DenverPost.com - Girl, 13, charged as sex offender and victim

Alright, how hasn't this been struck down yet? How can you actually do this? The law was designed to protect minors, yet is being used now to attack those same minors. What an incredibly perverse interpretation of the law.

What is the legal reasoning that someone cannot consent to an action yet still be held criminally liable for it? If they were mentally incapable to consent to the act, it seems that they are mentally incapable to be held responsible for the act.

This is just nuts.....Teens have sex, period......Educate them, Caution them, Have open comunications with them and if all else fails, give them protection and birth control.

Apparently, people that make some of the laws forget what it's like to be a teen.

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but but but, if we make it illegal then everyone will stop doing it, right? Just like no one smokes pot, drinks underage, or jaywalks.


I so want to slap the DA upside the head for this brilliant move.

this sounds like something out of a b side episode of "law and order"

Wow fuckin ridiculous!

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Following the Path of the Beam

I'm struggling to understand how this made it to court. Two youngsters had sex. I'm not really seeing an issue here. That's a bit young, but it's not like one of them was an adult. This case could be better handled on The Jerry Springer Show. The title could be "I Was the Victim of My Own Sexual Offense".

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I brought this up on another thread, and I think it is idiotic. but it brings the question of age of consent. I recall happening upon two six or seven year olds going at it, some years ago. in a phone booth.

Well said.

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"Bring the boys back home!"--Pink Floyd

NFA JJG 42-95

Free People/Free Markets

Following the Path of the Beam

Ditto what he said.

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"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither breaks my leg, nor picks my pocket."

Thomas Jefferson

I haven't seen the actual statute, but the scheme behind the law is constitutional IMHO.

For these kinds of disputes, the courts only apply the 'rational basis test' for constitutional review. There is no fundamental right for juveniles to engage in sex, and I identify no 'suspect or quasi-suspect classes' in this legislative scheme to warrant heightened court scrutiny. This is an extremely easy test for a government to pass--the government need only explain that the law is rationally related to serving a legitimate state interest. Whether one questions the overall legislative wisdom of it (people disagree all the time on such things) is irrelevant so long as the action taken is, objectively speaking, rationally aimed towards the legitimate end.

It is rational to assume that juveniles engaging in sex will lead to greater social harms than with adults having sex, and certainly it is obvious there is a harm with adults having sex with minors and that needs no explanation on that aspect. Juveniles do not have adult maturity levels and this adversely affects their entire decision making process on this subject. These poor decisions can lead to other poor decisions (example, slacking in school and sports to go have sex and maybe other steps further into 'the wild side'). They also have poor ability to afford consequences of their decisions. For example, they are usually extremely handicapped when it comes to handling unwanted and immaturely desired pregnancies. Juveniles obviously have extreme difficulty handling child support and child care obligations and expenses, and such things hamper their adult futures and those of their offspring. The costs of these things often wind up spread to the juveniles' parents and taxpayers. They also have a much greater chance of lacking the maturity to handle children of their own.

The younger a juvenile is, the more hazards are posed on the above kinds of issues. Moreover, female minors who are under 14 years of age are exposed to physical hazards associated with pregnancy.

This legislative scheme addresses these kinds of concerns.

Adults who have sex with minors who are under 14 years of age are not treated the same as minors under 14 years old doing it to each other in this scheme.

Minors under 14 years of age who do it to each other are treated as juveniles in the juvenile system (which avoids convictions and focuses on monitoring and corrective action). Adults, on the other hand, would get charged in adult court with a serious second degree felony.

But, the statute chooses to treat minors under age 14 who engage in sex with other minors under age 14 as delinquent for the purposes of supervision. That is at least a rational legislative conclusion for the aforesaid reasons, and quite frankly I personally can understand that given the same concerns about minors having sex that young.

I disagree O'sullivan. It is a gross perversion of justice to write a law to protect a group of people, and then proceed to use it to punish them more harshly for the act. It is a violation of equal protection clause.

That does not in itself justify this, if they cannot handle the child then it should be taken away from them. If a person is mentally incompetent to engage in an action, which is the legal justification for the law in the first place, then they cannot be considered legally competent to stand trial. Mentioning all these costs to society cannot be considered to disprove this basic tenent. Just as a five year old can't stand trial for murder if he doesn't understand the consequences of his actions you cannot simultaneously argue that the two do not, and that the two do at the same time.

That doesn't justify further punishment.

Arguably there is a fundamental right to engage in sex with consensual partners, juveniles are denied that because they are not mentally competent, but if they are not mentally competent then they can't stand trial.

It is applied more leniently in the case of minors that young engaging in unlawful sex with someone that young, as minors of this age are handled through the juvenile system rather than the adult system. If an adult had sex with someone that young, they would be in huge trouble facing a second degree felony in adult court.

