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Posted on 07/20/2011 8:26:14 AM PDT by Libloather
2 N.J. teens labeled sex offenders for life after 'horseplay' incident
Updated: Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 8:47 AM
By MaryAnn Spoto/The Star-Ledger The Star-Ledger
SOMERSET COUNTY — Call it bullying or call it horseplay. Either way, a state appellate court panel says roughhousing with a sexual connotation by a pair of 14-year-old Somerset County boys was a crime that requires them to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives.
In a decision handed down Monday, the three-judge panel acknowledged the severity of its decision, but said it was bound to uphold the law.
"We are keenly aware that our decision may have profound lifelong ramifications for these two boys as well as others similarly situated," Judge Jose Fuentes wrote.
One of the boys, whose case went to trial, said he had sat on the faces of a pair of 12-year-old schoolmates with his bare buttocks in November 2008 "cause I thought it was funny and I was trying to get my friends to laugh," he told a family court judge.
But an act is considered criminal sexual contact if it is done for sexual gratification or to degrade or humiliate the victim, and punishable by lifetime registration — even for juveniles — under Megan’s Law, which requires a person convicted of a sex crime against a child to notify police of changes of address or employment.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
Strong, multiple applications of a holy hickory board would have been more effective, and just.
when I was a kid, I remember this 10 year old kid in the locker room bent down and opened his cheeks and yelled to everyone in the room “Open Sesame!”
Disgustingly enough, it was covered with brown poo with lots of sesame seeds.
This guy eventually grew up and had a family of five kids. Sadly, he died in a car accident recently. I remember when many classmates were told of his recent tragic death, they would say “That is so sad...uh was he the Open Sesame guy?”
Sometimes dumb things stick with you long after your childhood.
Underage girls sent topless photos to boys, boys swap them around like baseball cards. Prosecutors about to charge them for distribution of child pornography until the parents of the boys wondered (loudly) about why the girls were not charged for CREATION of child pornography. Charges were dropped.
An 18 year old who has sex with his (or her) 17 year old girlfriend (or boyfriend) doesn't need to be a lifetime “sexual offender” and take classes to deal with his (or her) attraction to the underaged.
First thoughts ... boys.
Yup. Never girls, only boys are evil.
Atlas shrugs again — getting a neck cramp.
Maybe its just me but 14 yrs old isn’t confused babies. I’d have to know more about specifics but I’m thinking that these vile little bastards are going to do nothing but get worse. These kids are (were) freshmen in high school and to actually pull their pants down and do this disgusting thing to someone else tells me that they are the worst kind of perverts that are capable of inexcusable behavior and need to be on a list of people to watch out for.
Unfortunately, some parts or factions of our society breed this kind of malice. 14 year olds are not only capable of bullying but also sexual assault, like this incident, but robbery, rape, murder. These are the least common denominator of society and if they show up in my town, I’ll yell it from the rooftops. Libtards, on the other hand, will make excuses for them and encourage the same kind of behavior by not making an example out of these sick little assholes.
Stories like this remind me to log on and post 'Oh, HELL no' when I hear Eastern Freepers talk about drafting the governor of New Jersey for President in 2012.
No New Jersey influence on anything having to do with America, I say. Yes, I know it's a very pretty state. So was East Germany.
“Eventually everyone will be on a sex offender registry somewhere so it won’t quite the scarlet letter it once was.”
The teenage son of a friend stopped into a 7/11 and asked to use the bathroom. The clerk said no. It was late at night, so he stepped behind the store between the dumpster and the wall where nobody could see him and peed. When he came out a cop had driven up and asked him what he was doing. He said, taking a piss. The cop arrested him. There was no law against public urination so he was charged with exposure. Not knowing what would happen he went before the judge without a lawyer. He was found guilty and put on the permanent sex offender list. He was 16.
I recently pulled up the sex offender list for my area and there was somebody almost in square mile; hundreds of people in a tiny town. I looked at some of the write-ups and many were teenagers when they “offended.” How many of us would have been on the list if caught today for things we playfully did as teenagers with other teenagers? These things were no predictor of future behavior, nor were some of them overtly sexual at the time. Teenagers have scatological and wave-the-penis humor that goes away with maturity. How many lives have been ruined by this well-intentioned but ridiculous law? When everybody’s on the list, nobody’s on the list.
"Paul Kramer was the sponsor in 1994 in the New Jersey General Assembly of a package of seven bills known as Megan's Law that were approved one month after the rape and murder of seven-year-old Megan Kanka by Jesse Timmendequas, a sex offender who had been previously convicted of sex crimes and had lived across the street from Kanka together with four other sex offenders. The bills would require sex offender registration, with a database tracked by the state, community notification of registered sex offenders moving into a neighborhood and life in prison without a chance of parole for those convicted of a second sexual assault. Kramer expressed incredulity at the controversy created by the bills, saying that "Megan Kanka would be alive today" if the bills he proposed had been law." [emphasis mine}
Knee jerk legislation. Other states followed very soon after with their own versions.
It’s not ridiculous and the incident you cite is nothing like what these little bastards did.
They deserve what they got and they will think long and hard before doing something as stupid as this.
maybe you are right.
but this is the same state, NJ,
that initially found a muslim not guilty
of raping his age 17 non-english speaking arranged wife.
repeatedly. while she cried.
the NJ Judge said he was not guilty,
because it wasn’t a crime in Islam.
Policification of America, well underway.
Exactly. They are purposely diluting the information content of the sex offender registry. There needs to be a means for removing people from the registry after a period of time unless their offense was against a child while an adult. Also the registry should list the person’s exact offense so that the public knows if their neighbor is a pedophile or someone who groped another adult or exposed themselves while relieving themselves in a semi-public place.
This one doesn’t seem to jibe with anything else I’ve ever read about the way the law deals with juveniles. I mean it’s always been the case in the past that teens could kill people and rob banks and trains and their records would be expunged at age 21.
For your analogy to have any relevence regarding the the article, he would have to have urinated on some one elses face.
Apples and bowling balls.
I think the Judge’s hands were tied; I believe he cannot amend the lifetime addition to the “registered sexual offenders list”.
If I am right on that score, then I think the law is an ass.
A juvenile who remains NOT a “repeat offender” of such offenses should have their name removed from the list when they become 18.
The whole purpose of juvenile courts and legislation that considers juveniles as eligible for “juvenile sentencing” is done in recognition that juveniles are immature persons who out of immaturity may commit certain offenses but who will hopefully in their course to maturity “learn their lesson” and not carry such offenses into adulthood.
Removing juveniles who have not been repeat offenders from such a list should not be hand-wringing question.
If for some reason they revert back to such crimes after they become an adult, they will be immediately and permanently back on the list.
For all the rest of the juveniles who “straightened up” they will get a clean second chance. That is what we almost always do with juveniles.
At some point this will trip the Cruel and Unusual Punishment clause and that’s not completely without merit. Where’s the ACLU on this? /rhetorical
I guess we should all thank Anderson Cooper for taking it mainstream, huh? He and Bill Clinton can now share the dubious distinction of personally moving the degradation of society even further into the dung pit.
This case is exactly why we have judges instead of computers to render justice. It requires discretion.
The boy did something that, at least in my opinion, went beyond "horseplay". He didn't just smack some girl on the butt or give someone a "wedgie". He put his naked butt on someone's face. That is a little disturbing and requires punishment.
Having said that, to brand the kid a sex offender for the rest of his life is crazy. Put him on probation, have him do some community service related to bullying and that should be the end of it.
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