Shu Shu Retarded Flu!

Where are Mommy and Daddy?

And why can't I post my anonymous name?

NSL Dean.

Stupid concepts like "innocent until proven guilty" and "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."

We should let the commenters to Youtube postings decide whether someone spends 20 years in jail instead.

First... to say this video is a fake!

Watch the first 30 seconds and tell me she's not acting.

12:17, what are you talking about? who claimed youtube postings or their comments should "decide whether someone spends 20 years in jail"?

A bit young to be a Bingham associate, isn't she?

I vote "meh" on this whole "story." It's just more of the usual media strategy of finding "victims" to put on display.

A bit young to be a Bingham associate, isn't she?

Seriously, where the hell were this poor girl's parents?

I mean, Jesus, you know there's a breakdown when this kid's looking for help on YouTube rather than from her family, and I'm sure the almost 5,000 comments aren't helping matters much.

I think at the very least, she needs some serious counseling, so hopefully this video, as a literal cry for help, will help her obtain that.

12:38 = awesome comment

12:17 - All fine and good, except that she was fifteen for the "consensual" activity.

Fla. Stat. § 800.04. Lewd or lascivious offenses committed upon or in the presence of persons less than 16 years of age

(1) DEFINITIONS. --As used in this section:

(a) "Sexual activity" means the oral, anal, or vaginal penetration by, or union with, the sexual organ of another or the anal or vaginal penetration of another by any other object; however, sexual activity does not include an act done for a bona fide medical purpose.

(b) "Consent" means intelligent, knowing, and voluntary consent, and does not include submission by coercion.

(c) "Coercion" means the use of exploitation, bribes, threats of force, or intimidation to gain cooperation or compliance.

(d) "Victim" means a person upon whom an offense described in this section was committed or attempted or a person who has reported a violation of this section to a law enforcement officer.

(2) PROHIBITED DEFENSES. --Neither the victim's lack of chastity nor the victim's consent is a defense to the crimes proscribed by this section.

(3) IGNORANCE OR BELIEF OF VICTIM'S AGE. --The perpetrator's ignorance of the victim's age, the victim's misrepresentation of his or her age, or the perpetrator's bona fide belief of the victim's age cannot be raised as a defense in a prosecution under this section.

(4) LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS BATTERY. --A person who:
...
(a) Engages in sexual activity with a person 12 years of age or older but less than 16 years of age; or
....
commits lewd or lascivious battery, a felony of the second degree [punishable by up to 15 years imprisonment]....

This is strict liability, not an issue of consent or a prior sexual relationship.

In the wild, wonderful world of the internet, there is no one quite so vapid as the Youtube commenter.

Video is fake. Decent acting job but crying without tears? closed my case without telling me (how did she know it was closed if they didn't tell her)?

Don't buy it.

Video is fake. Decent acting job but crying without tears? closed my case without telling me (how did she know it was closed if they didn't tell her)?

Don't buy it.

12:53- and given the low bar set by commenters on the cnn "ticker" and pretty much any ESPN story, that's quite an accomplishment.

Hey, 12:56--It is not hard to imagine they closed her case without notifying her, she had not heard anything for a while but was concerned and inquired about it, and found out that way that it was closed. Come on, use some common sense.

Why wouldn't you name the rapist? Isn't the whole point draw attention to the rape? Why not warn other girls?
I suspect that the reason this wasn't prosecuted is that there was no corroborating evidence of sex. Doesn't matter if she was 15 if he says all they did was make out.

1:13

"The prosecutor, who declined to comment to CNN, concluded that the teen and the 23-year-old had consensual sex, according to the case file."

So he did conclude they had sex. Which is a second-degree felony in Florida, consent not a defense.

This prosecutor sounds retarded:

From the article:

" The prosecutor, who declined to comment to CNN, concluded that the teen and the 23-year-old had consensual sex, according to the case file.

Florida law states that a 15-year-old cannot give consent to sex. And though Crystal was 15 at the time of the alleged forced encounter, the prosecutor wrote that the case would not be prosecuted because Crystal was "a mere 1 month away" from turning 16, when it would be "legal to give consent," according to documents."

Uh, arguing that the victim was "a mere 1 month away" would get laughed out of court by the defendant if he tried it, and yet the freaking prosecutor is makign that argument? What a goon.

good point, 1:40. the prosecutor is a total retard.

Question: Does Florida or any other jurisdiction give you by statute a vested right in good-faith prosecution or something similar? I.e. is there a state or states in which someone could bring suit against the prosecutor's office for not prosecuting a solid case? I doubt anywhere does, and even if they did, I imagine the burden on the plaintiff would be pretty high, but I could see it happening.

They should at least go after the guy for statutory rape.

