How do you find out what a sex offender actually did?

[ronburgundy]

I do think the age and something of the circumstances should be given.

20 with 12 is a very different thing than a Romeo & Juliet case but the way the laws are written they can end up with the same description.


Edit: Just had a thought here. How about a simple fix:

Let the person add 50 words to the listing which a judge must find to be true and not deceptive.

The minor is a minor!

"A minor" is an arbitrary invented dividing line that creates categories with no correspondence to meaningful differences emotional, cognitive, or physical development.

As it often does, the written law that creates specific statutes has to greatly oversimplify situations for pragmatic reasons. But rational people in both their applications of those statutes, punishment decisions, or informal personal decisions on how to view or interact with a person do not and should not be as dumb and overly simplistic as the letter of the law.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The minor is a minor!

"A minor" is an arbitrary invented dividing line that creates categories with no correspondence to meaningful differences emotional, cognitive, or physical development.

It matters in the sense that certain information regarding a case isn't public record if a minor is involved.

My post was in response to a suggestion to be able to append information regarding a case into the public record. However, the minor is still a minor, so that information will not be available regardless.

 

[ronburgundy]

As I stated in my own post, I agree with you that this is irrelevant to the shooting. But I disagree with your claim that the age of a minor in such a crime is none of anyone's business. It is extremely relevant to the nature of the crime and whether most people would even consider it immoral or something that should be a crime. If a 17 year old has consensual (in every meaningful psychological sense, regardless of how the law tortures this concept), then that is extremely different in the mind of most reasonable people than if a 50 year old had sex with a 13 year old. Both those acts would be classified as the same crime and show up as identical in this public record.
The victim is not protected any more by whether their age at the time is disclosed. What matters is their name. If there is going to be any kind of publicly available record of such crimes it does more harm than good to exclude the relative ages of the person's. In fact, it is probably more relevant than knowing whether a weapon was used in an assault or whether the victim was "a minor", which makes a inaccurate big deal out of being 17 or 18, but ignores whether one is 17 or 13.

Well, until LA goes back in time, changes the law to divide up 13 to 15 and 16 to 17, we have absolutely nothing to go on. The victim is (was) a minor and that is pretty much that.

Sure, a 21 with a 17 year old isn't going to rock the world too much as say a 21 with a 13 would. Though, the fact that it says carnal knowledge and not rape, definitely places the crime in to a much lesser type of sexual type crime.

The bolded part is the crux of the issue. If she was 13, then most people would view it as pedophilia on par with forcible rape, but if she was 16 then most people would view it as a much lesser crime. And objectively her being 13 is far more likely to indicate the perp has a psychological disorder that greatly increases the probability of a repeat offense.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Well, until LA goes back in time, changes the law to divide up 13 to 15 and 16 to 17, we have absolutely nothing to go on. The victim is (was) a minor and that is pretty much that.

Sure, a 21 with a 17 year old isn't going to rock the world too much as say a 21 with a 13 would. Though, the fact that it says carnal knowledge and not rape, definitely places the crime in to a much lesser type of sexual type crime.

The bolded part is the crux of the issue. If she was 13, then most people would view it as pedophilia on par with forcible rape, but if she was 16 then most people would view it as a much lesser crime. And objectively her being 13 is far more likely to indicate the perp has a psychological disorder that greatly increases the probability of a repeat offense.

You may want to relearn the terms for different types of -philias as they relate to age. Pedo is not 13 years old.

The charge was for the range of 13-17, so the legislature seems to think it isn't that much of a difference. And her being a minor leads to that data not being included.

 

[ronburgundy]

I agree that there's a difference, but i assume that the court knew the ages involved when they made their decisions about guilt, punishment and the possibility of parole.
Why SHOULD the rest of the world know these details?

Many if not most people are going to presume the worst case scenario, if they don't have the specific details. Carnal knowledge of a minor will be equal to pedophilia in most people's minds. So, withholding the information only hurts the reintroduction of convicts into society. Those who had sex with 13 year old won't be viewed any different than if the age wasn't released and just presumed by others, whereas those guilty only of the most minimal technical breach of the statute will get a much more reasonable and less negative response from the community than if that info is withheld.

