Sex Offender Law Nabs Man Shooting Hoops in His Driveway

According to the news site AnnArbor.com, 23-year-old Matthew Freeman is facing a year in jail for violating Michigan's laws for convicted sex offenders. He was caught by a police officer playing basketball within 400 feet of a school. He also happened to be in front of his own home. Michigan law requires him to remain more than 1,000 feet away from places where children congregate. Freeman's mother says she checked with Pittsfield Township police before moving to the home to be sure it complied with Freeman's status. She says they told her it did. They now say it's Freeman's responsibility to make sure he doesn't violate the sex offender law.

Freeman was convicted of fourth-degree sexual assault in 2003 for having sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend. He was 17 at the time. The conviction required him to spend 10 years on the state's sex offender list. After seeing the girl again and later getting caught stealing a video game, he was sentenced to 90 days in jail, and ordered to remain on the list until 2028. At that point he dropped out of high school, and hasn't gone back.

But let's not be too harsh on Michigan's law. I'm sure that because of the continuing harassment of people like Freeman, 17-year-boys and 15-year-old girls are no longer having sex in Michigan.

Comments

[Benjamin]

Well, he was fondling his ball in public. Badda-bing!

Oh, bad joke. I feel a bit sorry for the sticky-fingered schlep.

[jesse]

That is about the most retarded shit i have ever heard. Well, ok so it isn't but its up there. Here is another example of someones life being completely ruined before they become an adult because of our fucked up laws.

[SugarFree]

Freeman's mother says she checked with Pittsfield Township police before moving to the home to be sure it complied with Freeman's status. She says they told her it did.

Too bad she couldn't hear the other officers snickering in the background.

[Slut Bunwalla]

+1

[Brad]

ALWAYS GET IT IN WRITING.

[Hazel Meade]

It's amazing to me that idiots can go around blah-blahing about "social justice" and the horrors of not getting free mammograms, when shit like this is going on.

[Enough About Palin]

The point about "the horrors of not getting free mammograms" isn't that some folks want free shit, it's that invariably, the government is going to be making healthcare decisions, not doctors and patients. That's actually a major deal.

[d]

No. It's about not getting free mammograms (which are currently handed out like candy).

Incidentally, I don't see any free prostate or testicular cancer screenings. And if the gov't said that men don't need one until they are at least 45, then, well, I don't think we'd hear a peep out of more than a handful of men -- who generally aren't hypochondriacs, don't expect to be coddled and lavished with attention by their MDs, etc.

Need more proof that it's woman-specific? When was the last "race for the <insert-man-specific-cancer-here> cure"? Never happens, because men don't view their health as somehow more important, more in need of special attention, as women do.

Nope. It's about women wanting more medical care than they can pay for (or need), and not getting it for free (or at least subsidized, and hence for really cheap) pisses them off.

Hazel Meade is right. This poor guy's life is ruined by an overzealous bitch who thinks she can divine lusty looks from the face of a basketball player...no national news coverage to speak of. But women might actually have to pay for mammograms...crisis!!! Hoda and Kathy Lee help us!!!

[I Got Your Free Prostate]

Screenings here:

http://www.google.com/search?h.....&aqi;=

[d]

Google for "free mammogram" => 41K hits.

Now, google for "free prostate screening" => 977 hits.

I rest my case.

[d]

The quotes are important. Otherwise you just get bag-of-words hits, which are less reliable.

[CaptainSmartass]

If I could be guaranteed that the nurse giving me a testicle and prostate exam was a cute female, I'd sign up to get them done on a weekly basis. Short of that, what's the point?

[Fr Spike]

I'm all for patients paying for their own care, but the screening mammo bullshit is a big deal. Mammo is the single biggest tool in breast cancer care, and what they want to do is get state sanction to call it non-essential care. If they can get patients to pay for health care twice, first in premiums then out of pocket for non-covered care, then everyone wins. Oh, except for doctors and patients, but you can't please everyone. It doesn't matter whether it's the feds or the insurance companies who are doing it, it reduces the amount of money people can spend on real, necessary health care, and make no mistake, mammograms are necessary.

