Moral Outrage

Readers of this column know that in my former life as a Georgia legislator I introduced a bill, later altered by the Georgia Senate and made law, that eventually created the legal snarl surrounding Genarlow Wilson. He’s the young man now serving a 10-year sentence for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 17. It was neither my intent nor the Legislature’s that anyone be so p

A Williston man facing allegations he had sexual intercourse with a teenage girl the state placed in his home is treading new legal ground and employing a unique defense strategy, claiming the girl was not a foster child so therefore he did nothing wrong. Lawyer Bob Katims contends the girl did not qualify under state law as a foster child at the time of the sexual contact, and even if she did, the 17-year-old

Two Patton Middle School girls who were patted and poked on their breasts and buttocks – by 13-year-old boys now being prosecuted on sexual abuse and harassment charges – are being victimized again by the public and the media, according to their lawyer. The case has focused nationwide attention on Yamhill County. It has opened debate about whether adolescent horseplay is being wrongly treated as a s

Consensual teenaged sexual experimentation is an activity that is labeled by most states as child sexual abuse, child molestation, sexual assault and statutory rape. Under most state laws it is a felony crime, accompanied by sex offender registration. The legislative belief is that these relationships are coercive and unhealthy even if they are consensual. –By Laurie PetersonMost local governments send tee

Marcus Dixon had it all. He was an honor roll student, a talented high school football star with a full scholarship to Vanderbilt University. Kristie Brown was a happy sophomore at the same school, who loved fishing, the outdoors and had dreams of becoming a nurse. It took a jury only 20 minutes to acquit Marcus of the rape, battery, assualt and false imprisonment charges. But he was found guilty of statutory rape