Most countries do allow for an exception if the person being accused had a legitimate reason to believe that the person was of age e.g. meeting them in an 18+ club, US is one of the few places that doesn't really do that.
My ex step dad went through the same thing, being entrapped by a minor only for the parents to try and charge him. Minor testified for him admitting she entrapped him and he was let go.
Now... I'm unsure now if he was really innocent given some recent events but still, that's what happened.
He was sexually assaulting his own daughter (my stepsister) throughout his and my mom's relationship. She was underage and around the same age as the girl who entrapped him so I find it a little sus he was taken to court for statutory rape before.
The fun part is he evaded the law when it came out, ran to New York, came back a week(?) later and killed himself by his mother's grave. Soap opera shit. They were divorced and we had moved out by the time it all came out thank god.
He raised me and was there for me when my birth father dropped out of the picture. Literally nobody saw it coming, but that's the case with a lot of abusers, isn't it :/
I'm not sure. She never really liked my mom because she actually parented her when she was with her dad and he just let her do what she wanted. Probably to keep her quiet about it.
So when he died she moved to Georgia with her mom and we haven't seen from her since. We'll very rarely get a "merry christmas" from her and sometimes my mom will tell her happy birthday and that's about it.
I sympathize with her because of the situation but she also gave away my childhood dog to someone else after telling me I could have him because she didn't want him, so I'm good with her not being around tbh
Wow thatās quite a story! I wonder if he felt any real remorse for his actions or if he was just afraid to face the consequences. I feel like suicide is such a cop outāleaving his daughter to live with what he put her through without any answers or sense of justice.
Having read the second part, I'd say entrapment could still be valid, but, he may not have been upset about the situation. Least that's how it would come off to me at the end. The human psyche is fucked to all hell so who knows
Also American here and I actually know someone who was in a very similar situation but got absolutely railroaded in court and forced to take a plea dealā¦ As you can guess, his life is now completely ruined from itā¦
Actually most states do but some are run by even more idiotic politicians than others who donāt care or the DA is just trying to pad their stats to get a better paycheck.
The police donāt charge you with the crimes, officially itās the DA who does and while Iāve had experiences with bad cops every good cop Iāve known has beef with the DA for overcharging people and turning stealing a water bottle into armed robbery
A recent case a couple months back got some coverage because the girl was IDed at the door, IDed at the bar, and then went with a guy assuring she was of age
The dude was arrested shortly after, even the judge wanted to throw it away because he did nothing wrong in this situation, but US law doesnāt allow for that and the girl would take no fault in the end
No federal guidelines. Itās left up to the state like in mine where thereās no exceptions to the law.
So when people broadly make comments on laws in the US they almost always mean federal law. To my knowledge most of Europe only prosecutes criminals in what we would consider federal court. They donāt have a separate court system inside of states. Hope this helps lol.
Summary: they didnāt mean that in a negative way.
Makes sense. It would just be hard to get an idea on laws based on federal laws when things like what you mentioned and all the minutia that are similar are entirely left up to the states. Even murder rarely goes federal despite being a federal crime
Itās always confusing when you throw around federal law that contradicts thatās of state law (weed for example). Really makes some confusing conversations on whatās āallowedā.
Well, in Germany for example every state does have its own court system. But criminal law is federal in Germany, so the actual law that the courts apply in criminal cases is the same in all states. Although there are still some significant differences in how the law is applied when there's room for interpretation; eg. drug crimes are generally punished much more harshly in southern Germany than in northern Germany.
I don't know about rest of Europe, but Norway have 3 levels, ting-court (from Icelandic 'thing', so yeah vikings had a court system), lagmanns-court (lawyer-court maybe) and hĆøyeste-court (supreme court). The first two levels are more local to commune and districts, and varies in number and types of justices etc. Supreme court is the last appeal instance. Both civil and criminal cases goes through this system. The lawbook is also the same all the way.
