Moral Outrage

Dixon was set to graduate at the top of his Pepperell High School class in Lindale, Ga., his 3.96 GPA and National Honor Society membership enough to earn a football scholarship to Vanderbilt University. Instead he wound up serving 15 months (2003-04) after a jury found him guilty of statutory rape and aggravated child molestation of a 15-year-old girl. During the trial in May 2003, Dixon’s lawyer said th

A unique and troubling legal case is unfolding in Williamson County. A young man named Jean Karlo Ponzanelli is in the county jail in Georgetown, facing a long prison term. That sentence would be followed by 10 years on the Texas Sex Offender Registry, except that, in this case, Ponzanelli stands to be deported to Mexico following his prison term. So, what sort of crime could command such punishment? Well, it t

I’m happy to be a member of a recently formed Internet Safety Technical Task Force, but it has caused me to feel a bit of a disconnect. One of the major goals of the task force is to explore whether it’s possible to use technology to verify the age of people signing up for social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to give parents more control over whether their kids can use these services and to avo

The age of sexual consent in Canada has risen from 14 to 16 under a new law that is part of the Conservative government’s omnibus anti-crime legislation. For Diane Sowden of Coquitlam, changes to the Criminal Code didn’t come soon enough. When her daughter became pregnant at the age of 14 by a 27-year-old drug dealer, Sowden turned to police for help, only to discover she had no legal recourse. At 14, h