As a follow-up to today’s piece about crime and punishment in America, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that 41-year-old Valynne Bowers was sentenced to 30 years for having an affair with a 14 year old student.
Bowers had no prior criminal record, she completed sex-offender therapy, and many former students and parents wrote letters of support on her behalf. Evaluations show she is not a sexual predator and is not a risk to re-offend.
Her defense attorney was “a little shocked” by the sentence. He had requested probation and a year in jail.
Judge John Morris said, “This is about a community’s response to conduct … deemed unacceptable.”
“During a preliminary hearing in 2009, the boy testified he initiated contact with Bowers in December 2008 by showing up to her after-school math study sessions, where he got her cell phone number and began texting and talking to her.”
Neither he nor his parents attended Bowers’ sentencing.
{ 67 comments }
I’m aghast! “This is about a community’s response to conduct deemed unacceptable.” Loud music would probably also be unacceptable (probably only get you 10-15, though).
LOL
My comment is semi-offtopic because it is not about consensual relationships. Instead it is about the amount of punishment :
I am sorry but I had to laugh because of the absurdity of sentence relations: Here in Europe many convicts get 1 to 2 years probation (!) for real (and brutal) rape of adults or minors (especially if the convicts around minors or young adults themselves. Why? Because many state judges believe that
1) a little punishment is enough (low retributive justice)
2) potential criminals are not deterred by punishment
3) the criminal could change, punishment would only hinder that
4) punishment will not deter the convict from future crimes.
It seems as in the USA it’s exactly the opposite.
PS: 30years as punishment would not even be possibly in Europe for murder cases…
Ridiculously lenient sentences are just another aspect of anarcho-tyranny. In anarchy, violent sociopaths would be killed in flagrante delicto or driven into exile. The State extends all manner of extruded, rococo rights through its compulsory taxation and monopoly powers.
As to the case in point, the judge is ‘sending a message’ to keep the State from losing legitimacy. Everybody knows public education is dominated by shallow, stupid women who get caught in these messes with hilarious, pathetic frequency. This disrupts the narrative of the welfare State that heterosexual men are depraved predators and women are the Wise Nurturers of future generations.
April 1st was earlier.
So true. I remember when tennis star Monica Seles was stabbed on court with a 9 inch knife. According to Wikipedia, the perp got two years’ probation and psychological treatment. That was in Germany.
Some may think it shallow to say it, but an adult woman having consensual sex with a teen-age boy is a different situation than an adult man taking advantage of a teen girl. I’m sure the boy had a great time being hot for teacher. Unless there was real harm done to the boy in a non-consensual manner this sentence is outlandish to say the least. If it was in fact consensual, I don’t see where the crime is at all. This is another reminder that the state has laws that have nothing to do with property or personal violation, but instead is just the brutal enforcement of poorly thought out subjective morality on everyone. 30 years in prison for non-violent consensual behavior that offends some squares’ “moral code”? What a nightmare.
The US justice system all comes down to one thing : votes.
As long as justice and politics are intermixed there can be no justice,
Regards, Don
All hail the Democratic State!
“…. an adult woman having consensual sex with a teen-age boy is a different situation than an adult man taking advantage of a teen girl”
Having a hard time grasping how your analysis can be so spot on, yet you buy into this societally-programmed nonsense. How does anything in your (excellent) analysis change–i.e., a mutually consensual, voluntary association, now becoming one of “advantage taking” (and criminally prosecutable?) — merely by virtue of the genders being reversed.
Teenage girls are more emotionally mature than teenage boys… there’s just this prevailing opinion that girls are delicate little flowers.
Perhaps more emotionally mature, but generally boys are looking for sex more than girls, at least in my experience.
I suppose that may not change some of the issues that arise (pregnancy/etc.) but the boy doesn’t have to deal with that in the same way a girl would.
I’m not saying that we should automatically treat 14 year old girls as victims in these situations, but I don’t think it’s wrong to say there are differences in how people are affected that are based on gender.
“but generally boys are looking for sex more than girls, at least in my experience.
I suppose that may not change some of the issues that arise (pregnancy/etc.) but the boy doesn’t have to deal with that in the same way a girl would. ”
True. Therefore women generally spoken tend to be more selective. See evolutionary psychology (parental investment).
How predictable that somebody would actually dare to defend the sexist double standard. Yes, I think the boy probably enjoyed the consensual relationship with his teacher, but the same is true (probably moreso) for many of the girls who go around seducing older men. I certainly don’t support these silly “age of consent” laws for either males or females (as they falsely assume that so-called “children” who know exactly what they are doing are being “taken advantage of” by wicked adults). It is actually quite rare for the State to give a women the same sentence that a man would get for the same crime. Certainly, the sexists that run our media provide much more sympathetic coverage to female criminals (compare the media coverage of men who murder-suicide their families with women who do the same awful crime) and even sometimes treat female-on-male violent crime as a joke (when it isn’t being trivialized).
