They put a fucking 17 YEAR OLD in JAIL for this?!

[9th Engineer]

Everyone seems to be making references to a spirit of law, but for the life of me I can't see how that applies here. The age of consent agreed upon sets a boundery at which most people are old enough to make their own sexual desision, not everyone will fit this but there are personal exeptions to every law. The best solution would be to have every person individually evaluated, but that's impossible. The next best solution is to set a boundry applicable to the majority with minimal inconvinience to the minority.
Also, why is youth now considered an excuse for acting on ignorance and stupidity? You certainly don't have to be a legal expert to know that if you are over the age of majority then sex with ANYONE under it is strictly off limits, alcohol and drug intake to not change this. Am I really supposed to feel sympathetic for someone that stupid? Or someone that unwilling or unable to control themselves?
One of the original purposes of that law was to make a clear, nonemotional boundary for behavior. Parents involved in this sort of issue will of course be emotional, hence the law. We absolutely cannot start tweaking the law based on emotional impulses of particular moments. Emotion makes bad laws, lets keep to legality here, not hand wringing and weeping. Kid breaks the law, kid pays the penalty.

If ignorance of the law ever becomes a defence in any situation, we're all screwed.

[tw]

Originally Posted by 9th Engineer

One of the original purposes of that law was to make a clear, nonemotional boundary for behavior. Parents

Purpose of judges, juries and prosecutors is to also determine when the 'letter of the law' violates the 'purpose of the law'. You tell me. Clearly he committed a crime equivalent to first degree murder because some girl gave him a blow job. Clearly the law also intends a ten year sentence if she rubbed his balls even if he did not remove his pants. That is also what 9th Engineer claims.

Well we have justified a sentence of 1st degree murder because ‘purpose of laws’ is irrelevant. Using that reasoning, then those in possession of marijuana are also doing murder - because we cannot trust judges and juries to do anything but blindly enforce laws. This is how dictatorships get started. Clearly everyone is dumb and cannot be trusted; therefore we have laws?

Well if a girl has her shoes off and the car crosses a state line, then the males in that car must be arrested for rape. That also is the law - and must be blindly enforced. 9th Engineer tells us that those males must go to jail no matter what - because that is the law - no excuses.

[9th Engineer]

If the letter of the law is in opposition to the spirit or purpose of the law, then the politicians/lawyers who drafted and signed it are in gross negligence. If we have a law that says that the crime of getting a bj from your underage girlfriend mandates jail time, then the kid gets slammed with jail time and those who disagree go and drag the lawyers away from their shrimp cocktails and tell them to do their job. I'm sick of half-assed laws that get thrown out there with the assumption that other people will change them on the fly according to some ethereal 'spirit' that the law was written in, but does not reflect. You say that the real purpose of the law is protect minors? Then go headhunting for the people who fucked up their job.
If the letter of the law violates the spirit of the law, then the solution is to change the law, not to break it and say "well we don't want to enforce that law anyway".

[tw]

Originally Posted by 9th Engineer

If the letter of the law is in opposition to the spirit or purpose of the law, then the politicians/lawyers who drafted and signed it are in gross negligence.

That assumes extenuating circumstances do not and never exist. To not be grossly negligent, the future must be completely predictable. Clearly, 9th, your assumption is rather naive.

No wonder we don't require people with extensive experience as judges. Since every extenuating circumstance is predictable, then we can replace judges with law clerks. We can fire all those Supreme Court justices in Federal and all States. Wow. Look at how much money can be saved.

Clearly our ancestors were stupid. They did not understand all laws are complete - need no interpretation for extenuating circumstances and other variations. Clearly we have Congressmen so well endowed with brain power as to have thought all this out well in advance. And since people are so smart, then scientists need not do any experiments – they also have made all necessary predictions in advance. Well now we need not risk mankind in risky trips to the unknown - all is predicatable. We even know when the elevator will fail. Clearly we know when the murder will strike. I did not realize we have people so smart.

