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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| L.A. Unified says girl, 14, could consent to sex with teacher |
| 2014-11-15 |
| [LATIMES] L.A. Unified [school district] officials are coming under fire for allowing their attorneys to argue that a 14-year-old student was mature enough to consent to sex with her middle school math teacher. The age of consent in Caliphornia is 18. It's my understanding--and admittedly I'm getting old and my mind's going--that if you're under the age of consent you're considered not to have the capacity to understand the consequences of making whoopee without benefit of clergy. You also have to be 18 to marry in California, or else you need the consent of at least one parent, have counselling, and have the whole thing signed off on by a Superior Court judge. The arguments were made in a civil case that was filed last year by the student, who was seeking financial compensation from the district. She said she suffered emotional trauma from a five-month sexual relationship nearly four years ago with her teacher at Edison Middle School in Los Angeles. It's a civil case, for damages, not criminal, which should result in the adult involved getting tossed in the jug. District officials, defending their legal strategy Thursday, said they needed to rebut the student's claim with evidence that she was a willing participant who had a prior history of sexual activity. The "she's a slut" defense, the idea being that if everybody's had her then one more won't matter. "While we are sympathetic of the pain that this type of inappropriate relationship could cause this young woman and her family, the case focused on whether the school district could have done anything to prevent it," L.A. Unified's attorney, W. Keith Wyatt, said in a statement. "Trying this case in a respectful manner, but one that allowed the jury to consider the full weight of the facts and evidence, was critical." If you rape a whore it's still rape. I guess if you statutorily rape a slut it's still rape. The question isn't whether it was rape but whether the school district is responsible for it. It's my uninformed opinion that she should be suing the teacher, unless he had a history of getting after the young stuff and they kept him on. But the actions in the case, first reported by KPCC, were blasted by legal experts. "I'm a legal expert! Take that!" "The belief that middle school children can consent to sexual activity is something one would expect to hear from pedophile advocates, not the second-largest school district in the U.S.," said John Manly, one of the attorneys representing plaintiffs in the Miramonte Elementary child abuse case. I believe that's been the common law since the age of consent was first established. That case, involving allegations that the district failed to supervise a teacher who allegedly fed semen-laced cookies to children, is set for trial this month. Whoa! Major perv here. I can understand why the girl's torn up about it, even if she is a roundheels. David M. Ring, an attorney who has specialized in sex abuse cases for 25 years, said he had never heard of anyone presenting the sexual history of a minor in court and called the action despicable. It doesn't matter if it's not the first horse she rode; what matters is whether it threw her. He also said that middle school students are incapable of consenting to sex with adults, Bingo. especially with teachers and others who can exploit their positions of authority to manipulate them into such acts. No "especially" about it. Her favorite teacher's no different from the guy back in the bushes offering her candy. A jury last fall found L.A. Unified was not liable for damages in the case. District officials argued that school staff did not know of the abuse and that the eighth-grade teacher and student took pains to conceal their relationship until it was reported to a science teacher by the victim's friend. When notified, officials said, the district immediately removed the teacher, Elkis Hermida, from the classroom; he was subsequently convicted on criminal charges of lewd acts against a child and sentenced to three years in prison in 2011. That sounds like a reasonable reaction from the school district. If you hide the crime you can't bitch when it takes a while to uncover it. Holly Boyer, a Pasadena attorney who is appealing the case on behalf of the student, said witnesses testified that Hermida hugged students and that one teacher saw him lying on classroom desks texting with pupils present but acknowledged that she did not report any inappropriate sexual activity. The fact that his behavior was inappropriate doesn't mean it was sexual. It sounds like nobody alerted the administrators to the guy until they got the funny-tasting cookies. Boyer said the appeal will challenge the decision by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lawrence Cho to allow the district to present evidence of the girl's prior sexual history, among other grounds. She's under the age of consent, therefore chaste by definition. Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor, said that it was a risky tactic to present evidence of a minor's sexual history and that many judges would have limited its use or barred it. I think most people who've ever opened a law book would have barred it, but of course precedent doesn't mean much these days. She also said that only a few California cases have indicated that minors might possibly be able to consent to sex with an adult and that the issue needed to be more clearly litigated. California law is based on Common Law, but of course it's "evolved" a lot. It'll be another bit of evolution if the Learned Judges come to the conclusion it's okay to hump a 14-year-old. She added, however, that the student in this case appeared to have "opened the door" to such evidence by seeking damages against the district for the teacher's actions. It doesn't sound like she had much of a case to start with. The issue isn't whether Mr. Hermida was first in line, but whether the school district knew he got on board. Manly called on the district to fire Wyatt and others responsible for the handling of the case. Wyatt, in remarks to KPCC that further stoked the outcry, said it was a more dangerous decision to cross a street with oncoming traffic than to have sex with a teacher. Crossing the street with oncoming traffic won't give you herpes. He issued an apology to the student and her family Thursday, saying that his remarks were "ill thought out and poorly articulated" and did not represent the district. Dumbass. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #5 In that part of the world it's practically normal behaviour. From Drudge Report just now: Shock Doc About Sexual Molestation in Hollywood Tries the Bryan Singer Case, Implicates Others– Much Worse Than Previously Described |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2014-11-15 11:18 |
| #4 The district won. The teacher, however, got 3 yrs in PMITA prison. And teh district, so embarrassed by their lawyer's tactic, is not using him any more http://www.newser.com/story/198683/la-schools-blame-girl-for-sex-with-teacher.html |
| Posted by: Frank G 2014-11-15 09:49 |
| #3 Even if she was 18, a person in a position of authority like that should not be having sex with their students. Period. In collages this can get professors in major trouble and it should not be any different in high school. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2014-11-15 09:27 |
| #2 whos carrying the insurance, the district or the union? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2014-11-15 08:10 |
| #1 Pedophilia. Remember when the Left poo-poo'd the slippery slope argument about social norms. Wonder why the Social Justice |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2014-11-15 07:54 |