Showing posts with label Romeo/Juilet cases. teen issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Romeo/Juilet cases. teen issues. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
15 Shocking Tales of How Sex Laws Are Screwing the American People
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Warning for Parents! CRIMINALIZATION OF CHILDHOOD SEXUALITY
All parents need to read this and be aware of what is going on in our communities. I found this on the website Ethical Treatment For All Youths. A must read for all of with children in our lives.
CRIMINALIZATION OF CHILDHOOD SEXUALITY
Article by Dr. Marshall Burns Link
As previously shown, the language used to label children who behave in a sexual manner typically confuses indecent or socially inappropriate behavior with coercion and violence.4 It is one thing to prohibit such behavior and discipline children for it. It is quite another to describe almost any sexual activity among children, even when it is mutually desired, as “molestation,” “abuse,” “assault,” and “rape.” Such language is a slap in the face to those children who have been truly victimized by real abuse. It also misleads the public into thinking that all children who act sexually are dangerous and merit criminal charges.
Prosecution of children
A recent sexual abuse conference defined “limited exploratory behaviors committed primarily out of curiosity” by juveniles as “deviant sexual behavior.” It referred to these children as “young sex offenders,” adding that “society needs interventions to respond effectively...focusing on protecting the community...”
One article in a professional journal says:
While filing, criminal prosecution, and involvement of the criminal justice system may not be considered necessary for some of these child perpetrators, it should at least be considered. Not only does this type of intervention demonstrate to the girls the seriousness of their sexually abusive behavior, but it also makes their parents take heed of the behavior...The parents of these children also need to be mandated to treatment.3
The criminal justice system follows suit.
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”Even children under age 12 are prosecuted for rape first degree and sodomy first degree for sexual conduct with each other. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for a 13 year old who has sexual contact with an 11 year old to be prosecuted for a class A felony...A youthful offender convicted of rape or sodomy in the first degree is a "violent offender" who must serve at least 85% of his sentence before he can be paroled...Youthful offenders are subject to "Megan's Law" requirements.”
--Attorney Gail Robinson -
”Their names, addresses, and pictures are all on-line, on the state's Sexual Offender's page. Seemingly, they are pre-pubescent predators, but juvenile probation officer Richard Garcia says, 'We got kids on probation for doing stuff that all of us did at one time or another'...it can end with a child labeled as a deviant, stuck with the stigma through their adult years...81% of San Antonio adults say all sex offenders, regardless of age, should be registered, and their information should be public.”
--WOAI-TV -
“A ten-year-old kid plays doctor with his kid sister. A senior in high school has consensual sex with his sophomore girlfriend. Dangerous sex offenders? Yes, say the nation's toughest sex laws. And some states' punishments include posting the juvenile offenders' pictures on websites for the rest of their lives.”
--Journalist Seamus McGraw, runner-up for the 2002 Casey Medal
Some jurisdictions believe that all childhood sexual activity warrants criminal investigation.
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“Kansas can require health care professionals to report all suspected underage sexual activity...”
--Lawrence Journal-World, Lawrence, Kansas -
“The agency is required by law to investigate all episodes of sexual contact between children...“
-- The Reporter, Fon du Lac, Wisconsin
According to the research on child sexual behavior, authorities may have to place 20% to 50% of all children in their jurisdictions under investigation.
Prosecution of teenagers
Teenage sexual behavior is not seen as a disorder to the extent that prepubescent behavior is. Nevertheless, it is not unusual for teens to be prosecuted for non-coerced sexual behavior and labeled as sex offenders.
In its brochure for teenagers, one state's attorney general's office issues the following warning (bold in the original):
Even if you are a minor, if you have consensual sexual contact with someone under the age of 15, you can be charged with gross sexual imposition in juvenile court. If your case then is transferred to adult court, you will be treated as an adult sex offender and will be subject to the same penalties as an adult. The law does not make an exception for you because you are in love..."Second base" can get you arrested! Although it may seem harmless to you, you can be charged with a sex offense!...Even if your boyfriend or girlfriend wants to have sex with you, your friend's parents can still have you arrested if they find out.
