Posted on 09/19/2014 7:58:02 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd
ACTUAL TITLE: Justice Department sides with 14-year-old girl raped while serving as 'bait' in middle school sting
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- The federal government today sided with the guardian of a teenage girl who was raped during a botched sting operation in the boy's bathroom, arguing the Madison County School system was liable under federal law to investigate harassment and protect female students.
"A school board cannot avoid summary judgment as a matter of law when a school administrator willfully ignores a plan to use a 14-year-old special needs student as bait to catch a student with a known history of sexual and violent misconduct, and as a result, the student is sodomized," reads the federal brief filed in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals late today.
The U.S. Department of Justice argues administrators at Sparkman Middle School near Huntsville knew the boy was dangerous and showed "deliberate indifference."
"According to Principal (Ronnie) Blair," reads today's brief, "June Simpson, a teacher's aide, reported that for several weeks, (a 16-year-old boy) had repeatedly been trying to get girls into the boys' bathroom and in fact had sex with a student in the bathroom on the special needs students' corridor."
Blair rejected the aide's recommendation that the boy be constantly watched, "and told Simpson that (the boy) could not be punished because he had not been 'caught in the act,' short-hand for the school's policy that students could not be disciplined without substantiation of student-on-student misconduct."
The brief states the teaching assistant then devised a plan to use the girl as bait.
"On January 22, 2010, while assisting custodians near the end of the day, (the 16-year-old boy) approached (the 14-year-old girl), who had already rebuffed his recent, repeated propositions to meet in the boys' bathroom for sex," reads the federal amicus brief filed late today.
"(The girl) immediately reported the incident to Simpson, a teacher's aide, who suggested that (the girl) meet (the boy) in the bathroom where teachers could be positioned to catch him 'in the act' before anything happened. (The girl) initially refused, but then acquiesced."
The federal brief highlights, over several paragraphs, the boy's history of sexual aggression and violence. He hit a student in 2008 and was given in-school suspension. In February of 2009, he was suspended for "sexual harassment." In April of 2009, he received in-school suspension for disrespecting a teacher. In September of 2009, he offered to pay another student to beat up a girl and was suspended.
In October of 2009, he told off the bus driver and touched a girl. He was put off the bus for 10 days and given three days in-school suspension. In November of 2009, he groped a girl on the bus and was suspended from the bus for 24 days. In December, he was suspended two days for "kissing."
It makes a recipient of federal funds, here, the school district, 'liable for [its] deliberate indifference to known acts of peer sexual harassment.'On Jan. 13, 2010, he got in trouble again for "inappropriate touching" of a female student. "Finding no eyewitnesses to corroborate the victim's accusation, they concluded that (the boy) was not guilty but nonetheless discussed punishment." Administrators assigned him to in-school suspension and clean-up duty. The rape occurred nine days later.
The Justice Department says Simpson had alerted the administration of her plan.
"Simpson and (the girl) then went to Vice-Principal (Jeanne) Dunaway's office, where Simpson told Dunaway about her plan to use (the girl) as bait to catch (the boy). Dunaway did not respond with any advice or directive," reads today's brief.
"(The girl) left Dunaway's office, found (the boy) in the hallway, and agreed to meet him for sex. (The boy) told (the girl) to go to the sixth grade boys' bathroom and she complied. No teachers were in the bathroom to intervene, and (the boy) sodomized (the girl)."
Simpson and Dunaway are among those named in the suit first filed in 2010. The district court allowed some state claims for negligence and wantonness. The district court threw out the federal claims, including those against the Madison County school board. Both sides appealed to Circuit Court.
"We're grateful that the Department of Justice has gotten involved," said Eric Artrip, attorney for the girl and her father. "It's important for us to have people with their credibility standing up and saying this is clearly a violation of Title IX."
The Justice Department argued that the school shredded student discipline records each year, required officials to witness sexual harassment in order to take action, diminished serious incidents in its record-keeping, and had been "closing its eyes" to evident dangers.
The Justice Department argues the girl's guardian should be allowed to sue under Title IX. "It makes a recipient of federal funds, here, the school district, 'liable for [its] deliberate indifference to known acts of peer sexual harassment.'"
Medical evidence confirmed anal tearing and bruising. The girl withdrew from school and moved to another state.
The federal brief argues school officials minimized the incident, listing it in the boy's extensive record as "inappropriate touching." The federal attorneys note one assistant principal, despite seeing photos of the injuries, contended school officials could not know if the girl had consented.
"Vice-Principal Dunaway testified that (the girl) was responsible for herself once she entered the bathroom," wrote federal attorneys.
Following a five-day suspension, the boy was sent to an alternative school, but soon returned to Sparkman Middle, writes the Justice Department.
The brief contends "...a jury could easily conclude that the school acted with deliberate indifference when, despite two sexual misconduct complaints against (the boy) days before he sodomized (the girl), it provided him unsupervised access to students and failed to protect (the girl)."
"In fact, Sparkman's practice of recording unrevealing and misleading descriptions of past incidents, coupled with its failure to maintain any record of unsubstantiated complaints and documentation for proven infractions beyond the current academic year, amounts to intentionally closing its eyes to (the boy's) dangerousness."
Updated at 11:10 a.m. on Sept. 18 with comment from girl's attorney.
The other point I assert is that defendant isn't barred from the defense of assumption of the risk on account of plaintiff's age.
If she was under duress, the affirmative defense fails, because in order to assume the risk, one has to act voluntarily, of free will. Same goes for mental incapability, maybe she didn't really understand the risk (i.e., she assumed, incorrectly, that a protector would be there, based on the school's implied promise to protect her).