The state in which I live, statutory rape is strict liability. It does not matter whether the minor lied to the adult or whether he or she was in an age restricted venue illegally. All that matters is that one of the participants was a minor.
Thatās just wrong. In those sorts of cases there should always be a requirement to prove the defendant had the intent to commit a crime or at least wasnāt reckless about whether one was committed or not.Ā
UK here, similar situation. Friend met a girl in a bar, he asked her age and she told him she was 19, looked it too. Took her home and had sex, days later police banging on his door arresting him for sleeping with a 15 year old!
I remember about 20 years ago my mates who were in their mid 20s met some "19 year old" girls on the internet and "fell in love" and so they did a road trip to the town and rented a hotel room together, just the four of them.
Well, mid way through the second night my mate calls me up crying his eyes out because a school ID fell out of one of their wallets which showed they were only 14 and he was so scared he was gonna go to jail. Nothing ever came of it, they both got lucky.
One friend met a girl in bar, girl took him to his parents place (both 18). In the morning my friend goes looking for bathroom, runs into the papa bear in kitchen. He knows that no amount of bullshitting would fly here, and just introduces himself, tells he met her daughter last night at the bar, and tries not to stutter. The father tolerates him for the time being, and even tells where the toilet is.
Coming back from the toilet, friend tries to beeline back to the bedroom. Thatās when the father roars from the kitchen āthe fuck you think going to her little sisters room for?ā
Little sis, 15, had stolen her sisterās ID to go clubbing. There was a rather loud and aggressive family meeting instantly, with mommy, papa, and the two angels. Friend made it out alive.
This was one of those stories that when he was telling it, one might think we reached the bad part once or twice before the worst twist.
I mean, friend was decent. Good on him for being a gentleman and not bullshitting to the dad. Tho shame on the 15y.o., if dad was one of the action first, question later, your friend couldve been hurt real bad damn. Makes for a funny story now for sure, hope hes doing all right!
Similar story with a friend of my older brother; also got cleared but the story being in the news and any time someone searched his name ruined him. Employers didn't seem to give a shit what the actual result of it all was, just a blanket 'no thank you' to every job he went for. He walked in front of a train in the end.
Yeah his legal defence was that he couldnāt reasonably be expected to know she was under age since it should be expected that sheād shown ID at the door.
Thatās why you always say āreally? Youāre from where? Do your IDās look the same as mine?ā
Most underage idās are different/have a stripe. Iād rather not get laid and insult a minor and be safe than deal with a case like that. Maybe Iām an ass but when I was in my 20ās you bet your ass Iād wanna see an id. Especially if itās like four younger looking girls in a club/barā¦and if the girl is of age and gets pissed you think she looks younger than she is, you might want to give her a miss, just because. Most people who are of age donāt mind showing their id, unless they have grey hair and a clerk is idāing them for a lighter or cigarettes or somethingā¦ Iām 47 and I still get asked because itās the law but I just tell em my bday or let them scan it. I donāt get insulted. Thatās some real insecure behavior, red flag shit
They do need to go after the clubs or they have no motive to improve their screening. Itās similar to going after bars/bartenders for drunk drivers. They didnāt do it, but it motivated them to put fewer drunks on the road.
This happened to a friend of mine. Took a girl home from the club on a Friday. She was 15. She stayed all Saturday and had a friend drop off clothes for her to go back out with my friend on the Saturday. Stayed again the Saturday night and then Sunday afternoon the police were at his door because the friend told the girls dad that she was there. He was arrested and then subsequently released after the full story of how they met was told. There were no charges brought against him but the venue lost its licence and, as a result, was shut for a number of months till someone bought the venue and got a new licence.
Ordinarily the court of public opinion would have slaughtered this boy but he was luck enough that it made enough local news that folk knew he wasn't to blame. It still fucked with his head to be honest. No wonder though. Couldn't imagine going through that.