Once we get rid of the State and it can no longer corrupt justice, I hope that we will treat both men and women equally under the law (this is, of course, the only legitimate form of equality). This is why I believe that libertarianism is incompatible with feminism, as the feminists are only for equality when that equality benefits women (they have abolished “male privilege” but certainly don’t want to get rid of “female privilege”). I also hope that we will do away with the ridiculous claim that “teens” somehow do not know what they are consenting to (and therefore must be “protected” from responsibility for their own choices).
Old enough to vote/drive/drink (or not, depending on country) but not to consent to sex.
This is the competence of the judiciary system, American courts. Sex without consent is rape. The student cannot consent when orders are given by his teacher, who is his master or superior. In America if you enslaved someone and have a consensual relationship with that person, the enslaved is raped because when enslaved, the enslaved cannot consent when orders are given by masters.
Lolz. I guess when a student admits to initiating a relationship he’s being raped? Get lost, fascist.
Sadly, this is how statutory rape actually works.
Blah, “enslave”? Seriously? If there is force involved or threat of force the argument may be valid. If there is threat of some other harm (losing job/school) then I can see that too, but this is surely not the case with any proposition. In this particular case it was the student who started it…so there was no “order” given.
Note to self: never move to Utah.
As a Utah Lifer … it really isn’t as bad as you think. Utah is full of freedom loving people. Their main problem is not applying principles of liberty consistently across the board. They are willing to apply principles of liberty to economics and guns but not to foreign policy and the drug war, etc. I believe that it is mostly due to education. The Mormon faith is actually really big on Liberty. From their own scriptures they believe that people are free “to act for themselves and not to be acted upon.” Some in the state have taken their own moral values and decided to legislate in order to force others to behave in certain ways. It is the same problem that we have across all states, and or countries. Utahns for the most part don’t trust government and once they become more educatated on natural law and non aggression principle they tend to make an easy transition and become very dedicated at applying principles of liberty to all parts of society.
“Utahns for the most part don’t trust government and once they become more educatated on natural law and non aggression principle they tend to make an easy transition and become very dedicated at applying principles of liberty to all parts of society.”
That is lovely to hear. Oklahomans love to profess undying love for freedom, but in practice only support the freedoms practiced by white, Christian, drug-abstinent, naturalized citizens.
Not sure how this comes under the heading of economics, so I Googled the issue. This came up:
“Currently in the United States, 1 in every 31 adult persons is either in jail or prison or on parole or probation. That amounts to 7.3 million Americans and a cost that exceeds $68 billion annually.”
…….”The total number of U.S. citizens accountable to the American correction system is the highest in the world. It even exceeds the combined Soviet Union and China prison population during the height of their dominate Communist Regime. Are American citizens really that bad?”
The cost seems wrong. At around $100k each per year the cost is more like $730bn.
The more pertinent question is why is this so? What failing is causing this? It cannot simply be a capricious justice system (such as seems to the case with this teacher), there must be some deep seated societal failing that is resulting in anti-social behaviour.
Perhaps anti-social behavior on the part of judges/law makers? Jailing people for consuming a variety of plants comes to mind.
Consider this – smoking a single joint of marijuana is an offense that lands you in prison. The vast majority of those in prison or on parole are non-violent offenders, usually someone who consumed a substance that is deemed illegal. There are also numerous other reasons you can land in a prison or on parole that have nothing to do with harming another:
Failing to pay your parking ticket to the State
Being unable to afford to water your lawn
Yawning in a courtroom
Throwing tomatoes at a public speaker
Just run a Google search and you’ll find a load of examples. This gives you an idea of who is in prison and out on parole. Hell, you can actually get tossed into a jail if you fail to have $10 in cash on your person when going to Pensacola.
Ooh, found another great one:
You can get a jail sentence for being in the same room as someone who has a cell phone go off.
“It even exceeds the combined Soviet Union and China prison population during the height of their dominate Communist Regime”
They would have had the US beat, but rather than jail many 10s of millions more, they just outright killed them.
The state of Utah has a highly exaggerated sense of sexual propriety, no doubt because of the extremely bad publicity they received from past incidents of notorious sexual predators who evaded punishment by marrying (or “sealing with”) their teen-aged victims.