Meanwhile we don't have a law that specifically defines a blow job as sex. That was someone's interpretation. Law does not list every action that is sex. Clearly grabbing his balls also constitutes sex. I wonder why Congress forgot to make that clear? After all, Congress can predict all possible circumstances. Or were they (as usual) grossly negligent?

[Orca]

Unfortuantly we are in a legislative backlash against judges doing just that - revewing the evidence and circumstances as a whole and passing judgement. Thats why they are called judges. "Too little time for 'horrible crimes'" and thus manditory sentencing laws. We allow lawyers too much freedom in obtaining the conviction or aquittal and no freedom to the judge to do their job. We also as a society put too much emphasis on the confrontational aspect - win the case - of the legal system and to little on discovering the truth.

[Aliantha]

Did you ever study law 9th?

Oh yeah, and have you ever broken the law? Even just a tiny bit that didn't harm anyone, but it was definitely against the law?

btw, how old are you?

[9th Engineer]

You missed my point Ali, I'm saying that if one judge in county A can impose a completely different type of punishment then a judge in county B, then our legal system fails to administer fair punishment. This particular case still boils down to people trying to make individual exceptions from the law. If the people down there decided that his crime warrants 10 years of jail time then that's what they did, doesn't matter if you agree with them. We live in a democracy for the most part, you think I don't have my own frustrations about stupid laws that must be enforced because our citizens are too stupid to act on their own? I have plenty, but I have to bend to the will of the majority, just as this young man will.

[Aliantha]

What point am I missing? I asked you a couple of questions. I notice you didn't answer any of them...

[9th Engineer]

Correct, I ignored all your questions because none of them have any bearing on the conversation. My age has nothing to do with it, and I've stated that I am a college student many times in the past. Unless you are going to come forward and say you have a legal degree yourself then your first question is irrelevant. And as for your second question, I don't evaluate whether I'm going to obey a law based on whether or not I feel my actions hurt anyone. This is an issue of legality, not the semantics of whether you think people should be held accountable for laws you don't agree with.

[Aliantha]

They all have bearing on the conversation, but that's ok. Feel free to ignore them and display your ignorance a little more.

Your age leads to your experience. Your knowledge of law leads to how the law is interpreted, which tw has tried to explain to you. Whether you agree with it or not, laws do have different interpretations, and that is where the 'spirit' of each individual law becomes applicable. Mentioned in another thread is a situation where a prisoner used anti discrimination laws in order to be served halal food. In this case, the spirit of the law was not designed to be abused in this manner, although the letter of the law was followed in order for this criminal to achieve a favourable outcome.

So you see, it works both ways. Sometimes criminals benefit from using the letter of the law when in fact, the spirit of the law was ignored. Alternatively, people who are charged under the letter of the law would have been better served had the spirit of the law been taken into consideration.

As to you declining to answer whether you have ever committed any minor crimes. Perhaps underage drinking? Well, that only points to the hypocrisy of your argument if you're arguing in favour of the letter of the law.

[xoxoxoBruce]

They did realize they fucked up when they wrote the law and went back and changed it. But that change doesn't apply to him because he got a blow job before they admitted their mistake.

What is sick is that people's lives are a game to these vermin.
A judge can rule against... that is what they are for, period.

[tw]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

What is sick is that people's lives are a game to these vermin.
A judge can rule against... that is what they are for, period.

As I understand it, this was a jury trial. A jury can disregard a law if they feel the law does not apply. Another classic example of why one must not just know - must also know why. Apparently even the jury forewoman even thought their verdict was wrong. Then why did she blindly vote to enforce an inappropriate law? Well many juries are told they cannot do what is their responsibility.

Judges have limited powers to overturn a jury verdict. Therefore ‘vermin’ was the jury that failed to do their job.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by tw

A jury can disregard a law if they feel the law does not apply.

How many people do you think actually know this? Juries are given instructions and are told by the judge that they HAVE TO follow those instructions. Only the rebels and very confident would even dream of ignoring the judge's instructions. Most average people will keep their heads down and do what they are told.

The jury did not pass the sentence.