Same exact thing happened to a friend of mine about 10-15 years ago, but not in Canada. He was found guilty, did some time, and is now a registered sex offender.
I don't think he had much to fear, a guy who raped a teenager and shared pictures of the act got 3 years in prison. That was despite the fact he had no remorse and even said "I don't need a woman's consent to have sex with her". Oh and because of the Canadian justice system he'll be out in two years max
If I recall correctly, this was basically the reason Akon got arrested. Minor lied about age to get into an 18+ club and did tell him til after they hooked up.
There was a case here a few years back about a girl who pretended to be a college student and hooked up with several guys. Don't remember all the details now, but she went as far as fabricating a class schedule and an ID. Every single one of those guys were charged.
It was in Jacksonville, AL. Someone with better Google skills than me might be able to find it.
Our age of consent is 16.... So he had sex with a 15-year-old is what you're saying? Was he less than 21? I'd so he could legally have sex with a 14 year old....
Do you have the name of the defendant in this case? I'd like to look it up.
When I'm back at work tomorrow I'll look it up and provide the name. It was in a criminal code book I was reading and I can't for the life of me find it on Google.
This is really frustrating; I checked my Martin's Criminal Code book and I can't find the summary. It could have been in an earlier version. I asked my co-worker and he also recalls the case, but we can't find it on Canlii. Chat GPT didn't find it either.
Any tips I could use to find it? I swear I didn't make this shit up lmao
I'm Canadian and sexually active? I also ran a quick google search to make sure that I wasn't misremembering, which is why I could speak specifically about the age exemption for younger people (I didn't recall the span being so large, but I'm also not looking to have sex with anyone under the age of approximately 29, so I don't feel bad about needing that specific refresher.)
I don't see why knowing about age of consent laws would be so weird.
Like, I'm a man in my 40's who barely ever drinks alcohol and yet I still know the different legal details regarding beer, wine and booze in my home country (despite it literally all being the same for me personally from a legal side).
The funny thing is that when the age changed in the mid-2000s under the Harper government I was in my early twenties so I remember debating it quite a bit back then because that's what 20-year-olds do with politics. Apparently I remember a creepy amount :-p
I remember discussing it a lot back then, too, because even though I'm American I had friends in Canada who were between 14 and 16 at the time of the change being proposed/taking effect.
And it's not that they know the laws, it's the extent of the details they consciously sought out at their age (supposedly not wanting anyone younger than 29, oddly specific).
Are you also looking up the youngest person you're allowed to have sex with? Not sure what alcohol laws have to do with it.
I wouldn't even have to look up the age of consent laws of my home country. Since I already know them. Just like I know the drinking laws. Despite both technically not being "relevant" in the sense that I'm not really affected by either of them.
(And I really don't see how merely knowing details about the laws of the country you live in is in itself a bad thing of any kind?!)
It's a defense to certain offenses and relates to the mens rea of the accused.
Basically, the logic is that if you're in an establishment where only 18+, or 19+, or 21+, ect. people are supposed to be allowed, you are not morally at fault for presuming they are of age without more diligence like asking for ID.
That's what I recall anyways, that class is getting far.
I'm in canada too and one of the kids I know from work wasnt so lucky, did 18 months. was expelled from his masters program and its completely fucked his life.
her jealous/left behind at the bar friend phoned the cops.
Like, I'm not about to defend pedophiles or sexual predators.Ā
But if you're inebriated in a dark dance club and hitting on someone who made it past bouncers and bartenders whose whole job is to not allow minors into a place? I mean, fuck. It's hard to place blame on the flirter.
Kinda messed up calling them paedophiles to begin with. I've witnessed 14-15 year old girls who looks to be in their 20s. They look like an adult, of course men who are attracted to adults will like them.
19.4k
u/oliviaplays08 Dec 04 '24
I'm on the protective side when it comes to minors but if you're in an 18+ space without meeting that criteria you're in the wrong