Bailey and McArdle suggest that starting screening at 50 is really the way to go, but they're taking the crap science USPSTF study at face value. I'm a breast cancer researcher, I can tell you that study is almost as shoddy as those studies showing that public smoking bans save a billion lives and bring beloved pets back to life. They ignored huge bodies of research showing how important 40-50 screening is, then dug up an obscure Russian article that agreed with them. Oh, and they forgot to account for the fact that missed cancers are expensive to treat. It's a pseudoscientific excuse to save some money on a short-term budget sheet.

I feel dirty taking the side of the free mammos crowd, but that's politics. Free or artificially cheap mammos aren't as good as patient-purchased health, but based on my understanding of the science, I think they're somewhat better than artificially expensive mammos. It's idiotic that anyone has to make that choice, though.

[d]

Prostate screenings are essential. So are cholesterol screenings (sort of). So is any other screening for a treatable disease. But that doesn't change the fact that women's healthcare is over-subsidized, and any attempt to bring it back from pull-out-all-the-stops-to-make-sure-not-one-more-woman-dies-of-anything-ever-land is met with a tidal wave of whining and morning show host(ess) hand-wringing.

Meanwhile, other people are dying b/c of the shortages that the "women's hospital" movement has created.

But this is a fucking huge digression. Hazel Meade's point still stands: mans life ruined, no-one cares. Woman *might* have a 0.01% increase in her chances of dying of cancer (most likely b/c she doesn't take care of herself and expects others to do so), HOLY SHIT!!! It's Big Government trying to tell us how to live OUR lives with OUR bodies!!!

[Hazel Meade]

Exactly, there are plenty of real, outright, injustices to protest. But some people choose to protest bullshit instead. Some people care more about having to pay for things, and how other people have more money than them, than about a guy's life being ruined, being sent to prison, and being socilly branded and shunned for decades, because he had sex with his girlfriend.

[?]

Sounds (and looks) like exactly the kind of guy the law is made to destroy.

Result.

[WWJGD]

I knew Radley had one waiting for us.

[P Brooks]

Every time I see one of these stories, I wonder how the police knew where to look.

I have a theory, and it involves snitchin'.

[grylliade]

Got it in one. From the story:

The state trooper visited Freeman's home that August night after being forwarded an anonymous tip, submitted through the Michigan State Police Public Sex Offender Registry Web site.

The tipster was a mother who lived in the neighborhood. She wrote that a sex offender of a "child under the age of 13" was living in front of the school.

"I can't let my children play at this school anymore because he is always outside playing basketball, watching the kids that are playing," she wrote. "How creepy, how disgusting?please help us get rid of him."

[JB]

I am praying to God that she dies a violent death and is tortured forever in hell after it.

[nicole]

I want to throw up. I hate this woman and the fact that she has procreated.

[Joe_D]

Why hating on this woman? If you take the message at face value, then it's understandable that she'd be worried for her children. If an adult has sex with a child under 13, then he probably shouldn't be allowed near children. Maybe it was a legitimate misunderstanding about the charges.

[dennis]

The girl was 15.

[I, Kahn O'Clast]

And he was 17 at the time.

[Untermensch]

I'm going to agree here. What is she supposed to think when there are "watch lists" and we're constantly told about the danger of sex offenders with nobody (outside of Reason) ever trying to nuance it. These are people who get NO sympathy from anyone in their communities and who are "known" to be irredeemable. I don't really fault her when the law is a blunt tool that provides bad information about risk. It's the politicians who came up with these laws and the DAs who prosecute everything just because they can, rather than exercising any sort of discretion or cognizance that, to quote Shakespeare, "the law is an ass", who deserve to be kicked in the crotch from here till next Sunday.

[Clark Cox]

What's she supposed to think? Well, thinking at all would be a good start. I have two children, and I know that, regardless of the number of registered sex offenders in my neighborhood, their chances of being molested/attacked/kidnapped/whatever is so close to zero that it is not worth worrying about.

[bill]

The woman is a naif and a dope; but throwing everyone under the same blanket (so to speak) who has committed some form of sex with a minor, regardless of the circumstances, is largely responsible for this ignorant behavior.

[SugarFree]

I think the worse thing about the whole situation is that the state forces him to dress that way so that he can be easily spotted as a sex offender.

[Isaac Bartram]

Hey, I've got an idea. We should make these people go around with a big red S sewn onto their clothes.

No one ever thought of that one before, I'll bet.