Moreover, laws being made to protect minors by prohibiting these kinds of acts do not excuse minors perpetrating the prohibited act. The law is designed to prevent anyone from having sex with minors that young. A minor can violate that law just as an adult can; they just face different handling (juvenile court versus adult court).

To allow minors to perpetrate the act undermines the same objectives of the law--preventing such sexual acts with minors that young in all circumstances.

Legal competency expands with growing age. Generally speaking (there will be some variances), infancy is a complete defence to a crime if the minor is around 7 years old or younger. Above that age but before 18, juveniles are deemed to have awareness of right and wrong and concepts of accountability, although also still deemed immature. These juveniles are subject to juvenile proceedings. Upon attaining age 18, adult status is achieved and proceedings are handled in adult court. Adult court focuses on punishment. Juvenile proceedings focus on corrective measures and remedial treatment.

Juvenile proceedings do not constitute punishment, but remedial proceedings intended to correct the delinquency at issue.

See above. The minors in this case are deemed mentally competent to some degree given their age. If two 15 year old minors vandalised cars or snorted a few lines of cocaine, do they know it is a criminal act and bad thing to do? You can bet they do. Minors the age of these individuals would know such acts are wrong too. But, minors are still immature to some extent given the age.

Doubtlessly these minors knew what they were doing insofar as what they set out to do. 4 year olds would not understand what they did, but these older ones did. But, they are still deemed immature by their minor status, and thus are placed in juvenile proceedings for remedial measures about what they did followed by a permanently sealed or expunged record of the event. An adult who did that to one their age would be deemed fully competent and culpable and would be heading off for a very long prison sentence with sex offender registration.

I'm fully with you here. A thirteen year old and twelve year old manage to have sex, well - that's hardly an excuse for a court case (not unless one of them forced the other into having sex which would complicate things further).

Provided it was mutually agreed upon, well, send 'em to counselling or Oprah, but not the court. Waste of time.

Juvenile proceedings focus on such things, not punishment. It has the power of compulsion behind it that incapable and/or irresponsible parents would not accomplish and has the same powers to compel such things if the minor is incorrigible when it comes to parental actions. They also have resources for these things that poor parents may not be able to provide even if they wanted it.

To take the 'let 'em at it' approach, IMHO, undermines the point of the law. If we take it that such minors are competent enough to have sex because they have chosen to engage in it, then there is really nothing to 'save from them' insofar as allowing adults to have sex with them too because the assumption is already being made that the minor already knows what they are doing when they choose to do so. This also sends the message to those seeking to have sex at that age to keep getting others into it. Moreover, allowing them to have sex will foster other types of harms these laws seek to prevent (examples: immaturely decided sex decisions and behaviours, unwanted and immaturely decided pregnancies and resulting offsprings they cannot afford to provide care financially and lack the maturity to raise, preventing dangerous pregnancies in very youthful women, etc).

No the legal reasoning behind the law is that a minor is incapable of consenting to the act (Hence why they can both be tried) but the goal is to keep them safe. To turn around a law to keep minors safe in order to prosecute those same minors is a perversion of justice.

No the intent of the law is to protect the minors, simply preventing sex is not the intent of the law. What undermines that intent is DAs attacking the very people who the law was intending to protect.

Further the DAs claimed objective, making an 'example' of a twelve and thirteen year old most certainly is repugnant to societies view of justice, and wholly violates the constitution protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

If they have sufficient awareness to stand trial then they must have sufficient competency to engage in the act. If these two were in fact rational actors then they must be considered competent to make this choice.

Bullshit, listen to the ADA's arguement he wants to make an example of them. Deterrence means punishment, it means that they want to make other children afraid of engaging in the same act through punishing the children at hand. Since punishment is the case here, then there is no distinction.

So sex is like vandalizing cars and doing cocaine? Interesting interpretation you have of the human condition.

Yet are too irresponsible to understand the consequences yet are responsible enough to withstand the punishment for a felony so the mentally incompetent DA can set an example to all the kids in junior high.

I'd prefer if there was a way to set a example of the DA to warn against gross and criminal incompetence. Perhaps, say if he were stuck in the pillary every time he decides to prove himself an ass.

Apparently not, since they have to be taught what they did through punishment.

Look you should probably give up trying to defend Utah, the entire legislature is clearly stuck in the 17th century as is evidenced by their legal system (one which outlaws among other things, fornication, imputing the unchastity of a woman, porn in various varieties)

The fact is, Utah is a cesspool of human intelligence as evidenced by the absolute idiots they have elected. They may as well just naturally select themselves out of the gene pool so we don't have to put up with this anymore.