My problem with this is:
(a) it’s certainly not consistent with plenty of other sentences that have been handed down
(b) I’m not sure I agree with the length of it…30 years seems too much for this circumstance
That being said, I’m a little surprised at the implication being made here. Even the title of the post implies that there was some special detail, such as the “victim” happened to be two days younger than 18 years, and the “offender” was a 20 year old substitute instructor. We’re talking about a 41 year old woman and a 14 year old boy. I’m really not sure I would feel justified in calling this a “consensual relationship” even if the kid did flirt with his teacher.
There is plenty of room for debate as to where we draw the line on at what age can a human being is considered to have the cognitive ability to be held fully responsible for their actions…but I really don’t feel comfortable just resting on “well, he initiated it.”
I genuinely wonder if the reaction here would be the same if the sexes were reversed.
Age of consent is arbitrary, though. These kind of things should be settled on a case-by-case basis, e.g. based on how “mature” the plaintiff is in other situations, or perhaps based on biological considerations or whatever. At the level of common law. There are obvious cases where consent is not involved but an imaginary line in the sand isn’t going to make determining it any the easier.
On the other hand, considering how much parents protract the infantilisation of their children these days and how monumentally government schools fail at educating kids and developing their cognitive faculties, critical thinking ability and common sense, I can see why some people think of 14 y.o’s as mere children, even if in truth they are not.
I agree with Inquisitor:
Some teenagers at around 14 are more child than adolescent. But others are not. I think it depends on the circumstances. Stating that everyone under 18 is a total child and therefore to be treated as such is nonsense.
But nonetheless the sentence itself is ridiculous: 30years for that?
Some 14 year olds may be mere children. But many can also be capable of adult-like seductive behavior. Certainly these things should be decided on a case by case, and history and canon law should inform current decisions. Seriously, in my community in Northern Illinois I am certain that the majority of 15 year old girls have had sex, whether with their peers or not. I distinclty remember having a conference with an attractive high school teacher who every one knew was making a run on my 15 year old daughter, and I indicated that I was aware of what was going on. He went to a new school the next year. Nevertheless, 30 years is ridiculous. Weird stuff goes on in Utah. That’s a given.
Why do you think that the age _difference_ matters at all? The justification for criminalizing such relationships is that the young person is supposed to be unable to give consent, which, if it were true at all, would not depend on the age of his sexual partner.
While there is no sound argument for statutory rape laws, mere distaste for age-gap relationships is surely the most bigoted and contemptible excuse for throwing people in jail.
You mean you think an adult and a child ought to legally have sex as long as it “consensual”?
I don’t say that anyone “ought to have sex”. If you meant something like “ought to be able to have sex legally” then, yes.
Speaking as someone who was once a sexually promiscuous teenage girl, I hope we can one day get rid of the stupid statutory rape laws. Age and gender shouldn’t matter, as long as we aren’t talking about prepubescent children. The whole idea of “teenager” didn’t exist until a hundred years ago. Now we have twenty-somethings who haven’t grown up! The entire idea that I cannot know if someone is old enough to have sex unless I look at their government-issued ID is completely ridiculous.
So your criteria would be what? The size of genitalia?
Come up with a standard and I’ll immediately disagree with you. There isn’t an objective level to compare against, and as such, attempting to criminalize such actions based on age are unreasonable. Considering OCED nations range anywhere from 12 to 20 (including 16-18 in the US alone depending on the State), it’s hard to argue there IS a reasonable standard anywhere.
Great. So I’ll ask you the same question. Your criteria would be what?
You base it on the individual and their own maturity, which would have to be judged by various tests and the testimony of those who know them. You stop making one size fits all rules because one size doesn’t fit all and justice isn’t served by rules that don’t take into account the differences between people.
If a 14 year old murders someone and experts deem this person know exactly what he/she does do you also state that a general rule should apply that people under 18 are mere children and therefore cannot be held responsible for their actions?
What about gambling laws? Drinking laws? The are all general rules…
“Criteria” as you seem to call arbitrary laws should only be used when no other more precise methodology is available, in the case of sexual and mental maturity there are(we’re always using them with mentally impaired people in psychiatric evaluations).
How about: whether consent was actually given, in fact?
@Matthew & Anti-IP
Okay, so we assume that it’s okay for adults to have sex with some kids a quarter of their age, and not others. Great. So how exactly is the adult supposed to know whether he/she will get dragged to court if anyone finds out about the affair?
Is everyone going to go through psychological testing every 6 months and given a seal of approval or stamped “off limits” based on their individual maturity? Because I’d kind of like to know if I’m breaking the law beforehand…as opposed to some court deciding whether what I did was illegal after the fact. And for that matter, how exactly are we even determining if someone should be put on trial in first place?