[d]

How about the Star of the Molester and a unique numeric ID?

[Ska]

Can the ID be mistaken for the lottery numbers?

[prolefeed]

They could put the ID number on their forearm so they could cover it up with a long-sleeved shirt.

That would be the compassionate thing to do.

Oh, and since it's hard to find a place to live under these laws, they could set up special camps for them to live in ...

[wylie]

Camps? Its called prison.

Don't let them out if you think they should be incarcerated forever.

[Michael Ejercito]

There used to be a camp in California's Owens Valley called Manzanar.

The U.S. should reopen it as a camp for sex offenders.

[Vesman]

Didn't Hitler try that with jewish offenders?

[fish]

What....no bright red cape?!?!

[Michael Ejercito]

Hey, I've got an idea. We should make these people go around with a big red S sewn onto their clothes.

No one ever thought of that one before, I'll bet.

You are correct.

The idea has never been tried before.

[Isaac Bartram]

Right, I should have said, "a big red letter sewn onto their clothes."

Sorry about that.

[Nietzsche]

It was my idea.

[Fist of Etiquette]

At some point they're going to have to come up with a whole other list because they've completely watered down the impact of this one.

[Episiarch]

They have it already and you're on it.

[Fist of Etiquette]

If you have my url and a valid credit card, you can see what I do to get on that list.

[Some Guy]

I'm sure that because of the continuing harassment of people like Freeman, 17-year-boys and 15-year-old girls are no longer having sex in Michigan.

You win the Internet!

[Clich? Bandit]

I figured the day couldn't go by without a swift kick to the groin from Mr. Balko. And is it me or is he getting more cynical:

I'm sure that because of the continuing harassment of people like Freeman, 17-year-boys and 15-year-old girls are no longer having sex in Michigan.

BUT LOOK AT HER!!!

[JW]

I read that bolded text in Sgt. Hatred's voice. Is that wrong?

[Ska]

Only if you've run out of No Molestrol.

[wylie]

I read tough guy comments in Brock's voice, so i'd say No as well.

[JW]

"Show us on the ball where he touched you."

[wylie]

*points to the inflation nub*

[JB]

If this was me, I would decapitate the fuckers.

Well, actually I would torture them first, then decapitate them.

[Brian]

Sounds like he's gonna need to change his last name.

[Fred]

He broke the law and got caught, big deal. So what if he was only 17, children are tried as adults all the time, 17 is old enougth to know the law. Would you want him near your town if you had kid.

[MP]

Yes, I would.

You however, fuckface, are not someone I'd want in my town..

[Tulpa]

I wouldn't want him living next door. But that's mainly because I couldn't stand hearing the constant thump-thump-thump of an unemployed dolt playing basketball in the driveway all day.

[shorter Fred]

Fuckin' Harriet Tubman, breakin' the law.

[d]

I have kid [sic.] and I not want you to being near kid. Go to fucking off, you. (And learn to type fluent English before you get all for-the-children-y in this forum.)

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

Would you want your 17 year old son treated this way?

[Zeb]

I would not be the least concerned, as all he did, as far as we have any reason to believe, was to have consensual sex with his girlfriend who was 2 years younger.

[Clark Cox]

The law is a bad law; there is no reason that consensual sex between a 15 year old and a 17 year old should be illegal. None. His breaking of that law has no bearing on whether or not I would want him in my town.

[TrickyVic]

But it's still wrong.

The problem is in the thinking that everything wrong needs to be a crime.

[wylie]

When did Shame become obsolete?

[James]

probably around the time people seemed to stop feeling it

[dfd]

Why is it "wrong"? Because God said so?

[James]

Or you could argue that it's a bad idea because teenagers are more likely to make mistakes, not ready to be parents, teen girls may not be in the best emotional or physical health to give birth, abortions can be psychologically damaging, etc, etc

[CaptainSmartass]

Bad idea != wrong != illegal

[James]

I didn't say it should be illegal. He asked why else beside "God said so" should it be considered wrong.

I had my morality debate for the year last week.

Because of the possible consequences of a teen couple getting pregnant, there's a very strong case that can be made that sexual activity amongst 15(ish) year olds could be considered "wrong."

