Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Just A Thought On Levi
I haven't seen this anywhere else. But I was, in fact, wondering:0 comments
Why isn't anyone talking about statutory rape charges for young Mr. Levi Johnston?
With everything else Republican: It's the Hypocrisy, stupid.
It's so warming to see the Palin family hover over their darling one. Actually, as more accounts arise as people are digging into this American Stranger's life, it looks like this Family Values family is a mess.
But, let's look at Levi if he had not knocked up Someone Important's daughter, and had simply gotten another of the girls in school pregnant.
Or, God forbid, if Levi was black or non-Christian.The issue drew international attention when a Georgia teen was sentenced to 10 years in prison for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17.Especially with the Most Connected Girl In School.In 2005, Genarlow Wilson was tried for the rape of a 17-year-old girl at a hotel-room party. While he was found not guilty of that charge, he was convicted of aggravated child molestation for the act with the 15-year-old—even though he was less than two years older.
Georgia law, which has since been changed, required a mandatory 10-year sentence on the charge of aggravated child molestation and required Wilson to register as a sex offender when he was released. Under the revised Georgia law, the act now would be a misdemeanor.
Now 21, Wilson was released from prison in October—after serving more than two years—when the state Supreme Court ruled his sentence was "grossly disproportionate to his crime."
"The current laws leave too much to prosecutorial discretion," Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said. "We saw in the Wilson case how prosecutorial discretion can lead to grotesque results."
He said statutory rape prosecutions of teens are more common in Southern states and small towns than they are elsewhere in the country or in big cities.
B. J. Bernstein, Wilson's attorney, argued throughout his case that Wilson was imprisoned for an act that, while perhaps morally questionable, probably is going on among teens everywhere.
"If you prosecuted, even with misdemeanors, all those cases, you'd clog up the justice system with kids having sex," she said. "It's a social issue—and it may be something that parents don't want to happen or wish wouldn't happen at that age—but it shouldn't be a crime."
posted by Gotham 4:07 AM
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