Convicts have a right to keep their convictions private

No, they have no such right. By definition, all crimes are public acts to which the right to privacy does not apply. To the contrary, society has the right to knowledge of who, when, and how the laws they collectively created to keep themselves safe and protect actual basic rights against violation by others have been violated. What about when a police officer or government official breaks the law? Should the government also hide all the critical facts about such cases from the public?
In fact, outside of modern large societies, it was never possible to keep such info about crimes a secret. The details were all known to your community, as they should be.

If the law views a convict as an ongoing risk to society at the conclusion of his sentence, then they should have given him a longer sentence

It is not the legal systems role to ensure criminals pose no future risk, and such a task is impossible. A person who did X in the past is more likely to do X again, than a person who did not do X. Thus, there is always a risk of repeat behavior for all convicts. That is why such information about what exactly they did is so relevant to other members of the public. A person that had sex with their high school classmate that was one year younger than them poses no risk of a crime if they do that again, because they are no longer within 1 year of the arbitrary minor cutoff age. A 50 year old that had sex with a 12 year old is very likely to be repeating the crime if they do something similar again. In fact, prison typically increases the probability of a repeat crime, making it all the more relevant for people to know what crime they went to prison for.

 

[ronburgundy]

The bolded part is the crux of the issue. If she was 13, then most people would view it as pedophilia on par with forcible rape, but if she was 16 then most people would view it as a much lesser crime. And objectively her being 13 is far more likely to indicate the perp has a psychological disorder that greatly increases the probability of a repeat offense.

You may want to relearn the terms for different types of -philias as they relate to age. Pedo is not 13 years old.

I am not talking about psychologically meaningless unscientific legal terms. I am talking about how most people, and most reasonable people, view an adult having sex with a 13 year old versus sex with a 17 year old.

The charge was for the range of 13-17, so the legislature seems to think it isn't that much of a difference.

Again, the legislature doesn't even attempt to draw legal lines where objective scientific lines exist. The scientific realities are far too complex for the law to follow its lead. The law must and always does grossly oversimplify, drawing lines where no reliable difference exist (12 vs. 13; 17 vs. 18), and failing to make distinctions where they do reliably exist (13 vs. 17). Not only does valid psychological science not agree with the law, but 99% of people in modern western society side more with the science.
Tell someone that an 18 year old boy had sex with their 13 year old daughter. What % of people do you think would view that much more negatively than if he had sex with their 17 year old daughter?

And her being a minor leads to that data not being included.

And slavery used to be legal, and blacks had to sit in the back, and having sex with a 13 year old used to legal. So what? The fact that a dumb destructive regulation exists doesn't mean a thing in terms of what should be the case, which is what we are discussing.
Revealing the age of minor victim does nothing to harm them. It is not information that is at all personal to them in particular (unlike their name, address, or other info that can be used to determine who they are). For much the same reasons that they law ignores objective differences between 13 and 17 in the formal statutes, it also ignores the objective difference between revealing the age of a victim and their name. While the law will always oversimplify reality, it can and should be refined where plausible and pragmatic to be more in accord with reason.

 

[Bronzeage]

In most of the developed world, a 20 year old having sex with a 16 or 17 year old is completely lawful, and nobody would bat an eyelid at it.

In most US states that is true as well. I am not familiar with the specifics of the Louisiana law in question. But the laws do vary:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_States

Louisiana operates under Napoleonic Code. What this means in the real world is actually simple. Every crime has degrees of culpability, according to the circumstances, and this determines the sentence. If I remember correctly, "Carnal knowledge of a juvenile" means to have consensual sex with a person older than 14 but younger than 18, when the defendant is over 18, and there is a greater than 2 years difference in age.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I do think the age and something of the circumstances should be given.

20 with 12 is a very different thing than a Romeo & Juliet case but the way the laws are written they can end up with the same description.


Edit: Just had a thought here. How about a simple fix:

Let the person add 50 words to the listing which a judge must find to be true and not deceptive.

The minor is a minor!

She's in a bar with a false ID--but statutory rape is a statutory offense, that won't keep you from being convicted.

 

[Terrell]

The minor is a minor!

She's in a bar with a false ID--but statutory rape is a statutory offense, that won't keep you from being convicted.

Yeah I don't think people are allowed to bring reasonable belief as a defense depending on the jurisdiction involved.