They may not be adequately educated in contraception, may not be responsible enough to educate themselves, if the girl does become pregnant there's the issue of yet another life being added to the equation, teens may not be ready to accept responsibility for another life, etc, etc

Not all bad ideas can be said to be "wrong", but in this circumstance when an unwanted, unplanned for child may be brought into the world, there's a strong social case for it. If the child isn't brought into the world, I wouldn't think abortion is easy to deal with.

Look at the statistics for unwanted children becoming criminals, having various social problems, etc.

If I was a parent, I wouldn't want my kids getting that physical. I'd prefer them go to college, have a great career, etc. Having a kid wouldn't prevent those things, but it'd make them a hell of a lot harder.

So, to sum up, NOT ILLEGAL, IS a terrible idea, very strong case for it to be considered "wrong."

[James]

Also, I'm pretty sure that God doesn't say it's wrong...other than the adultery part.

However, if a 15 and 17 year were married, then God's cool with it.

[bohica]

Damn Freddie boy, are you the comma splice poster boy or what? Nobody expects perfectly edited prose in the comments, but it might be nice to throw in a little basic grammar and punctuation now and then. The only thing worse than a troll is a lazy troll; put some effort into it.

[burn 'er!]

Let's pass a new law. If you commit punctuation or grammatical errors, you have to go on a grammatical offenders watchlist and won't be allowed within 1,000 feet of a school.

[anarch]

and won't be allowed within outside 1,000 feet of a school.

[Vesman]

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

[rodsmith]

couldn't agree more. The prison industry comples in this country is a 100 BILLION dollar a year industry Between the cost of the prison, staff then you add in what they make OFF the inmates with work crews and the 100's of products they produce. They have contracts to produce those crews and the products. Crime in this country is at an ALL-TIME low down almost 40% since 1990 So less crime....less workers in their prisons so heck...make more things ILLEGAL to fill those beds.

[kinnath]

No I fear Fred far more than this 17 year old kid.

[Seamus]

I'm giving Fred the benefit of the doubt and assuming he was being sarcastic.

[Tulpa]

He's 23 now. He might relapse and fuck a 21 year old, so it's not safe to have him around.

[bigbigslacker]

The law is as stupid as this poor kid is.

"Freeman met his ex-girlfriend when they were freshmen at Huron High School. He was 16, and she was 14."

16 year old freshmen...right away we can tell he is quite the rocket scientist.

"The two began having sex in March 2003 - about five months after they started dating. Her mother, Evelyn Scott, said she found out and told Freeman he could no longer see her daughter."

Don't piss mama off after getting caught screwing her underage daughter. A smarter person might have realized the risk they put themselves in and be smart enough to keep away after the warning. There didn't have to be a warning.

"Freeman violated his probation by going near his girlfriend and stealing some video games from a store, records show. As a result, he was sentenced to 90 days in jail in January 2004."

More dumbassery. At least pretend to respect the law when on probation.

""I'm getting labeled as a rapist and a pedophile," he said. "I'm not a pedophile. That stuff is sickening. After all this, I don't know if I can have kids. They may wanna take them away, you know what I'm saying?"

Yes, I know what you are saying. -Butters

[MP]

I'm not sure when I learned the concept of the "Age of Consent" but it sure as heck wasn't as a freshman in High School. It's far from justified to label the poor kid as "stupid".

[James]

He was 16 and still a freshman.

He was on probation and then stole video games.

This kid is definitely stupid, but that doesn't mean the government can destroy his life.

The whole Age of Consent thing is put in place to give parents the authority to say "Stay away from my daughter!"

While I don't think that putting these kids on sex offender lists is the right thing to do, I also support parents having that kind of authority. "My house, my rules."

Apparently, there's no middle ground.

[Slut Bunwalla]

He was 16 and still a freshman.

You're assuming. There's a really good chance that was a typo or poorly written sentence in the article.

[James]

True, but without actually going to interview the dude myself, all I have to go on is what's reported...

AND he stole video games while on probation...

[Ska]

Forget age of consent - he was a 16 year old kid and he was getting laid. That's going to trump any kind of rational thought, risk of imprisonment, or other deterrent.

[Cindy]

""I'm getting labeled as a rapist and a pedophile,"

She was under age, so guess what, you are.

[James]

Well, if it was consensual, he's not a rapist.