Okay, we get rid of the ‘age of consent’, an awful politically mandated lie spawned from collectivist thinking.
Then, what will be the criteria for determining whether a given act is lawful sex or rape? Simply: the facts of the case. This is already the situation when ‘real’ rape is alleged. We would merely have ended the practice of prosecuting people for fictitious crimes.
First: You will never know for certainty if something is deemed acceptable by everyone in social relationships. How do you know that sex with a drunken adult person is always acceptable? How do you know if something is considered rape? Just by looking at the individual situation.
Second: “Okay, so we assume that it’s okay for adults to have sex with some kids a quarter of their age, and not others.”
No, I do not assume that. I assume that whether a sexual relationship is okay or not depends on the maturity of a person, if she is able to give consent to an action.
Imagine yourself in the situation of deciding whether or not it is okay to leave your child at home for a while without anyone watching: You have to decide if your child is responsible enough (on a rational basis) to stay alone for that time (and not getting itself into any trouble).
The same goes here: If it is clear that a person is able to take responsibility for herself/himself than why should others be in charge of this person.
It is also clear for me that children under a certain maturity age (especially before adolescence) are not able to make decisions regarding sexuality, drug use, etc,. Therefore there cannot be consent in any such relationship/behavior for them.
Another thing: What about adult people with severe mental disabilities? Do you think that just because someone reached a certain age of consent prescribed by the state means that all adult persons are responsible persons no matter what?
What about intoxicated adults?
Well J. Murray If we’re to use the Koran and the Prophet Muhammad as our guide then the age of consent is 9 years of age. How about that?
@Duke of Anarchy
Just “the facts of the case” huh? So when that 45 year old guy has anal sex with that 6 year old girl and then tells her not to tell anyone or he’ll kill her parents, we’re gonna just wait for her to come forward and press charges so that we can haul him into court and hear “the facts of the case” before we decide if the sodomy was consensual? Yeah I totally see that working favorably.
@Anti-IP
I hope you realize those two statements are not mutually exclusive. The fact that you assume whether a sexual relationship is okay depends only on the supposed “maturity” of those involved absolutely does assume that it’s okay for adults to have sex with some kids and not others.
And the cat comes out of the bag. So really all you’re arguing for is a lower “age of consent.” You should have just said that. It would have saved us a lot of time if you avoided all this nonsense about basing the legality of sex with a child on “the individual and their own maturity” and “if experts deem this person know exactly what he/she does”.
I’d like to know how you imagine the law works now in such a case. It seems pretty clear to me that, if the victim of a rape (of whatever age) does not come forward (for whatever reason), and there are no other witnesses (or the witnesses also keep quiet), then there will not be any prosecution. No piece of legislation can ever change that.
You seem either to be a very dishonest person driving an agenda here or just too stupid to understand logical arguments. Either way everything you wrote and stated regarding my arguments IS WRONG.
You are wrong: I stated that I do not assume in EVERY case for a person of a certain age and mental state to have a sexual relationship with another person to be rightful because for that CONSENT is necessary. And if a person is able to give CONSENT depends on THAT PERSON (= Maturity regarding this kind of decision).
After all there would be no rape in your world because adults are older than age of consent and that is all that matters.
Do you understand that?
Another thing: We are not talking about kids here but about ADOLESCENTS. If you do not understand the difference than just look it up.
And then read my statement again.
You are wrong again. I wonder if your errors are intended.
I am not for a general state prescribed age of consent at all regarding adolescents. If you do not get the difference between children and adolescents it is just your own ignorance.
I am for judgments based on individual facts: In many cases eg. a 14 year old person is NOT mature enough for giving consent in such decision types. But that does not mean that every person in that age group should be treated the same. Each case has to be individually looked at.
It is the same with “driving licenses” or “drug use” or “working commitments” or “gambling” or “trade” and so on. General state prescribed ages of ability/maturity do not work there because the ignore the individual.
After all maturity, abilities, intelligence and so on ARE INDIVIDUAL.
“You seem either to be a very dishonest person driving an agenda…”
It seems to me shifting the discussion about teen sexuality into one about the “anal rape of six-year-old children” is a recurring tactic among those with just such an agenda
Sure, no problem. The way it works now, if a 45 year old guy has anal sex with a 6 year old girl, the man has broken the law. There is no question about it. There is no “well…this one seems pretty mature. And she said she loves me. So I think it’s alright.” There is no “is she mature enough? Is it illegal to have sex with this girl right now? I don’t know. A jury will have to decide that if I ever get taken to court.”