In addition to behavior that is abusive, the brochure lists the following as crimes: consensual sexual contact, fondling, and fornication. It describes the following possible penalties: imprisonment of up to 20 years, fines of up to $10,000, registration as a sex offender, and notification to police when moving for the rest of one's life.
In two separate incidents in Wisconsin, both young teenagers in sexual relationships were recently charged with sexually assaulting each other.
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According to police, a 14-year-old city of Pewaukee boy and a 13-year-old village of Pewaukee girl allegedly engaged in sexual activity in a residence...Police are seeking to charge both with second-degree sexual assault.
--Lake Country Reporter -
...authorities say their prosecution is meant to help...The boy is being held in secure detention on a charge of attempted second-degree sexual assault...The girl pleaded guilty to fourth degree sexual assault.
--Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Parents have a right to teach their children their moral values regarding sex, but police knowingly labeling non-violent mutually desired behavior as assault is dishonest and purposely misleading, and makes a mockery of true assault. Lying to the public about young people's behavior and treating them like criminals on the pretense of helping them can ruin lives, and has no place in a democracy.
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Gorcyca had overreacted by bringing criminal charges for what amounted to consensual sex between promiscuous teenagers...all four defendants were notified they'd be registered as sex offenders...Justin Fawcett of West Bloomfield, was particularly devastated...Friday night, his parents found him dead of an apparent overdose...the criminalization of teenage promiscuity is destroying young lives. And if you're a parent, wake up. Because if you think this couldn't happen to your teenager, you've missed the whole point of Justin Fawcett's story.
--Detroit Free Press
See also: “In Memory of Justin M. Fawcett,” Citizens for Second Chances
The U.S. Department of Justice relies on states to identify juvenile sex offenders, defining as “sexual assault” any sexual activity done “not forcibly or against that person's will where the victim is incapable of giving consent because of his/her youth.” Such definitions were originally intended to protect children and teenagers from exploitation by adults. However, they are now applied even when the supposed offender is too young to give consent. The Department notes that virtually all offenses by juveniles involve family members and acquaintances, confirming that many may be incidents of sex play among siblings or friends, or sexual activity within romantic relationships.6 So it is not surprising that statistics would seem to show that our society is being overwhelmed by violent, sex-crazed children and adolescents.
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One expert writes that “at least a half-million juveniles commit a hands-on sex crime every year.” 7
-
Another claims that 1 out of every 20 boys is or will be a child molester.1
-
Both the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Center for Sex Offender Management state that one-third to one-half of all child molestation is committed by children themselves.2,5
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The U.S. Department of Justice finds that of all ages 7 - 60, “the single age with the greatest number of offenders from the perspective of law enforcement was age 14.” 6
No one doubts that coercive behavior should be prohibited, but one cannot know what fraction of these statistics involve non-coerced behavior. This may explain the confused attempts to understand juvenile offenders shown below, and why criminal sexual behavior seems most often to begin between ages 6 and 9:
O'Brien and Bera defined seven categories of juvenile sex offenders: naive experimenters, undersocialized child exploiters, sexual aggressives, sexual compulsives, disturbed impulsives, group influenced, and pseudosocialized. Graves suggested three typologies: pedophilic, sexual assault, and undifferentiated. Prentky et al. used six categories: child molesters, rapists, sexually reactive children, fondlers, paraphilic offenders, and unclassifiable. Weinrott suggested four general types: juvenile delinquents in general, those who have deviant arousal, those who are psychopathic offenders, and those who fit none of these categories...In a study of 127 children ages 6-12 who had evidenced sexual behavior problems, Pithers et al. identified five subtypes: sexually aggressive, nonsymptomatic, highly traumatized, abusive reactive, and rule breaker. Recent surveys suggest an increase in the rate of preadolescent children who evidence sexually abusive behaviors. Available studies have reported sexual aggression in children as young as 3 and 4; the most common age of onset appears to be between 6 and 9...Victims of preadolescents...typically were siblings, friends, or acquaintances.
--U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice
A rational approach
All of this is not to imply that sexual aggression, indecency, or behavior among children of different ages is acceptable. However, labeling children as sexually deviant—essentially criminally ill—is not the best way to teach them proper behavior.