And as for pedophilia, the girl was 2 years younger. This was just a stupid thing to do, the guy isn't a sexual deviant who poses a threat to the entire neighborhood.

[TrickyVic]

Having sex with someone two years younger than you shouldn't be pedophilia.

[James]

That was my point. I guess it wasn't obvious.

[TrickyVic]

My comment was in support of yours. Not at yours.

[James]

*hatchet buried*

[Voros McCracken]

Unless you're 10 years old.

[Tulpa]

Well, if it was consensual, he's not a rapist.

Really? Why is that Polanski fellow in so much trouble then?

[Brendan Perez]

By most definitions of "underage", so was he at 16/17.

[Seamus]

So was he, so I guess the girlfriend was a rapist too, right?

[Vesman]

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

[Oliver Wendell Holmes]

I told you guys how to solve this problem.

[Tulpa]

Sterilization doesn't prevent people having sex, dumbass. Tell Beelzebub I said fry.

[scott clark]

I have a problem with Evelyn Scott, the mother of the girlfriend, who called in law enforcement to break up her daughter's relationship. Super parenting skills you have there, lady.
She has since written a letter asking that (not-so) Freeman be taken off the list, but that's not quite how it works, is it? Maybe this lady should learn to stop snitchin'.

[Kyle]

Second. Anyone who thinks the solution to one of their children's problems is to call the police is seriously misguided.*

*I would concede that the police/social services do a pretty decent job when a child reports molestation by an adult.**

**Unles the report was false, in which case, no amount of contrary evidence will stop the gestapo from crushing the falsely accused individual and destroying every aspect of their life.

[bigbigslacker]

Mama told him to stay away from her daughter. I'm going to ASSume she told her daughter the same thing. She called the police only when he failed to stay away from her daughter. I think that makes her a good parent. It's a bad parent that doesn't care. Would you want your 14 year old daughter having sex with a dumbass 16 year old freshman? Look how he turned out. At 23, he makes a little over a hundred bucks a week, enjoys making rap music, playing video games, and lives with his mom. Granted, it is unfair to judge his intelligence based on just that, and none of those things by themselves are any reason for concern (except the 16 yr old freshman thing), but he isn't looking like a real go getter at this point (though I do acknowledge some of that is due to being branded a sex offender, and he is pursuing a GED at least).

I don't think at 17, a child should be labeled a sex offender for humping on another child less than 2 years younger. I'll even engage in excuse making on his behalf - notice he is helping his mom with the rent and not his mom AND DAD. But, he did get infected with teh stoopid at some point. (poontang will do that)

[Kyle]

Maybe if the boy was 18 and done with high school, but it seems cruel and unusual to me to put freshmen girls in high school, and then put a rope around them. Testosterone is mf'er, particularly at that age.

The mother can complain, and you know, be a mother, but police is simply uncalled for.

[James]

I agree with bigslacker. If the mother says "Stay away" and he doesn't stay away, the next course of action is getting a higher authority involved.

Sticking him on the sex offender list was probably overkill. Maybe a restraining order would have been more appropriate.

[Kimberly]

No. If the mother tells her DAUGHTER to stay away from the boy, and she chooses not to, then the next course of action is to ground or otherwise punish the daughter. The mother has no authority over the daughter's boyfriend.

If that daughter does not want him around and he is stalking her, etc, that is a different issue, but not apparently what happened in this case.

[James]

I'm not a parent yet, but I have been raised by some.

If a parent tells ANYONE to stay away from a 15 year old child, and that request isn't followed, then either a higher authority needs to be involved, or the parent is going to chase the guy away from the house with a shotgun.

Nothing happened to the girl, even though legally she's also a sex offender.

The boy was told to stay away, he didn't. The mother has no authority over the boy, but she has the authority to decide who her 15 year old daughter associates with.

[Bob Smith]

Of course nothing happened to the girl. Everybody knows girls are more mature than boys, that why boys, not girls, are responsible for sexual situations.

[Tulpa]

The mother has the authority OVER HER DAUGHTER. She does not have authority over the rest of the world that may come in contact with her daughter. If she wants to prevent her daughter from associating with certain people she can ground her.

If the guy was harassing or threatening her daughter, or sneaking onto her property to see her daughter, that would be grounds for a call to the police, I agree. The article isn't specific on whether those things happened. But if all he was doing was talking to her, it's bullshit.

