Terry Mitchell

Statutory Rape Will Be Hard to Prove



Posted: Monday, April 12, 2010

by Terry Mitchell
http://commenterry.blogs.com

In addition to charges brought against some female students, two male classmates (one 18, and the other 17) of Phoebe Prince are being are charged with statutory rape, in response to revelations about her bullying death. But how, pray tell, are prosecutors going to prove such a thing in court, assuming those boys deny it?

Unless those acts were witnessed by a third party (or parties), or somehow recorded, the only person who could refute their denials is now dead. Sure, someone could claim she told them about having sex with these boys, but that would just be hearsay, something that is not admissible in a court of law.

Also, someone could claim that the boys bragged about it to them, but the boys could just as easily claim that no such bragging was done, or that their bragging was just a lie to impress their friends, something that is not uncommon for teenage boys. Then it would be just be their word against that of their accusers. I'm not a lawyer and I don't play one on TV, but I would love to take their case. It would be an easy win even for someone like me, who never spent a single day in law school.

And why are those prosecutors even bringing a jive turkey charge like statutory rape anyway? Is it just me, or does that charge seem completely inappropriate when dealing with sexual activity among high-school-age students? If they had proof that these boys were guilty of bullying, then why not charge them with something similar to what their female classmates are being charged with? Otherwise, they should be left alone.

Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, amateur political analyst, and blogger from Virginia, USA. He posts a least one article a day to his blog - http://commenterry.blogs.com - on subjects such as current events, politics, technology, society and culture, religion, health and well-being, self improvement, personal finance, trivia, and sports. He is also the owner of a new privacy-enhanced search engine - http://www.SearchMost.com.

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