Take, for example, the widely publicized case of Marcus Dwayne Dixon, an year-old high school honor student and star football player who had sex with a year-old female classmate. She claimed it was rape, he claimed it was consensual, and a jury acquitted him of the charges.
Georgia laws on a minor dating an 18 year old? - LII Reference Desk
However, because of their age difference, the jury still found Dixon guilty of statutory rape and aggravated child molestation, and sentenced him to a mandatory 10 years in prison under Georgia law. He walked out of prison on May 3, , at age 19, a free man. Prior to his court case and conviction, Dixon had been offered a full football scholarship at Vanderbilt University, which was revoked after his arrest.
Upon his release from prison, Dixon enrolled at Hampton University in Virginia with a football scholarship. The Dixon case is just one in a long line of similar legal battles teens have faced in the last decade. A Hot Topic Among Teens The recent discovery that year-old actress Jamie Lynn Spears, the sister of pop star Britney Spears, became pregnant by her year-old boyfriend has again turned consensual sex among teens into a hotly contested issue.
Parents, particularly those with teenage daughters, certainly have cause for concern.
Research shows that teenage girls tend to have their first sexual experience with male partners who are three or more years older. But do these dangers warrant laws that put young people in prison?
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Romeo and Juliet Make a Comeback Statutory rape is defined by the FBI as non-forcible sexual intercourse with a person who is younger than the statutory age of consent. The statutory rape laws vary greatly from state to state, with more than half of the states setting the legal age of consent at 16 other states range from 14 to For the most part, there is no single age at which a person can consent to sexual activity.
Only 12 states set a specific age ranging from 16 to 18 , while in the majority of states, the age of consent depends on multiple factors, including the ages of each partner and the number of years between them. The purpose behind most statutory rape laws is to punish grown adults who take sexual advantage of a minor. One family in Georgia experienced the importance of being careful of the law.
Georgia Statutory Rape Laws
Genarlow Wilson, 17, engaged in oral sex with a consenting year-old girl and was convicted of aggravated child molestation. Before his lawyers were finally able to get the Georgia Supreme Court to hear his case and rule that his year sentence was cruel and unusual, this former scholarship student had spent two years in prison. At the time, the Georgia law allowing similarity of age to be taken into account applied only to vaginal sex, not oral sex. Both sets of parents could have helped to avoid this horrendous incident by training and teaching their teens about the law, but more importantly about boundaries, and about building healthy relationships through respect for themselves and respect for others.
Set rules so teenagers know the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Teach children about giving and demanding respectful treatment.
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Finally, group dating is the best way to introduce teens to the dating world without too much pressure. Following these guidelines and understanding the law will help minors learn to date safely. Corroborating evidence may be slight and circumstantial and may include prior statements by the victim.
For example, if a year-old boy tells two of his friends that he has engaged in sexual intercourse with an adult and those two friends testified at trial, their testimony could be sufficient to convict the defendant of statutory rape.
Statutory rape is punished more severely if the defendant is over the age of If the defendant is 21 years old or older, then statutory rape is punishable by ten to 20 years in prison. People in Georgia who are convicted of statutory rape are required to register as sex offenders if they are over the age of 21 when the offense is committed. Registered sex offenders are required to give personal information to local police officers on a regular basis and face many restrictions, including holding certain jobs and even going to certain places in the community.
Criminal Defense
In Georgia, there is a Romeo and Juliet exemption for consensual sex between a victim who is 14 or 15 years old and someone who is 18 or younger and no more than four years older than the victim. However, this is a limited exception because it serves to reduce the conduct from a felony to a misdemeanor offense. The conduct is still illegal, but someone protected by this exception will face the possibility of smaller fines and reduced jail time.
State , S. For example, even if a year-old girl looked like and said that she was older than 16 years old, that would not provide a defense to statutory rape. It is a defense to a charge of statutory rape that the child and the defendant are married. This defense is a vestige of the marital rape exemption.