A better approach would seem to be for parents to teach their children proper sexual behavior in the same way they teach them proper non-sexual behavior—by conveying to them their values, explaining why socially inappropriate behavior offends others, and using appropriate discipline when necessary. Treatment should be sought only when behavior is truly violent or a sign of a scientifically established disorder.
Unfortunately, not only is this not the case, but an array of extreme, scientifically unsupported, and potentially damaging diagnostic and treatment methods are used that are disturbingly reminiscent of the approaches used with homosexuals 50 years ago.
Sexual Predator Insanity-Ricky's story
This is a thoughtful well written article about my friend Mary's son. Unfortunately Ricky's story is not an rare thing these days. Read more about Ricky here. Link
Sexual Predator Insanity
By Paul Elam | Aug 3, 2009
At sixteen, Ricky Blackman was fairly typical of teen-age boys. He loved sports, especially basketball and football, and played them well enough to have realistic hopes for a scholarship. He liked socializing and hanging out with his friends. And girls—of course there were always the girls.
His Middle American upbringing produced unsurprising ambitions. He dreamed of serving his country in the Navy after school, and ultimately of a career in law enforcement. He was, by all accounts, a healthy and well adjusted young man.
Skip ahead three years, and you’ll find Ricky and his life have changed radically. He takes private instruction in web design because he isn’t welcome on a campus. He no longer trusts the law he once wanted to serve, and, when in the presence of young women, he panics and withdraws. In fact, his life, once so full of promise and hope, is now little more than a daily struggle to survive, and a challenge to even find reasons for doing so.
While Ricky’s view of the world has changed since his younger days, it is nothing compared to the way the world’s view of Ricky has changed. He has become the ultimate pariah and outcast. He is, at least in the eyes of most, pernicious persona non grata; human refuse hardly worthy of life itself.
It all started before his seventeenth birthday. Ricky was at a local hang out for teens and met a girl there. Amanda was from his area, said she was fifteen years old and they seemed to have much in common. They began seeing each other, and eventually had sex on two occasions.
The encounters would undo the rest of his life.
Like many young people trying to impress someone they like, Amanda lied to Ricky about her age. She later told Ricky’s mother, Mary Duval, that she was only fourteen, and pled with her not to let Ricky know. Mary promptly told her son of the confession, and he cut off the romance immediately. They found out later that she still wasn’t being entirely honest.
Later Amanda, a runaway, became involved with the police, who discovered her prior ties with Ricky. She admitted the sexual relationship to the police during questioning. She also admitted that she had lied to Ricky about her age. After evaluating the situation, Amanda’s parents weren’t interested in pressing charges and the police weren’t interested in making an arrest. Until, that is, the Dallas County (Iowa) District Attorney’s office got wind of the case.
Shortly after Ricky turned seventeen, he was questioned by the police. His mother was present, and it was her instinct to remove Ricky from the interview. But she had just undergone surgery on her eyes and was disoriented due to the post-operative medications she was taking, so she allowed Ricky’s then-stepfather to handle things. Unfortunately, the stepfather wanted the matter quickly resolved, and signed a waiver for the police to question him without legal counsel.
The police had something they wanted Ricky to sign as well.
It was a simple statement that he had, in fact, had sexual relations with Amanda. Ricky was apprehensive, but he signed. It was, after all, the truth. And in Ricky’s world, the truth served an honest person well.
“Sorry to tell you,” the police officer told Ricky after he had signed the statement. “Amanda admitted she lied to you about her real age, but she was only thirteen.”
It probably wasn’t the tactics Ricky envisioned, when he thought of becoming a police officer: Get a kid to sign a confession, and then tell him what he just confessed to. Ricky’s naiveté took a hard blow. But it was only the first of many times that the real world would land on him like a Mack Truck.
The officer told him that the case would be sent back to the D.A., and that it might come to nothing since Amanda had confessed to lying about her age. He also advised him, in a rare moment of clarity and honesty from the system, that it could go either way.
