A Georgia woman is about to lose her home due to Georgia’s sex-offender law:
Wendy Whitaker, 29, has been on Georgia’s sex offender list for more than 12 years. Her crime? She performed oral sex on a high school classmate just after turning 17. The boy was just shy of his 16th birthday. Both were sophomores. Whitaker is now suing, claiming that given her crime, her sex offender status is cruel and unusual punishment.
[...]
The question is whether the court will consider the registration requirement in and of itself cruel and unusual punishment for people convicted of consensual oral sex as minors before the law was changed.Whitaker is also involved in a second lawsuit—this one to keep her house. In 2006, she and her husband scoped out neighborhood surrounding the Harlem, Georgia home they eventually purchased to be sure they were in compliance with Georgia’s sex offender law at the time. That law prohibited offenders from living within 1,000 feet of any area where children congregate. Despite their efforts, local authorities ordered Whitaker and her husband to vacate shortly after they moved in. They had overlooked a nearby church, which was running an unadvertised daycare service.
Whitaker has to be out of her home by Thanksgiving.
We need to have laws that protect children, provided they are both constitutional and sane, but should this woman lose her home because she gave a classmate a blowjob? I don’t believe anyone can call that justice.
{ 11 comments }
Except maybe moralistic blowhards like Eric Johnson or John Douglas.
Johnson and Douglas are the vocal blowhards, but one cannot assume the rest of them do not think the same way.
I think this issue would make a great debate issue between Shafer and Johnson. Let’s see if they actually know the difference between the words “predator” and “offender.”
People who judge the harshest generally have more to hide!
Blowjobs (usually a victimless crime) blowhards –> “blowback”
That law sucks
Shafer is no demagogue, but I doubt he’s going to want to make this a debate issue with Johnson.
If we can impeach a president for getting a blow job, then what’s the problem with kicking some woman out of her home for playing the flesh flute?
Jason,
These laws are definitely not sane. Either the person is a danger, and should remain in prison, or they should be let free and allowed to live their life without constant harassment.
Real child sexual abusers should go to jail for life. Those that aren’t should be allowed to live their lives with dignity after paying whatever penalty they pay. It is rather perverse the righteous joy that many take in the suffering of others.
If I recall correctly, Skeptic, Clinton was impeached because perjured himself.
When talking about mindless moralistic blowhards, please don’t forget Jerry Keen, who was one of the primary advocates of this bill. From Ol’ Jerry’s website:
“In 2006 Jerry authored a bill that cracks down on sex offenders by electronically monitoring sexual predators for life and establishing minimum mandatory sentences for those convicted of sex crimes, This law has become the standard for other states to use as a model.”
The problem with the bill is that it makes no distinction between the 19 year old guy having sex with a 15 year old and a 63 year old man having sex with an 8 year old. The 19 year old and the 63 year old are both labeled as “predators”. As I understand it, Judges have no control or discretion over this issue. The 19 year old’s life is essentially ruined forever because of a consensual sex act and the Jerry Keens of the world could not care less. Yet they are the same ones who get weak in the knees railing about the death of common sense in the judicial system.
How can anyone look at the facts of the lawsuit involving the 17 year old who gave oral sex to a 15 year old classmate and say that the public interest is served by making her register as a sex predator and by forbidding her from living within 1500 feet of a day care or school bus stop? Abso-frickin-lutely ridiculous.
“If I recall correctly, Skeptic, Clinton was impeached because perjured himself”
And acquitted.
Comments on this entry are closed.