What the fuck is wrong with this country, part 67.

[elfs]

Ten years in jail and a lifetime on the sex offender's list because one kid butt-slapped another in seventh grade. Look, why don't we just admit that we want our kids to stay in heremetically sealed boxes until they're eighteen, at which point we decant them into the system and expect them to figure out all the rules on their own?

Comments

[lionman.livejournal.com]

I would so like to be judge in that case.

Or perhaps on the jury, though it shouldn't be a jury-trial, since they're under aged, and not remotely close enough to be tried as adults, and thus get the 10-year sentance and be placed on the sex-offender list.

I'm curious to know if the parents were present while being questioned, since that's typically how statues work in most places. Of course the DARE officer could say he was just present while the Vice Principal questioned the boys.

Either way, if I were the judge who had this case brought before me, I'd likely dismiss it without prejudice and fine both the officer and Vice Principal for wasting the court's time. (This presumes the boys don't have a long-standing record of being troublemakers, and that this wasn't a repeat offense.)

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

This also highlights why we should oppose social disabilities for "sex offenders" such as McCain is proposing. When we hear "sex offender" we are likely to think of someone who rapes and murders little girls, but of course someone like that is more likely to be spending the rest of his life in Federal Prison or in an insane asylum than to be moving into your neighborhood. The people who would be denied any ability to participate in the modern world under such laws might just be butt-slappers unlucky enough to get a psycho for a prosecutor and morons on the jury.

[yarnaddict.livejournal.com]

Uhm... buh?

Reposted in my LJ.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[kengr]

This was all over the local news when it happened ( a couple of months back). But apparently there was more going on than just the butt slaps. Since it was a while back I don't recall the details.

It was still iffy, but as I recall it wasn't as totally out of line as the first reports made it seem.