What if we held mugging cases to the same evidentiary standards as rape cases? If you I.D. they guy, he can get convicted, sometimes even if he isn't found with your property. But here, if someone, including a 15-y.o. child, says the sex wasn't consensual, there has to be physical evidence of force? They don't have to find the weapon to take a witnesses' word in an ADW case, why should they have to find bruises on someone alleging non-aggravated rape? Or statutory rape.

Ridiculous.

2:03 VAWA used to let you sue the pros. office, but that part was struck down.

Read the newly updated video description. Apparently, the "user" says its a fake. Or she got her account hacked. Who knows.

2:08 -

Oh yeah. That's interesting. If I remember, VAWA was struck down on the grounds that it was outside the scope of the Commerce Power and that it did not fit under the remedial powers of Section 5 of the 14th Amendment. The Section 5 part would be particularly important since Congress was abrogating state sovereign immunity. I suppose, though, that a state could abrogate its own immunity for this type of thing. Maybe they would have little motivation to do so, but if you had enough stories like this, you might get some political pressure.

- 2:03

"One month shy of 16?"

DA offices should raise their pay to high five-figures so that they can compete for law students who actually have brains.

For those pointing out the inconsistency between the strict liability statutory rape law and the prosecutor's claims that the case would not go forward because the sex was consensual - technically you are correct; the consent should not matter. Keep in mind, though, while statutory rape laws are largely paternalistic, they also serve the function of making it easier for prosecutors to put people who rape children (have forcible sex with them against their subjective consent) in jail. To many prosecutors, this is the point of these laws. Thus, if the prosecutor concludes that the sex was consensual (ignoring the notion that a fifteen year old cannot legally consent), it would make sense, assuming you have this understanding of such laws, not to prosecute.

"One month shy of 16?"

DA offices should raise their pay to high five-figures so that they can compete for law students who actually have brains.

1:40,
Ever heard of prosecutorial discretion? It means that prosecutors can exercise judgment not to prosecute cases even if the defendant is legally guilty. If she was one month away from being able to give legal consent, and the prosecutor concluded that she did in fact give actual consent, it seems within his discretion to say, "Meh, close enough; I'm not going to ruin some poor 23-year-old's life over one month."

re: the changed message saying that the tape is a fake -

I don't think that the user who posted the particular copy of the video that Lat linked to is the original poster of the video. I am basing this on the tags that the user put on it: "16 year old girl should lrn2stay in kitchen." I suppose, that if the hacked user profile theory is correct, then this could be just another thing that was changed.

113-

Though this may be giving a 15-year-old more credit than she is due, if she had named the alleged rapist, she could be open to a suit for libel (and/or slander, depending on how a scumbag plaintiffs' attorney wants to twist the definition of "spoken"). Truth may be a defense, but the fact that the DA found the sex act to be consensual would be a "bad fact" for the girl.

Turning the table, I wonder if there is a suit the girl could bring against the alleged rapist? Intentional infliction of emotional distress? Assault? Conversion (think about it)?

As for the DA, he clearly is not capable of thinking outside of the box. In addition to the statutory rape charge, depending on the type of drug allegedly used, there could be felony distribution charge?

The circumstances are defined as "ongoing sexual relationship" i.e. more than just the incident "one month away," if you want to count that one-month as a reason not to prosecute.

I don't think any 23-year-old that is engaging in sexual relationships with someone who is 7-8 years younger is particularly deserving of mercy or discretion. Florida doesn't either - if you are a 24-year-old sleeping with a 16 or 17 year-old, that's also a second-degree felony regardless of consent.

Hell, using this dumb DA's argument, he might as well take into account how many months away from 24 the suspect is, since he considered how many months away from 16 the alleged victim was when deciding not to prosecute on the *applicable* strict liabilty statutory rape charge.

None of this is particularly inconsistent with my impressions of most DA's.

As soon as I started reading this my first thought was that is sounds like a relationship gone bad and now this girl is trying to get revenge because he promised her he would marry her or whatever. Yes statutory rape is wrong (and a crime) but where the girl consents it is not nearly the same thing as actual violent rape, especially when she was almost at the age of consent and not 12 years old. Whether or not I agree with the prosecutor's decision not to pursue the case, I understand it. To use up the time and resources to pursue a statutory case when she was one month away from the cutoff could reasonably be seen as a waste. If she feels so strongly she should pursue a civil claim.

I find it a bit hard to believe that this girl is driven to tears by an actually, if not legally, consensual sexual relationship. As to 2:41's arguments, I suspect it's easier to second-guess such decisions from the sidelines than it is when you've got a young man's future in your hands. Looking at the totality of the circumstances, which are not available to us, the DA may well have concluded that this guy just wasn't deserving of a felony conviction that would be with him for the rest of his life (and sex offender registration, perhaps?) Realizing that we're lacking the facts and only getting the girl's side of the story here, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that judgment call.

