The difference is the bartender is trying to do an honest day's work! This guy accused of this rape has a bit of a history of sex with young girls....and doesn't seem to learn his lesson! His history suggests that he would have done the same thing whether she told him she was 19 OR 14!
And don't think I'm putting angel wings on the girl! A 14 year old doesn't run away from home and start sleeping with strange men in tents unless she has a screw or two loose!
Quite frankly,they both seem like a twin pair of idiots,but the fact still remains that he is accused of sleeping with a 14 year old;and like the bartender,it doesn't matter if she lied about her age...according to the law! Fair or not is another story!
And I think the both of us agee this is a travesty of justice. The victim of fraud, is being held accountable. In a true and fair court; this would be thrown out by virtue of the fake ID. The bartender should not be held accountable for his actions, by virtue that falsified documents were presented. It seems that society is willing to go to any length to excuse the behavior of a minor.
His history suggests that he would have done the same thing whether she told him she was 19 OR 14!
So, is this a "Thought Crime"? Are you attempting to read his mind on this? This is a case where you are making facts up as you go along. Maybe he learned his lesson; and maybe this is the reason he asked how old she was? We simply don't know.
Simply being accused of having sex with an underage girl is not enough to imprision or arrest someone. She could have pointed to any arbitrary person in that crowd. Do they have some semen? Some DNA evidence? Maybe a cell phone recording? A witness? All we have is an allegation that sex occurred.
Now, to be sure that I'm not defending this individual (I do not know him, or her); nail him to the wall for the crime he did commit - not registering as a sex offender. Let justice do as it will on that count. But, without evidence to underage sex (other then the questionable integrity of a 14 yr old runaway) the other charge is baseless.
I'm trying to reconcile how the law on holding bartenders meets the basic requirements of Mens rea
Mens rea is Latin for "guilty mind".[1] In criminal law, it is viewed as one of the necessary elements of a crime. The standard common law test of criminal liability is usually expressed in the Latin phrase, actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, which means "the act does not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty". Thus, in jurisdictions with due process, there must be an actus reus accompanied by some level of mens rea to constitute the crime with which the defendant is charged (see the technical requirement of concurrence). As a general rule, criminal liability does not attach to a person who acted with the absence of mental fault. The exception is strict liability crimes.
This required element, requires the bartender to intentionally and willfully accept a fake ID as the real thing; which pre-supposed that he knew the ID was fake to begin with. I honestly don't know how any judge who attended law school (I'm an engineer, not a lawyer) can arbitrarily disregard one fundamental principle of criminal law.
Still, the last sentence "The exception is strict liability crimes" means that bartenders are liable for any action their customers take.
However, Statuatory Rape is not a criminal liability crime - so that defense doesn't work in this case (it shouldn't work in the bartender case either, IMHO).