Is this REALLY Rape?

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There WILL be civil suits involved in this one, regardless if the guys go to jail or not. Their names will be dragged through the mud, the arrest and charges will stain their record, they will have to go to court and have lost wages and lawyer bills. The Girls should be charged with Forgery, but the guys let off with a warning.

If they were trying to get into a bar, then it's a reasonable assumption to the guys that they were 18...

 

According to the law it was statutory rape. And you have to abide the law, right? To put it bluntly: When in Maryland, don´t have sex with 15 year old girls, if you are more than 3 years older than them. It´s the law......

 

Sheesh! It really is a sticky situation but that's up to the courts to decide. What I want to know is what the hell the parents of the girls were thinking, letting 15 year olds go out by themselves. Is it really that way in the U.S.? I know there are cultural differences but I would think 15 is far too young for a girl to be out on her own. Granted the girls could have lied and all but it seems the parents should take some heat for it as well. It may not be in a legal sense but if I were the judge I would castigate them. They need to be aware of what their kids are doing. Don't tell me they're too busy to watch over them because of work and all. Nobody said that parenting would be easy. They wanted kids, they should be ready to face the challenges. I would like to believe that the parents are responsible and just misled but I find it difficult to sympathize. There must be something amiss in your parenting if your 15 year old kid would have sex with two men on the same night twice. She probably did look 18 and she proceeded to prove it in bed.

[ April 23, 2005, 09:09: Message edited by: Charlie ]

 

With all the consenting going on, I'm surprised that this even made it to the courts. I just can't see either side reporting the incident as rape. I'm guessing it was her parents...

 

@Yulaw:

How about going to jail for life for shooting a guy threatening you with a plastic gun that looks real? Sometimes people make mistakes and they aren't always at fault for being wrong on things. Especially if they are being willingly deceived, like the girls deceived the guys.

 

How close the girls are to the age of concent and how obvious it is that both parties freely concented, coupled with the lack of persuasion directed at the girl who refused. Should imo, save them from any sort of jail sentance.

I appreciate several of your social and religious views on sex, most notably those of DW and Chevalier. However, telling two concenting adults who use protection not to have sex is surely against the constitution that citizens of DW's country hold so dear, and, although Chevalier hasn't pushed his views onto anyone, would, provided they were not practising catholics, break the churches views on tolerance.

To most rational people sex is just another form of pleasure. You wouldn't tell people not to hunt for sport or play RPG's I fail to see why sex is so diffrent.

No, it isn't vital, but it is a human urge. Provided you don't break any laws I fail to see why going out and "getting a shag" is so wrong?

What happened to the lads in question is just a extreame case of bad luck. Whether the lads knew the girls age, or were mislead as to the girls age is pretty much unproveable short of a confession from either side. Given the circumstance and girls obvious concentuality (word?) and willingness to decieve it must be assumed that, provided there is no other relevant evidence, that the lads are not guilty of any statutory rape charges. One cannot assume guilt of such a serious crime in such erronous circumstances.

In such emotionally charged cases such as this one must remember that you live in a society that follows the rule of law. Despite the charges and whatever the evidence someone is innocent and it is up to the prosecution to prove their guilt. Not the otherway around.

 

The guys handled it badly, but so did the girls. The friend of that girl should had (...should and should...) helped her buddy, but she turned her back to it. This, in some countries, is also punishable. From another point of view: the guys had sex with an underage girl, but she was willing; isn't she guilty to having sex like it is illegal to her to drink alcohol?

All in all it is probably one of those teenage mistakes and shouldn't be taken to court at all. The guys should had known better, but so should had the girls and the parents, who should had done their own job and watched after her. Should they be sued too? Hey, let's sue them ALL just to be safe!

Let them go. The letter of the law might say one thing, but the spirit should be remembered first and foremost. This is also mentioned in the beginning of finnish law book.

 

Wirhe makes an interesting point. If it's illegal for a person three years older than the girl to have sex with her, then shouldn't the Girl be able to be charged with voluntarily having sex with a guy more than three years older than her? Further, isn't it illegal to gain sexual favours by misrepresentation or fraud? If that's the case, the consent the guys gave to have sex was not properly informed, then the girl should be charged instead of the guy!

 

Gnarff, The point of the statutory rape laws is that, in theory, younger folks don't know wtf they're doing, ergo if they have sex with an older person, they must have been manipulated/used/abused.

You can't be guilty of being abused.

 

The girl can't be charged because she is a minor and therefore can not be charged as an adult.