"If she feels so strongly she should pursue a civil claim."
Is there a strict-liability civil claim she could pursue? Presumably there was no tortious battery if she consented.*

*Contrary to popular belief, I don't think it's quite accurate to say that minors are "legally incapable of giving consent to sex." Rather, my understanding is that statutory rape laws simply remove consent as an affirmative defense. Thus, consent would still be an applicable defense to a civil action for battery if that understanding is correct (which it might not be).

I thought prosecutorial discretion was to be used by the prosecutor to determine whether there was sufficient EVIDENCE of the crime.....not whether the law is worth enforcing. He's basically collaterally attacking the law and saying, "15 years and 11 months" is sufficient to give consent as opposed to 16 years. That's the Legislature's job, not the prosecutors.

2:55,
Well, you're wrong. Prosecutorial discretion means the authority to decide whether to bring charges. There's no "discretion" involved in deciding whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain a verdict; that may require an educated judgment but it's a yes or no question.

2:50, i'd be more willing to agree with you if the guy were 18 or 19. I don't know... 23 just strikes me as awfully old to be sleeping with a 15 year old. That would mean he has graduated college (assuming he went), while she is somewhere around a freshman in highschool. Without knowing any more details (which could of course change my mind), that seems quite predatory.

Fake.

"I thought prosecutorial discretion was to be used by the prosecutor to determine whether there was sufficient EVIDENCE of the crime.....not whether the law is worth enforcing. He's basically collaterally attacking the law and saying, "15 years and 11 months" is sufficient to give consent as opposed to 16 years. That's the Legislature's job, not the prosecutors."

Genarlow Wilson says hi.

2:50 - seriously. age differences matter less as people get older, but at 23, he should not be dating or sleeping with 15-year-olds, period. i shudder to think about how immature this guy must be that he wants girls that young. it's either that or he's a creepy predator.

"[U]nfortunately, a lot of juries still think that if a victim had a relationship with their attacker, then they cannot be raped by that person."

Yeah, it couldn't possibly be that juries just find such a "victim"/witness's factual testimony less than credible under most circumstances, even though they understand that they could, as a legal matter, have been raped.

Weren't we all just expressing our outrage at the RACIST EVIL DA who prosecuted Genarlow Wilson for consensual sex with a minor? Weren't we supposed to be angry he didn't use his discretion to decline to prosecute? But here it's a SEXIST EVIL DA who refuses to prosecute consensual sex with a minor.

It's so hard to keep track of who the Official Victims are these days. Thank heavens the media is here to help.

This girl is faking, poorly. And "living in poverty?" Come on. She's not a starving African with Malaria; she has a laptop.

7:30 - Ummm, maybe she got it from that program that sends $100 laptops to Africa.

9th judicial district of FL is a mess for millions of reasons. It's a great place to get a DUI because juries are pick and go day of and officers rarely show up for trials since all pleas (and we all know 90% of criminal cases result in pleas...) would occur at that moment of PTC. The pay is crappy compared to other districts and the caseload is overwhelming even compared to the overwhelming caseloads of most SA offices. This prosecutor probably looked at this case which probably came to him as a non arrest file, a file that police submit to FL SA offices and then ASAs decide whether to file charges, and he looked at it and just realized there was nothing to go on and no way to win at trial.

It's sad, obviously, for the girl but a harsh reality for many victims of crime.

Maybe I'm missing something, but how is this arguably a fake when the DA's office has acknowledged it is a real case?

Or maybe the DA is in on it too, because the DA loves getting known as a prosecutor who lets 23 year olds rape 15 year olds.

Morons.

Lat, do me a favor: The next time there is a real story where someone (especially a minor) has been emotionally traumatized, don't report it. It's not what people come here for. When people read your blog, they seem unable to distinguish between a top-20 law firm *screwing* it's associates our of $2.58 in bonus money, and a 16-year-old girl speaking out about being sexually violated. You would never say the things you've said above in front of friends, colleagues, or family members, and you should not say ing anonymously online either.

Disgusting. I just hope she gets the help she needs.

"Weren't we all just expressing our outrage at the RACIST EVIL DA who prosecuted Genarlow Wilson for consensual sex with a minor?"
Guess again. Wilson was prosecuted for aggravated child molestation, not statutory rape. Statutory rape would've had him in-and-out in 12 months, which, given the protracted length of the legal battle, would've been time served. He also wouldn't've had to register as a sex offender. ACM has a min sentence of 10 years, with sex offender registration attached.
So we're talking about two completely different stories.

And word to 05/18 at 4:21 PM

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0516081crystal3.html

there is the transcript of the court hearing/case where the little girly said herself it was consentual