 

[Bronzeage]

She's in a bar with a false ID--but statutory rape is a statutory offense, that won't keep you from being convicted.

Yeah I don't think people are allowed to bring reasonable belief as a defense depending on the jurisdiction involved.

Case law generally bends away from mitigating circumstances that are too easy to manufacture after the fact.

 

[Derec]

The minor is a minor!

She's in a bar with a false ID--but statutory rape is a statutory offense, that won't keep you from being convicted.

This is the aspect of these laws most in need of reform. The other would be to lower age of consent to 16 nationwide. Ironically it is often most "liberal" states like California and Massachusetts that insist on 18. California even lacks a real Romeo and Juliet provision, so if you are 18 and fuck a 17 year old you are a criminal in California.

- - - Updated - - -

Case law generally bends away from mitigating circumstances that are too easy to manufacture after the fact.

The law is an ass, especially when it doesn't allow for reasonable mitigating circumstances.

 

[Bronzeage]

She's in a bar with a false ID--but statutory rape is a statutory offense, that won't keep you from being convicted.

This is the aspect of these laws most in need of reform. The other would be to lower age of consent to 16 nationwide. Ironically it is often most "liberal" states like California and Massachusetts that insist on 18. California even lacks a real Romeo and Juliet provision, so if you are 18 and fuck a 17 year old you are a criminal in California.

- - - Updated - - -

Case law generally bends away from mitigating circumstances that are too easy to manufacture after the fact.

The law is an ass, especially when it doesn't allow for reasonable mitigating circumstances.

Claiming to be too drunk to know you were too drunk to drive is not allowed either.

Statutory rape laws are written to protect minors from being exploited by adults. Every once in a while, we may find ourselves in a situation where we have to exercise due caution. The opportunity to have sex with someone we don't know well enough to be certain she is 18 or older, would be one of those situations.

It's not much different than letting someone else drive, when you're not certain if you are drunk or sober.

 

[Terrell]

Yeah I don't think people are allowed to bring reasonable belief as a defense depending on the jurisdiction involved.

Case law generally bends away from mitigating circumstances that are too easy to manufacture after the fact.

What determines that an argument is too easy? Why shouldn't the state have to prove the accused knew that they were having sex with someone who is underage?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S4 using Tapatalk.

 

[ronburgundy]

This is the aspect of these laws most in need of reform. The other would be to lower age of consent to 16 nationwide. Ironically it is often most "liberal" states like California and Massachusetts that insist on 18. California even lacks a real Romeo and Juliet provision, so if you are 18 and fuck a 17 year old you are a criminal in California.

- - - Updated - - -

Case law generally bends away from mitigating circumstances that are too easy to manufacture after the fact.

The law is an ass, especially when it doesn't allow for reasonable mitigating circumstances.

Claiming to be too drunk to know you were too drunk to drive is not allowed either.

Statutory rape laws are written to protect minors from being exploited by adults. Every once in a while, we may find ourselves in a situation where we have to exercise due caution. The opportunity to have sex with someone we don't know well enough to be certain she is 18 or older, would be one of those situations.

It's not much different than letting someone else drive, when you're not certain if you are drunk or sober.

This is an derail. Whether there should be a restriction on having sex with a 17 year old (knowingly or not) is irrelevant to whether an adult who did so would and should be viewed differently than if they had sex with a 13 year old, and if the public whose welfare those laws are created to protect has a right to know that critical detail.

Let's not confuse that question with whether there should be any restriction or circumstantial exemptions to restrictions on an adult having sex with a 17 year old.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yeah I don't think people are allowed to bring reasonable belief as a defense depending on the jurisdiction involved.

Case law generally bends away from mitigating circumstances that are too easy to manufacture after the fact.

The point is it doesn't matter if you had no reasonable way of figuring out she was a minor.

(Except the porn producer in the Traci Lords case--her passport was genuine but with the wrong birthdate in it. They would have a very hard time in front of a jury expecting the porn producer to be more accurate than they were and so they didn't try.)

- - - Updated - - -

She's in a bar with a false ID--but statutory rape is a statutory offense, that won't keep you from being convicted.

