Tag Archive for: Other Sex Crimes
Oklahoma teacher faces charges of second degree rape
/in Other Sex Crimes, UncategorizedOn behalf of Jacquelyn Ford Law, P.C. posted in Other Sex Crimes on Thursday, June 11, 2015.
The legal age of consent in the state of Oklahoma is 16 years of age. However, there is one notable exception — the age of consent for students is 18 in order to protect them from being taken advantage of by a person in a position of power, such as a teacher or school administrator. It is under this exception that a teacher in the Oklahoma City Metro is facing charges for rape in the second-degree.
Reports indicate that the 43-year-old teacher entered into a relationship with one of her 17-year-old students. The student told police that the two had at least 11 sexual encounters. He went on to say that those encounters took place in some unusual locations. The two began seeing each other on Valentine’s Day.
Another teacher at Choctaw High School discovered the relationship sometime in April. The woman was suspended from her job and placed under arrest. The investigation continued after that, and she was recently charged with seven counts of second-degree rape. She cooperated with police and turned herself in before posting a bond of $175,000. Her employment with the school district was also terminated.
No further information is available regarding whether she intends to go to trial or is in negotiations with Oklahoma prosecutors to come to an agreement. The woman is entitled to be presumed innocent until and unless prosecutors provide evidence of her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. She and her legal team will review the evidence — including the statements of the young man involved — and determine the course of action that will provide her with a satisfactory resolution to the charges.
Source: kfor.com, “Choctaw teacher charged with sex crimes free on bail“, Abby Broyles, June 5, 2015
Related Posts: False rape allegations ruin lives and complicate a sensitive topic, The 1989 case that gave rise to strong sex offender laws
Where Do Sex Offender Laws Come From?
/in Other Sex Crimes, UncategorizedWhile the following source article is a little old, the issues it tackles are important regardless of the time frame since it was written. The story dives into the origin, so to speak, of the sex offender registry laws we have in the United States. All 50 states and the District of Columbia all have variations of a sex offender registry, and most, if not all, can be traced back to an unfortunate day in 1989 when an 11-year-old was kidnapped and never seen again.
The boy was riding his bike with his brother and friend when a masked gunman stopped them. He asked them their ages. Once he had the information he wanted, the gunmen told the 11-year-old’s brother and friend to flee and not turn around, otherwise he would shoot. They fled, and by the time they looked back, the masked man and the 11-year-old were gone. The masked man was never found, nor was the 11-year-old.
It’s a tragic and sad story, but it gave rise to a massive movement — led by the 11-year-old’s mother — to bolster sex offender laws. And it worked.
There’s some good and some bad to this. On the one hand, having laws that deter terrible sex crimes are, obviously, a good thing. But on the other, these laws were drawn up in reaction to a horrific and truly exceptional crime. The crime that started it all is not the norm when it comes to sex crimes. And yet all people who are convicted of sex crimes feel the punishment as if they were the person who committed the terrible crime from 1989.
One of the hallmarks of these laws is how notoriously difficult it is to be taken off of a sex offender registry. The argument, so it goes, is that sex offenders are high recidivism candidates. And yet there is much research that indicates this is a total myth — that, in fact, sex offenders are not likely to commit a sex crime again.
This is the problem with draconian laws, or laws that have a good intention but go way, way too far in exacting punishment.
Source: Slate, “Sex Offender Laws Have Gone Too Far,” Matt Mellema, Chanakya Sethi, and Jane Shim, Aug. 11, 2014