A Junior High Girl's Basketball took in a 14 year old female student and began an inappropriate relationship with the student. While on bond she continued to see the student. Now she has pled guilty to 10 yrs in TDC.
Her attorney, "She had a very stellar lifestyle, she was an asset to the community, very good person, but unfortunately, fell into this situation with a victim who was not only a participant, an active participant, but was actually an instigator for the sexual contact."
Even if the student (teenage hormones raging) was crushing on the teacher/coach, the teacher/coach, as the adult, had 100% of the responsibility to say no. I don't feel badly that she should serve 100% of the sentence.
Posts: 1089 | Location: UNT Dallas | Registered: June 29, 2004
Mr. Marion, I have family in your area, one of whom heard either you or one of your assistants talk about this case in the courtroom and were very impressed with the way your office handled the situation. My family there are teachers, and were pretty disturbed by this situation. Anyway, the prosecutor in the courtroom said some things in defense of the victim that made quite an impact...just thought I would pass the compliment along.
Posts: 526 | Location: Del Rio, Texas | Registered: April 17, 2006
The last voir dire it did in a boyfriend/girlfriend sexual assault of child case got interesting when several of the potential jurors wanted to know if there were going to be any consequences for the "wild" child. It was your typical 20 year old boyfriend, 14 year old girlfriend with lousy parents type of case. These jurors were just as concerned about the girl and her parents being punished as the 20 year old boyfriend. I knew some of these jurors to be very law abiding, church going type folks and was pretty surprized at the time. I've become pretty jaded when dealing with these kinds of cases, so, in hindsight, I shouldn't have been surprized that these jurors were too. Interestingly, one brave juror pointed out to the others that she had sex with her over age boyfriend when she was way too young. She eloquently pointed out that she was too young to make good decisions and thought that the law was there to protect such children, no matter how wild they are or how lousy their parents are.
Of course, none of these folks made it on the jury. With a confession, and admissions to sex even after being indicted, the jury gave him 2 probated for 2.
From reading the story, I thought the DL said she was not 100% responsible. Seems D took responsibility by pleading guilty. I dislike sex offenders as much as any of my fellow prosecutors, but let's not attribute to her what the DL said to the press.
Posts: 176 | Location: Hempstead, TX, USA | Registered: June 02, 2005