[The Gobbler]

You all are missing the point here. 15-year-old girls are a danger to society. They should all be rounded up and put into camps. Which I will run...

[wylie]

Thank god i have my resume and references ready from the offical gov't wine taster thread.

*Clicks Send*

[kiwi]

Incredible number of stupid comments on the annarbor.com thread. Apparently some people think that if you break a law you deserve the punishment, no matter how ludicrously exaggerated the punishment or how tenuously it is related to the crime. At least one person made an intelligent comment on annarbor.com:

While I have a lot of sympathy for the story's subject, based on the facts presented, I would put the point a different way.

Putting people like this on the list does a disservice to me, Joe Law-Abiding-Citizen. I want to know if I live next to any rapists (i.e. sexual violence against an unwilling adult woman) or child molestors (i.e. sexual violence against children). Actually, I want to know if there's anyone living near me who's been willing to do physical violence to another human being. For example, if a man is willing to beat up his wife, I want to be able to avoid him.

Filling those lists with drunk frat boys who piss on a wall in public and high school boys who sleep with their nearly-same-age girlfriends actually significantly lowers the value of the lists I do want kept.

I live in a "nice safe area" of Washtenaw County (sarcasm intended), yet there are several "sex offenders" on the list that live near me. How many of them are threats and how many of them don't belong there like this guy? If the list is to be valuable, save it for the real threats.

[FrBunny]

Freeman's mother says she checked with Pittsfield Township police before moving to the home to be sure it complied with Freeman's status. She says they told her it did.

Pittsfield Township Police Dept

6227 W. Michigan Ave., Ann Arbor MI 48108

[phone]

[Tulpa]

That's like calling the DEA to ask if it's OK to grow medical marijuana in your house. The Stupid is strong in his family.

[rodsmith]

want to back up and try again. Considering the Police Department is the one LEGALLY responsible to monitor these individuals; also the one LEGALLY responsible for taking the registration data from them and for ensuring COMPLIANCE with the law you would think they would KNOW WHAT AREAS WERE LEGAL. From where i sit him and mama both have major grounds to sue the police department and the state up one side and down the other.

[There aren't enough laws]

I'm all for keeping these laws on the books as long as we can also set an UPPER limit on when people should be able to have sex. Teenagers having sex is just as gross and wrong as oldsters boppin' wrinklies.

What would that age be? 55?

[SugarFree]

Nancy and Barbara have a very frank and earthy sensuality that you deny at your own peril.

[Clich? Bandit]

Dear God. Earthy?

Never a dull moment

[Tulpa]

I am fiercely opposed to gray marriage, as you all know. The idea that senior citizens are peeling off the Depends and pulling the grilled cheese sandwich apart devalues everyone's sex life.

[JD]

"They now say it's Freeman's responsibility to make sure he doesn't violate the sex offender law."

This is why I think "ignorance of the law is no excuse" is largely a bullshit excuse that serves only the state in this day and age. It's one thing to say that when the issue is murder or theft. It's another entirely when it comes down to regulatory issues like whether or not your driveway is 400 feet from a school.

[James]

Whatever happened to the prosecutor having to prove an intent to break a law?

[TrickyVic]

"""This is why I think "ignorance of the law is no excuse" is largely a bullshit excuse that serves only the state in this day and age."""

I don't think that's really in play, dispite what the police department wants to say. If you are ignorant, you seek education. That's exactly what the Freeman's did.

They did receive an education, albeit not the subject they inquired.

[Vesman]

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

[Benjamin Lecrone]

I think the two major problems here are this...America has absolutly no consistent policy as to what age adulthood begins. You drive at age 16, can vote (or join the Army and kill someone) at 18 and can't drink until your 21. But if you commit a crime they can weasel it so that you are declared an adult regardless of age if the crime angers the unwashed masses. So some joker who is sixteen going on seventeen starts doing the nasty with a girl who is fifteenish and gets the hammer. Now I realize these type of shenanigans are only kosher if the girl lives in the Alps and can sing and the guy is a prick aryan Nazi-wannabe, but really was throwing the book at him really needed.

