Seems to me that it should have been disclosed, period. If they choose to make it a crime, it makes no sense to have no punishment for it, right? But if they don't have it there, it would suck to punish someone with a punishment they made up on the spot. Think of going to a different state, speeding, and then finding out the punishment was $200,000. That needs to be disclosed when it is made illegal, not when they finally catch someone for that crime. Also, if I understand it correctly, the US Constitution prohibits the passing of ex post facto laws.

I disagree with the concept that someone should be made aware of what they could be penalized for commission of a crime, simply because knowledge makes it no less of a crime.

I'm not saying we should have a law on the books and, once someone breaks that law, determine what the maximum punishment is for that crime. In fact, I believe that maximum penalties for various crimes are already determined. All someone has to do is a little digging to determine what those penalties are.

If someone is ignorant of those penalties when he commits a crime, that's just too fuckin' bad for him...

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For those who have fought to defend it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know...



If it wasn't for double standards, liberals would have no standards at all...

I voted yes! The teacher would be considered as an accessory after the fact which is also against the law! I'm a "by the numbers" kind of guy with exception to any laws deemed unconstitutional or excessive so in this case, I'm obliged to vote yes!

There is a difference between not knowing what a disclosed penalty is because of ignorance and not knowing what a penalty is because they didn't disclose it. When you said "disclosed," I thought you were talking about a law that didn't have an entry for "maximum penalty" or any penalty at all.

Some people are really stretching to avoid the issue. Whether you consider someone an adult or a child is not really the issue. If the boy described the other person as an older man you can assume it's an adult. Obviously some people simply don't want to take a position.

The law is the law.

However, I think it would be more prudent and make much more common sense if the law did not penalize a teacher this way because cases ought to be seen individually. In this case, I don't think the teacher ought to be charged because maybe it's important that there are some teachers out there that kids actually trust with difficult shit like this. Maybe a teacher can help this kid out in a way his folks can't. Just a hunch, but it seems like that's what the student was doing: getting advice and guidance from a non-parent that can deliver some good wisdom on the matter.

Maybe it's that I give teens more credit for what they are doing, since in many couplings involving teens and older adults, it's the teen whose exploiting the adult.

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“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."-Sarah Palin, not having a clue once again about what she is talking about.

So, if you found yourself in the teacher's position, you would do nothing to keep an adult from having sex with a 15 year old boy?

Nice...

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For those who have fought to defend it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know...



If it wasn't for double standards, liberals would have no standards at all...

I don't think the teacher should be held as a responsible party. The boy, obviously goes to to the teacher in confidence and trust. The boy shows no signs of abuse . . . So I think that the teacher is doing his/her job as a trusted adult, as long as things remain safe for the boy.

Of course the prejudice of responsibility, legally, depends a lot upon the state that this is ocurring in.

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. . . Everything from toy guns that spark, to flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark, it's easy to see without looking too far, that not much is really sacred.

And do you believe that a 15 year old boy having sex with an adult male is a "safe" environment for the boy?

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For those who have fought to defend it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know...



If it wasn't for double standards, liberals would have no standards at all...

Oh, absolutely not! however, your scenario didn't include anything other than should the teacher have been held responsible. As I said, as long as the boy appeared okay, then it seems a confession to help him deal with it. Now, what if the boy had been having sex with his 40 year old next door neighbor, who happended to be his best friend's mom? Again, I say no, for the same reasons. But it sounds like the boy in your scenario must be gay: then in my view, it's still the same thing, same answer. It's not necessarily safe for him to messing around with a 40 year old woman either.

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. . . Everything from toy guns that spark, to flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark, it's easy to see without looking too far, that not much is really sacred.

It's really hard to know what the discussion was with the student. If the teacher had a reasonable belief that the student (assuming that the teacher knew that the student was under the age of consent) was having sex with an adult, then yes, the teacher should have reported it, regardless of the student's gender or the adult's.

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What is the point of this poll? It reminds me of the written section of my driver's test all these years ago "Should you throw broken glass in the road?" a. yes b. no c. maybe I mean WTF, It's like "Should you break the law?"

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Alizee Jacotay, the reason god invented hips

I believe the main purpose was to:

A) Reach a consensus that the teacher was obliged by law to report the situation.

and

B) To show what type of lowlife gutter dwellers Uh-bama has dredged up for positions in his admin-uh-stration.

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Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law" because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac H Tiffany (1819)

I think the age of the man does matter, for example an 18-19 year old is 'legally' a man but very much a teenager as well and not a sexual predator by a long shot if the two are in a consenting relationship.

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Judge is always right