The girl does not have to press charges, or testify, or convince a judge or jury that she didn’t know what she was doing or wasn’t mature enough to give consent. We do not need to waste time and resources having some “expert” observe the child and give his “expert” opinion that no, this particular 6 year old girl is not mature enough to reasonably give consent to have and adult man insert his penis into her rectum. We do not need to put the the child’s family through the humiliation and utter idiocy of having to testify to the fact that they believe she is too immature to be having sex with men in their 40′s.
Are you seriously arguing that the legality of an act should be left up to a subjective court decision after the fact?
I thought I made my point quite clearly elsewhere in the thread; however, I’ll give it one more try.
The legality of a (sexual) act depends on whether or not someone’s right to control his/her own body was violated. In other words, whether that person was a consenting participant or a victim of rape.
If you think that concern for justice and human rights is idiocy and a waste of time, then your support for the present system is understandable.
Who except you is talking about a 6 year old being able to give consent in such a decision? You have to be a moron to state that! Read there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolescence
And get a grasp what HUMAN (and not state regulated) individual facts could determine if someone is able to make a consensual decision. Psychosocial and biological development seem to be foreign to you.
Your statements have nothing to do with libertarianism.
My above post is @John James. Just to make that clear (as if it isn’t clear enough – nobody in this thread made such stupid arguments except him)
Did you guys read the article? Interesting note: the boy also had sex with a different teacher when he was 13 years old. The dude’s clearly got game. My hat’s off to him.
I heard a Larry the Cable Guy bit on Sirius on the way home from the office on this subject. He said with all this student-teacher sex, he wanted to re-enroll in the 4th grade and admonished those students dumb enough to talk about it.
You mean the exact same joke pulled by every comedian for the past 5 years?
Then again I didn’t hear the segment; Maybe he phrased it in a new, amusing way.
This is a problem with the fact that public schools are a world completely divorced from reality and only pretends to safeguard your ever so precious angels against the bad, bad world. This kid will get an everlasting high-five from his peers in the “good” state correctional facility, but the teacher gets 30 years from her peers in the bad state correctional facility. Sure it’s strange behavior for an adult, but is bizarre lecherism tantamount to a death sentence? The kid will be 18 when he is released, but now that teacher won’t graduate until she is 71 years old. Does she still get her state pension after the state pen?
Excellent points, Jim.
She will get paroled or pardoned, but answer on the pension is probably not.
I’m a little confused about the sentencing. In several places in the article it says she received “up to 30 years,” but then there’s this quote from the article, “Judge John Morris gave Bowers the maximum by ordering the two terms to run consecutively.” She pleaded guilty to two counts with each punishable by up to 15 years. So is she getting “up to 30 years” with the precise time TBD or is she getting the maximum like it says from the quote?
If she truly is getting 30 years, whatever happened to asking oneself, “Does the punishment fit the crime?”
She was sentenced to 30 years. If you’re really interested in if she’ll really spend that much time in prison, you could research what percentage of sentences are actually fully served. (quite low)
That’s beside the point. The simple fact that a judge had the gaul to assign any prison time for an action that can hardly be classified as a crime is problematic. There were no violations of life, liberty, or property, and as such, any punishment above and beyond 0 is unreasonable.
What exactly does that have to do with his question?
J. Murray:
It’s true that we have many nonsensical laws and a criminal justice system that leaves much to be desired. But nothing you’ve said is in any way convincing that we jail so many for non-crimes or that we have far too many people in prisons. I think that, if you were actually to research the matter, you’d find almost ZERO folks in prison merely for smoking a joint or for “yawning in court” or any such. If anything, we have an enormous population of violent (and likely recidivist) people at large; they may be out on bail, on parole, in an interim period between sentences in a virtual life of criminal behavior, etc.
Nor is the prison-population comparison with other nations instructive in this regard. Simple arithmetic in estimating the likely comparison with most other countries would have to take into account that we’ve got a majority (at least to the present) population with a tendency to commit criminal acts to roughly the same extent (at 68% of pop.), 13% that commit such acts at 8 times that rate, 16% at 3-1/2 times, and 2-1/2% at only half that rate. Run the numbers–and you’ll find we should EXPECT our prisons to put away about 2 to 2-1/2 times as many as those of most other modern nations. That would as well support the idea that sentences should be longer and more commonly enforced (though that has its own set of problems).
The main thing I wanted to convey is that a case (as for effective decriminalization of various substances) is not helped by supporters’ exaggerations; when they’re exposed, the case is weakened in the public sphere.
21.6% of convicted inmates in jails in 2002 (latest available data by type of offense) were in for violent crimes.
This from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. This to me says we jail WAY too many people unnecessarily.
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