Posted on 03/21/2006 2:47:40 PM PST by mathprof
State prosecutors decided Tuesday to drop charges against a former teacher accused of having sex with a 14-year-old student.
The decision, announced hours after a judge rejected a plea deal for Debra Lafave, means the victim won't have to testify.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys had urged the judge to accept the deal for the sake of the boy involved. A psychiatrist who examined the teen-ager told the judge at a previous hearing that the boy suffered extreme anxiety from the media coverage of the case and does not want to testify.
Marion County Circuit Judge Hale Stancil, however, said the lack of prison time for Lafave under the plea deal "shocks the conscience of this court," and he rejected it.
Assistant State Attorney Richard Ridgway, in explaining the decision to drop the charges, said: "The court may be willing to risk the well-being of the victims in this case in order to force it to trial. I am not."
Lafave, 25, already faces three years of house arrest and seven years probation in Hillsborough County, where she was charged with having sex with the same boy in a classroom and her home. She pleaded guilty Nov. 22 to two counts of lewd and lascivious battery under a plea deal there.
In Marion County, she was accused of having sex with the boy in a sport utility vehicle.
Lafave said at a news conference later Tuesday that she has bipolar disorder, and her attorney said she was getting treatment.
"I have a lot of things in my past that have unfortunately become public," Lafave said. [snip]
"There is no one that wanted to see Debra Lafave serve jail time more than myself," but she said the welfare of her son was more important.
(Excerpt) Read more at dfw.com ...
What a disgrace.
The American "justice system" is a pathetic failure.
What subjects did she teach? Is she available for tutoring?
No witness, no evidence, no crime.
Would you want to be pre-judged, and face an automatic sentence with manditory life-time registration as a sex offender ...... based entirely upon the word of a child?
A child who may, or may not be telling the truth? A child that may, or may not have been coached? A child that can not be cross-examined, and may not be held responsible for anything they say?
No one disputes that she had sex with the boy.
LOL
She confessed to having sex with the boy; my question is "What was the evidence"?
Or, is this a case where you are forced to plead guilty, rather than risk being tried by the court of public opinion?
Consider, we recently read about 4 men accused of gang-rape of a woman in Florida. All 4 men worked for Walt Disney World, and all 4 men were fully cooperating with the police. It was not until one of the men came forward with a video tape of the encounter that we discovered that the woman was a willing participant, and in fact initiated the acts. All 4 men faced public humiliation, all 4 men were pre-judged as rapists; and had to PROVE their innocence.
Now that they have successfully proven their innocence; the woman is not being charged with filing a false police report .... she got off entirely free to do this the next time she feels 'guilty'; and maybe the next guys will be sent away for a decade or two.
My point is simple. Trust no one, no collaborating witnesses, no evidence, no crime.
My wife used to see lots of "date rape" cases in her office that seemed to be the result of the girl having second thoughts the morning after.
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