You had originally said that the affirmative defense fails because she is a minor. That is incorrect as a matter of law. You also said the risk was statutory rape, which I say is wrong because statutory rape is a consensual but illegal act. The risk was rape or assault. In a criminal trial against the rapist, the rapist can't use the affirmative defense of assumption of the risk. I also provided a link to a piece that discusses negligence in light of criminal acts, where negligent defendant doesn't get out of liability just because the act committed (by others) was a crime. I blockquoted a case where the crime was a rape, at a school, and the defendant was the school.
-- What point of law do you think that block quote establishes? --
I took it as a conclusion the case proceeded to trial. This case is at the pretrial stage, although reading one of the links, the only claims tossed were based on federal law, and there is no federal law of negligence.
Quick remark on statutory rape being used to prosecute actual rapists - it's a sorry (but inevitable) state of affairs, when the sex wasn't consensual, to have to settle for statutory rape.
Off to check state law on statutory rape for the jurisdiction in question ...
An individual is deemed incapable of consent if he or she is less than 16 years of age, with the following exceptions:It appears this can't fit under Alabama's statutory rape umbrella, she being 14 and he being 16.
Children under 12 years of age are unable to consent to a sexual act regardless of the age of the defendant (although the act is only considered rape in cases where the defendant is at least 16 years of age).
- Sexual intercourse with a victim who is greater than 12 years of age and less than 16 years of age is not considered rape if the defendant is less than 2 years older than the victim.
- Sexual contact with a victim who is greater than 12 years of age and less than 16 years of age is legal as long as the defendant is less than 19 years of age.
I suspect they had a purulent interest in the assualt....
and just HOW MANY TIMES does a yute need to assualt and attack people before they are jailed?
I suspect they had a purulent interest in the assualt....
and just HOW MANY TIMES does a yute need to assualt and attack people before they are jailed?
one hopes you never suffer anal tearing during a nonrape, rape.
-- First of all, I disagree that statutory rape is "only" used in cases where everybody agrees to have sex ... --
I suppose we could argue that we have some difference of opinion, but we probably don't have a difference of opinion. My point was that the victim, in this case, (assuming arguendo an "assumption of the risk" defense can be raised) wasn't exposing herself to a risk of "statutory rape," rather to a risk of real rape, rape rape.
In expressing my opinion about the risk the girl was exposed to, what she thought might happen but was trying to avoid, there isn't a question or issue about whether prosecutors ever charge statutory rape for practical reasons. That is, I wasn't taking a view or expressing an opinion of when the charge of statutory rape is used by a prosecutor; which represents a risk to the boy.
I do see that statutory rape necessarily involves absence of consent, but the absence is deemed to exist, regardless of facts on the ground. This might be used to undermine my remark about statutory rape being "sex where everybody involved consented." Hopefully the casual and even careful reader will understand I was talking about facts on the ground consent, not statutorily deemed consent.
yea, I know it's perverted and sarcastic but my legal argument is that it was consentual........
And it's sick too!!!!!
I certainly wouldn’t consent to it just to try to bait a rapist into raping me. No matter who tells me it’s “ok”.
——why was he in a regular school and not a reform school.-——
Wait’ .....reform schools still exist...?
They call them “alternative schools” to take away the stigma now, but same thing.
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- It's hard to believe. A teaching aide sends a 14-year-old girl to meet a boy for sex in a school bathroom. It's a sting to set up the boy. But the boy switches the location, the staff loses sight of the girl, teachers arrive too late.
The U.S. Department of Justice sided with the girl's attorneys last month, bringing attention to the details in the four-year-old case. Those details sparked petitions and outraged community meetings in Madison County. But the story traveled much further, appearing on CNN and Fox News, in the London Telegraph and the New York Daily News, reaching as far as India Today and The Australian.
Members of Madison County school board have said the story has not been told correctly, that there has been much "misinformation." For example -- "No administrator played any role in this at all," said one attorney for the district.
Law enforcement later explained why they declined to press charges. Another school board attorney told parents: "There are two sides to every lawsuit and most of what you have heard and read about this has presented only one side."
"What's the misinformation?" asked a parent.
"Part of the misinformation is that the student was unsupervised," asserted the attorney. "He was not. He was supervised at all times."
But the girl's attorneys say the board attorneys are the ones omitting parts of the story in regard to the role of school officials. "This is the exact same behavior we have seen all along from the Board: from the day of the rape, until the time they shredded the boy's records, until they appealed..." reads part of their lengthy statement last week.
So here is the story in the words of those who witnessed the events at Sparkman Middle School, just outside Huntsville, on Jan. 22, 2010.
The following is compiled from depositions taken in 2012, from statements written and signed that afternoon in 2010, from emails and from affidavits.
The start
June Simpson, physical education aide, affidavit on June 7, 2012:
Prior to January 22, 2010, there had been ongoing allegations that a male student, (the boy), had been repeatedly propositioning other female students to have sex in the boy's bathroom. The allegations started sometime after the Thanksgiving break in 2009, and I was made aware of it after the Christmas break.
Ronnie Blair, principal, deposition in June 2012:
Q. Did you ever tell one of the teachers or assistant teachers that two students had to be caught in the act for there to be disciplinary action against one or both of them?
A. I don't recall if I've said that or not, but possibly I did simply because it's true, that they're going to have to be caught or they're going to have to admit it themselves. You've got to have evidence, obviously, to discipline someone.
More. Much more...
She agreed (under duress) to act as bait. This does NOT constitute consent to be sodomized, as THE essential part of the plan that she agreed to, was that school personnel would intervene before any actual sexual act could occur.
At NO point did she agree to being sodomized by the boy.
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