However if the men did not know how old the girl was and believed that she was 18 and it seems reasonable that they would since she wanted to get into an R18 club and she had an ID (they're normal people, they can't tell if something is a forgery or not). Proving that would be the bunny because in most cases if the perpertrator doesn't know they're breaking the law then they aren't breaking the law even though they are breaking the law (the mind boggles) unless the act states otherwise. The prosecution will have to prove that the men KNEW the girl was under 16 when they were having sex with her. If not I hope they go scott free.

 

Agreed with AMaster's logic: the statutory rape construct relies on the presumption that minors who have sex with adults are manipulated, used and abused. And for that the adults are punished.

Of course, it may well be true that the adults in question were manipulated by the minors. Lying to someone about your age in order to get the person to have sex with you may well be rape in the literal sense of the law - after all, it is fraud. One thing in this case, however, is that the guys still showed the initiative and the other that we can't really be sure, with the amount of information we have, if they really had been deceived or if they at all care or would care. If they would care is quite a schizophrenic consideration in a legal process. I am categorically against any sort of "just in case" punishment.

 

Who is actually pressing charges here? State or the Parents? Because if somehow the defence can delay the trial for 5 months until the girl is 16, then she could drop the charges, or does it not work that way?

 

I believe it is the parents, mentioned in the end of Aldeth's post. And no; it does not turn "old" since the act was performed before she was in legal age. In the case of rape, I believe it needs to be something like 5 years before the officials can ignore all claims. In Finland, that is.

[ April 24, 2005, 16:44: Message edited by: Wirhe ]

 

She was still 15 when they had sex.

However, I disagree with the idea of statutory rape when there is no question of consent. I know in the UK the police and CPS are very reluctant to prosecute in those circumstances even though the law is similar. (Actually stricter since there is no 3 year limit thing. It's either over or under 16).

 

It would be utterly stupid to prosecute people aged 16 years +1 day for not carding people aged 16 years -1 day.

It sounds as "clever" as punishing people for incest if they didn't know about the blood relation until DNA was tested.

On the other hand, the clear moral in this case is:

First marry, then have sex.

With the spouse, of course. Your spouse.

 

Chev, I agree with you on that one, but the problem is that most people don't bother with that. These guys found a woman who looked old enough, and was trying to pass herself off as being old enough to consent, and one of them was willing (and a little too eager) to have sex, so they took the opportunity. Now the deception is biting them on the ass. That's why I say that the girl should be charged.

In Canada, there was a guy charged with rape because he had unprotected sex with a woman and didn't disclose that he was HIV positive. The logic is that had she known that, she wouldn't have consented to have sex under those circumstances (if at all). The same principle applies here. Would the guys have had sex with the girl if they knew she was 15? Had they known the truth, it could be argued that they wouldn't have had sex with her, therefore their consent is invalid. Thus they were raped...

 

Well, I recently turned 16. You know what changed between April 6 and 7? Nothing, that's what.

 

As someone has written, the guys must have been aware of the risk, of the possible consequences. But it is not a case that can easily be judged, I admit.

Edit: correction, here where I live, the age limit is 14, i.e. under that age the law doesn't allow having sex.

[ April 28, 2005, 16:03: Message edited by: Baronius ]

 

@Gnarfflinger: Condom failure ratio is at least 15% for contraception alone and HIV cells are much much smaller than the sperm. Even protected sex without disclosing the truth about HIV is potential homicide.

As for the girl getting charged, it's unlikely for axiological reasons. The purpose of the statutory rape laws is to protect her, so if she transgresses against laws set for her own protection, she isn't going to be charged. Like if you provoke someone to attempt to kill you, you won't be tried for instigating homicide.

But in my country, for example, the definition of rape in the criminal code is "by force, threat or fraud". So minors who deceive adults into believing that they are older technically commit rape in so far as the information about age is relevant for the other person.

As a side topic, I had a dispute with my Canon Law professor last semester. I told him that a man who willingly entered into invalid marriage (knowing the marriage was invalid and going to be declared null by the competent court) and consummated that marriage committed plain rape.

 

Yirimyah

Actually, your status under the law may have changed. As was discussed in the juvenile executions thread, in the eyes of the law one day makes all the difference.

Unfortunately society has become so fragmented in its beliefs as to what is fair and just we can no longer trust courts to make their judgment based upon such things as the "reasonable man test". This leaves us in a position where we have to create artificial benchmarks, and accept the injustices that come with it.

I am not an attorney, or a legal expert by any means, but I know enough to realize that every legal decision has an effect greater than simply the judgment at hand, some much greater, some less so, and once in a while we see a judgment that has broad implications and significant unforeseen consequences. This is why I am so against the changing of laws to attempt to correct a single injustice. We all want fairness, but the world isn't fair, and sometimes the harder we try to force it to be so, the more unfair we make it.