very good case against the sex offender registry – the crime your husband was convicted of is EXACTLY the sort of thing the supporters of the sex offender registries want to know about, want to brand people for (and I don’t really disagree with them, at least is desire – the ability of the state to manage such a list is a much bigger problem).

No, good cases are public urination (especially where no one actually witnesses what you did – what a joke of a “sex offense”), sex between minors-then-one’s-not-a-minor-then-both-aren’t kinds of situations*, and statutory rape cases… where the “victim” marries the original “criminal” and remains so for 20+ years (there are such cases).

*Actually, due to the way time zones work, etc, it’s possible for the YOUNGER person to be statutorily raping the older person, though only for a day. Yes, that’s how silly the laws are.

THOSE are good examples for this purpose, and there are plenty. No need to muddy the waters with other issues.