This is the aspect of these laws most in need of reform. The other would be to lower age of consent to 16 nationwide. Ironically it is often most "liberal" states like California and Massachusetts that insist on 18. California even lacks a real Romeo and Juliet provision, so if you are 18 and fuck a 17 year old you are a criminal in California.

Yeah. I used the wrong term before, I should have called it a strict liability offense. There should be no strict liability offenses, period.

I'm not sure about an age 16 but 16 with a Romeo & Juliet law certainly should be legal.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

This is the aspect of these laws most in need of reform. The other would be to lower age of consent to 16 nationwide. Ironically it is often most "liberal" states like California and Massachusetts that insist on 18. California even lacks a real Romeo and Juliet provision, so if you are 18 and fuck a 17 year old you are a criminal in California.

- - - Updated - - -

Case law generally bends away from mitigating circumstances that are too easy to manufacture after the fact.

The law is an ass, especially when it doesn't allow for reasonable mitigating circumstances.

Claiming to be too drunk to know you were too drunk to drive is not allowed either.

Statutory rape laws are written to protect minors from being exploited by adults. Every once in a while, we may find ourselves in a situation where we have to exercise due caution. The opportunity to have sex with someone we don't know well enough to be certain she is 18 or older, would be one of those situations.

It's not much different than letting someone else drive, when you're not certain if you are drunk or sober.

No, it's more like doing a breathalyzer test in the bar and then finding out that the machine was rigged to read too low.

Otherwise you set up a situation in which young-looking people simply can't find sex partners, period.

 

[JonA]

Revealing the age of minor victim does nothing to harm them. It is not information that is at all personal to them in particular (unlike their name, address, or other info that can be used to determine who they are).

Depends on the size of the town.

 

[Bronzeage]

This is the aspect of these laws most in need of reform. The other would be to lower age of consent to 16 nationwide. Ironically it is often most "liberal" states like California and Massachusetts that insist on 18. California even lacks a real Romeo and Juliet provision, so if you are 18 and fuck a 17 year old you are a criminal in California.

- - - Updated - - -

Case law generally bends away from mitigating circumstances that are too easy to manufacture after the fact.

The law is an ass, especially when it doesn't allow for reasonable mitigating circumstances.

Claiming to be too drunk to know you were too drunk to drive is not allowed either.

Statutory rape laws are written to protect minors from being exploited by adults. Every once in a while, we may find ourselves in a situation where we have to exercise due caution. The opportunity to have sex with someone we don't know well enough to be certain she is 18 or older, would be one of those situations.

It's not much different than letting someone else drive, when you're not certain if you are drunk or sober.

No, it's more like doing a breathalyzer test in the bar and then finding out that the machine was rigged to read too low.

Otherwise you set up a situation in which young-looking people simply can't find sex partners, period.

I think the risk young looking people not finding sex partners will never warrant concern, but it shows the humanitarian in you.

The "I thought she was eighteen," defense is simply bullshit. The idea there is a cadre of under aged nymphets wandering the night, seeking older sex partners, is just not realistic.

In my neighborhood, an article appears in the local paper about once a week or so, announcing the arrest of a man, for some sort of sex offense involving a minor. It's never about a man who met a young woman in a bar.

 

[blastula]

So he probably was more than 4 years older than the "victim". As to her age, Heavy indicates that she was 14 years old at the time and that he impregnated her. Moral of the story: if you must fuck jailbait, at least wear a condom. Note that one of Alton's sons is 15, about the right age to be conceived in 2000. So is Quinyetta McMillon (the baby mama) the 14 year old in question? Is she 30 today?


Note: I think the section about "Lack of knowledge of the juvenile's age shall not be a defense" should be repealed from all such laws or declared unconstitutional. It is very easy for girls to lie about their age and many do. Many even have fake ids that identify them as older than they are. Thus girls lying about their age should definitely be a defense.

Being in favor of sex with minor females makes for strange bedfellows.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

but I just have to state that yes, it can make a huge difference to other people.

Yes, i just don't think it's information that 'should' be revealed. If it is, the guy is going to have his case tried over and over as these people judge the case again, even after the state has been satisified that he's paid his debt to society.

Shouldn't that sort of reasoning be applied equally to all though? Why even reveal he was involved in any crime even if he raped a 9 year old, if he has paid his debt to society as you say, and shouldn't have his case tried over and over?