Don't Shoot Him, He's Insolent

We received the following petition in our e-mail earlier this week:

Petition by Les Anderson

Elkhart, Indiana

94,469

Supporters

Sign Les’ petition

When my son Zach met a girl through an online dating app, she said she was 17 years old and lived about twenty minutes away. The two decided to meet up and had consensual sex. Zach was a typical 19-year-old studying computer science at Community College -- until he found out that the girl had lied about her age and was really 14. Though the girl admitted to lying about her age and even her parents agreed the encounter was completely consensual and that Zach didn't do anything wrong, Zach found himself convicted of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct charges. He'll now have to be on a sex offender registry for the next 25 years. He just finished serving 90 days in jail. Now he's on probation for the next 5 years and he's lost all of his work toward his computer science degree -- part of his sentence is that he can't use a computer or smartphone or live in a house with internet access. He can't even talk to anyone under 17. This has effectively ruined Zach's life. And it's clear to anyone who hears his story that he is not a sexual predator who needs to be on a sex offender list for 25 years. He's a teenager who met another teen like so many others do, online. In court, the girls parents didn't just ask the judge to show Zach leniency, they called for the case against him to be dropped altogether. Zach plead guilty but only because we were told he would be a candidate for Holmes Youthful Trainee Act status. The HYTA allows first-time offenders older than 17 but not yet 21 to avoid harsher penalties like the state-mandated 25-year listing on the sex offender registry. But the judge refused to listen to us, Zach, or the parents of the girl. Now Zach must live his life with a scarlet letter. He has to walk down the street and think: ‘Am I too close to a school? Is there a child who’s close to me? It's not right and it's not what the law was intended to do. As parents, all we want is for our son to be able to pursue his dreams and ambitions in life. We want him to be able to live a normal life. So we're asking that the Judge, the Prosecutor's office and the MDOC to drop all charges or grant HYTA to Zach. And we need your help. Please sign our petition to support Zach and say to the Judge, the Prosecutors office and the MDOC that the sentence given here is wrong, harsh, and unfair.

Sad, isn't it? Oh, not the young man's plight, but that his parents and about 95K other idiots think that this young man is being singled out.

In Alabama, there is only a two-tiered system; the young man would also be on the sex offender list for life if convicted here. While we do feel some small amount of sympathy for him, we have to ask:

1. Why would Zach trust some girl he didn't know to tell him the truth?
2. How did this crime come to light if no one was complaining?
3. Why are these parents so vocal about his sentence, but never taught their son about the law?

Parents, please tell your sons about the charge of Second Degree rape. A local news site just today posted charges against a Tim Vandiver of Killen who was similarly accused of statutory rape.

It really doesn't look good on a resume'.



Shoalanda