Sex

Small Bit of Holiday Sanity in Georgia

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A Georgia judge has allowed Wendy Whitaker to remain in her home while she fights her continued presence on the state's sex offender list.

I blogged about Whitaker's case last week.

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Radley Balko is a journalist at The Washington Post.

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  1. anarch

    That’s white of him.

  2. the innominate one

    I was going to say how gracious of him, but anarch’s comment wins.

  3. Some Guy

    Georgia’s governor should be thrown out of office for not pardoning her and anyone else in a similar case.

    All the legislators who voted to keep her in jail should be hunted down and have their lives destroyed.

  4. andyinsdca

    The crazy part is that if she’d killed the kid as a juvie (instead of sucking his wang), it’s entirely likely that her record would have been sealed after a couple of years in detention and no one would even know who she is…

  5. anarch

    andy, that’s because murder is thought usually to be discretional and pederasty compulsive. Naturally, I’m not saying anything is right about this case, just that those are the categories that have brought about the different responses, as you probably know.

  6. Cracker Joe

    I don’t think Wendy Whitaker is the best person to lead the charge against insane sex laws. After all she did “suck his wang” in the back row of a classroom when the teacher turned down the lights to show a video. Currently, she is a former fast food worker on disability for being fat. Giving new mean to the phrase “dumb cock sucker.”

    http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/life_in_the_shadows/Content?oid=98753

    Now for something totally different. The New Orleans Times Picayune reports that Loyola economics chair Walter Block ignites furor for asserting that women, blacks less productive in workplace. The TP describes Block as “a Libertarian and one of the country’s leading exponents of the Austrian school of economics, which advocates laissez faire in spades. http://blog.nola.com/jamesgill/2008/11/a_tough_sell_in_the_marketplac.html

  7. anarch

    A case worth assessing on its merits.

  8. I don’t think Wendy Whitaker is the best person to lead the charge against insane sex laws. After all she did “suck his wang” in the back row of a classroom when the teacher turned down the lights to show a video.

    Anybody who winds up on one of these lists is going to have something in their past that makes certain people go “eeew.” What she did certainly warranted a suspension or even expulsion for the rest of that school year, but it’s insane that there should still be consequences from it all these years later.

  9. anarch

    What would depriving her of part of her education accomplish? Seems like she’s demonstrated the need for more rather than less schooling.

  10. SpongePaul

    a 16 yr old and a just turned 17 yr old is legal in most if not all states. Since this was a while ago, and since the chare was sodomoy there wasd probally the unconst acts against nature laws on the books. Do you know that until a few like 2-5 years ago in the state of LA my former state it was against the law (a felony 5-10 yrs) to perform oral sex or sodomny on anyone, even your spouse. it was never prosecuted, but sho9ws the irony of theese stupid laws. Should there be a sex offender list? YES! should it include acts like this? NO! should each case be revieewed by a judge and decide during sentencing if they have to register or not? YES! should it be mandatory for every offense? NO! should the mandatory listing be abolished as well as mandatory min sentencing that takes the descrestion out of the law? YES!

  11. J sub D

    I don’t think Wendy Whitaker is the best person to lead the charge against insane sex laws. After all she did “suck his wang” in the back row of a classroom when the teacher turned down the lights to show a video.

    Cracker Joe,
    Have you ever had sex in a public place?
    If yes, should you have been placed on a sex offender list had you been caught?
    If no, WTF is wrong with you?

  12. Cracker Joe-

    I agree that there’s clearly something messed up in Whitaker’s life, and she’s probably not the sort of poster child who will draw the greatest public support and sympathy. However, it’s probably also true that the most excessive punishments will (usually) be inflicted on unsympathetic and/or economically disadvantaged people. Somebody had to make the decision to pursue this as a criminal case and throw the book at her, rather than handling it quietly and sweeping it under the rug. That doesn’t (usually) happen to people of means, or people who garner respect. Sure, it can happen to anyone, but it’s more likely to happen to somebody that people look at and say “What a loser!”

    I’m willing to bet that Whitaker has always been something of a loser who makes bad decisions, and that probably factored into how the decisions were made in her case. If an attractive cheerleader with good grades and from an affluent family had been found giving a blowjob to a football player on school grounds, I somehow doubt that this would have made it into the criminal system as a sex offense. Yes, anything is possible, but authority figures are more likely to throw the book at losers (real or perceived) and more likely to go easy on people whom they see as having bright prospects.

    Finally, while it’s entirely possible that Whitaker would be a messed up person even without this case, having her education interrupted by a humiliating conviction and being pursued by the law throughout her adult life has surely not made it any easier for her to improve her circumstances.

  13. So, since these sorts of injustices are most likely to happen to the least sympathetic people, it seems that it’s inevitable that the test cases will involve unsympathetic people.

  14. FrBunny

    In case anyone is still checking this thread, I would like to boast that I have personally convinced two people in my office that sex offender lists are effectively horrible rather than wonderful internet fun. One of those two peed on a bush at a company function, so he was an easy sell after that.

    Does that count as “think global, act local”?

    [pats self on back]

  15. Francisco Torres

    The New Orleans Times Picayune reports that Loyola economics chair Walter Block ignites furor for asserting that women, blacks less productive in workplace.

    Just to see how the MSM puts a spin on everything: That’s NOT what Walter Block was asserting (as a matter of fact, he wasn’t asserting ANYTHING, he was just stating theories about certain economic phenomena)

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/block/block112.html

  16. Cracker Joe

    J sub D

    There is a great deal of difference between sex in a public place and sex in public.

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