The second problem is America's uber prudish attitude towards sex in general. Once a girl begins menstruating and a guy starts having nocturnal emissions, they are ready and willing to get horizontal. No amount of pissing and moaning and invoking the need for abstinence and chastity can undo millions of years of evolution and a real yearning to get some. Instead of calling the cops how about really cracking down on your equally complicit daughter, because unless this was full in rape they were both under age "sex offenders". Is the girl on the sex offender list? What ever happened to a long, long grounding accompanied by an awkward talk and a month hoping you aren't "in the family way"?

Nope, now some dumbass horny kid has had his life ruined and the other dumbass horny kid has suffered no further repercussions. That's the most unfair part.

[Tulpa]

Nope, he was above the age of consent, so she's not a sex offender.

The following information was taken directly from the Michigan state legislation website at http://www.legislature.mi.gov/.....ighlight;=

THE MICHIGAN PENAL CODE (EXCERPT)
Act 328 of 1931

Sec. 520d.

(1) A person is guilty of criminal sexual conduct in the third degree if the person engages in sexual penetration with another person and if any of the following circumstances exist:

(a) That other person is at least 13 years of age and under 16 years of age.

(b) Force or coercion is used to accomplish the sexual penetration. Force or coercion includes but is not limited to any of the circumstances listed in section 520b(1)(f)(i) to (v).

(c) The actor knows or has reason to know that the victim is mentally incapable, mentally incapacitated, or physically helpless.

(d) That other person is related to the actor by blood or affinity to the third degree and the sexual penetration occurs under circumstances not otherwise prohibited by this chapter. It is an affirmative defense to a prosecution under this subdivision that the other person was in a position of authority over the defendant and used this authority to coerce the defendant to violate this subdivision. The defendant has the burden of proving this defense by a preponderance of the evidence. This subdivision does not apply if both persons are lawfully married to each other at the time of the alleged violation.

(e) That other person is at least 16 years of age but less than 18 years of age and a student at a public or nonpublic school, and the actor is a teacher, substitute teacher, or administrator of that public or nonpublic school. This subdivision does not apply if the other person is emancipated or if both persons are lawfully married to each other at the time of the alleged violation.

(2) Criminal sexual conduct in the third degree is a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 15 years.

[Righ-Wing Dave]

That'll teach him!

[bigbigslacker]

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=.....h&z=18

This is why we need universal internet access.

[Robert]

What else can you do when you're older than your classmates? Where are you going to get dates?

[LarryA]

He was caught by a police officer playing basketball within 400 feet of a school.

Over the past couple of years a dozen or so molestation cases have surfaced on San Antonio TV news. Take a wild guess where the perpetrators were employed.

Yup. Schools.

Well, except for a couple of cops. But they molested hookers, not students.

[James]

So the cops should more concerned about the employees of the schools than 23 year old "sex offenders" playing basketball in their drive way after the local police department cleared them to live there?

Was that your point?

[bill ackerman]

This story is just sickening. I read a similar story in the Economist about a woman who had given her underage boyfriend (I think she was 17 as well) a blow job. 20 years later she's still on this list. Is anything being done to reform these laws!!! Is anyone fighting them?

[rodsmith]

100's of thousands are fighting these ILLEGAL and USELESS laws. If you added up all the lawsuits across the u.s the numbers would be in 100's of thousands. There are two cases covering sex offenders in front of the U.S Supreme Court as it type this.

[Sean]

This is what happens when the laws are written to please little old ladies. Little old ladies are so timid that no law is draconian enough to make them feel safe. And their electoral power is only going to grow for decades to come.

[midbrew]

Is it little old ladies or soccer moms who are the driving force behind this shite?

[G Mc]

One anecdote does not a bad law make. Though there does appear to be some obvious injustice in this case.

[rodsmith]

ONE? Better look again try 1,000's across the country.

check out these locations.

http://sexoffenderresearch.blogspot.com/

and

http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com/

[SIV]

I have long since stopped arguing cases like this with anyone.It's not worth it when nothing is at stake.There are conservatives, liberals,feminists ,Bible-thumpers,yes-even libertarians who all agree: "He raped a child"
Michigan State law says a 15 y/o girl can't consent.
I'm not arguing this again unless I'm on a jury

[Dale]

Age of consent really doesn't matter, I mean, if only he could have proved she was a prostitute - he would have gotten probation and she would have went to jail. I never read about charges being filed on the behalf of under-aged prostitutes.

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