Should the age of consent be lowered to 14? (user search)
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  Should the age of consent be lowered to 14? (search mode)
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Author Topic: Should the age of consent be lowered to 14?  (Read 6971 times)
Bojack Horseman
Wolverine22
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« on: July 31, 2015, 02:31:05 PM »

No, but I think that we should change the sex offender registry laws to provide mitigating factors for age differences. An example is a 19-year-old here in Michigan who met a girl on a dating app who said repeatedly that she was 18. Turned out she was lying out her ass and she was really 14, and so the 19-year-old boy spent 90 days in jail and will be on the sex offender registry for life. The girl and her mother testified at trial that she lied about her age repeatedly the entire time, and he testified that if he'd known her age, he would have shut the whole thing down from the start. That guy doesn't deserve to be labeled for life the same way that a 40+ year-old man who abuses a child deserves to be.
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Bojack Horseman
Wolverine22
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Posts: 4,374
United States


« Reply #1 on: August 03, 2015, 08:19:10 PM »

No, but I think that we should change the sex offender registry laws to provide mitigating factors for age differences. An example is a 19-year-old here in Michigan who met a girl on a dating app who said repeatedly that she was 18. Turned out she was lying out her ass and she was really 14, and so the 19-year-old boy spent 90 days in jail and will be on the sex offender registry for life. The girl and her mother testified at trial that she lied about her age repeatedly the entire time, and he testified that if he'd known her age, he would have shut the whole thing down from the start. That guy doesn't deserve to be labeled for life the same way that a 40+ year-old man who abuses a child deserves to be.

Deceit by the younger 'partner' should be a mitigating or even exculpating factor.

If I were over 21 and dating someone who in any way looks or acts like a teenager I would insist upon identification before 'getting physical'.  Teenagers can lie convincingly... and anyone dating a teenager needs be careful.

Forged or misappropriated (older sibling?) ID? The person in technical violation of an age-of-consent statute should get away with it. An innocent state of mind and due caution makes one innocent so far as I am concerned. (That explains why simply being wrong is not perjury).   After all, we are talking about something less trivial than hiring someone for a job. The sex-offender register is rightly for sexual predators.  

Problem is that most states' laws defining statutory rape have provisions that specifically state that the so-called victim lying about her age (in many states, statutory rape can only be committed by a male unless a woman is in a position of power. Teacher, prison guard, etc.) is not a valid defense and can't be used as a mitigating circumstance.
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