The Arrest Made the Papers
Ten days later, Ricky was handcuffed in front of his friends and taken to jail. He was charged as an adult with two counts of third degree sexual abuse, a felony. In an almost artistic manipulation of timing and the system, police and prosecutors used laws applying only to juveniles to garner evidence and a confession, and then used it all to charge him criminally as an adult.
He was threatened with twenty years in prison (more time than he’d yet been alive), but that was only the beginning of a two-pronged assault on his life. When the arrest made the papers, complete with Ricky’s full name, address, and the nature of the charges against him, the community in which he had lived and thrived turned on him in an instant.
When Ricky and Mary went food shopping, cashiers in one line at a local grocery store refused to check them out, forcing them to go to another line while other customers glared. His younger brother, who was nine at the time, was badgered and humiliated at school.
Duval read the writing on the wall, and immediately made plans to take Ricky and his brother to Oklahoma in hopes that they could put the matter behind them. Unfortunately, the move would have to wait until the Dallas County Prosecutor’s Office was done with him.
That process began with a rare, upbeat moment that seemed to promise a partial reprieve. The prosecution offered a deal with Ricky that almost seemed reasonable, given the circumstances. He would plead guilty to one count of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child, a class D felony, which would be expunged from the records if he satisfied the terms of his two-year probation. He would not have to state a felony on job applications, and, because of the adjudication, he would not be placed on a sex offenders’ registry.
It seemed like the best offer possible, all things considered, and Ricky agreed to the plea.
Ricky and his mother took their seats in the courtroom. Then, just minutes before the hearing was scheduled to begin, the state appointed attorney advised them that there had been a recent change in Iowa law.
Any plea arrangement Ricky made would be contingent on being placed on a sex abuser registry for ten years. Both Ricky and his mother erupted in tears at the news, causing a commotion in the courtroom. It took some time for them to compose themselves.
The “recent” change in the statute had happened, they would discover, nearly a year earlier, but right now, Ricky had just moments to decide whether or not to take the deal.
He didn’t want to be placed on the registry. He didn’t think it was right. But to fight it was risking two decades behind bars; a place where young men, especially those not hardened by criminal life, were sure to find out what real sexual deviance and assault are all about.
It was a double blow for Duval, who had lost her eyesight entirely, just five weeks before the hearing. Now she could lose her son.
Ricky took the deal, but almost ran into another snag with the court. The prosecution wanted Ricky to state on the record that he had lured the girl to his home for the purpose of having sex. The request was clear. In essence they wanted Ricky to commit perjury, a real crime, so they could have on the record a phony allocution to something he never did. Blackman, with courage almost unimaginable for his age and the circumstances, refused. He told the court that the sex was what they both wanted, and he wouldn‘t make a statement to the contrary.
They entered his statement into the record and closed the case. Ricky had received the adjudication, and they were now free to move away from Iowa.
It was something Ricky couldn’t wait to do. The promise of getting away and making a fresh start almost made the situation bearable.
A Fresh Start
The state of Oklahoma, and some of its citizens, had other plans.
They’d had no idea when they moved, but Oklahoma law required Ricky to register as a sexual offender for life. And because of the age difference between him and Amanda, he would be listed as a Level Three Offender, which labels him as violent and dangerous, and his crime as “aggravated.” He was placed on the sexual offender registry, and, as a result, Ricky’s life has been affected in ways that most of us cannot imagine.
Since moving to Oklahoma he has been kicked out of school, ousted from public parks, and verbally abused by neighbors and strangers. One neighbor shouted obscenities and videotaped him whenever he stepped outside his door. The same man came to their home and told Mary Duval he would not quit bothering them till she took her “child rapist” away. He was not interested in the facts surrounding Ricky’s case. He had seen everything he needed to know about Ricky Blackman on the “Offender Registry.”
Ricky cannot live or go within 2,000 feet of schools, parks or any other establishments where children are known to be present, and this forces him to live as far from town as possible. It also means he cannot attend his younger brother’s football games, or go almost anywhere where he could make and maintain friendships. He cannot even attend church unless he informs the clergy there that he is a sex offender and gets their permission.
Now that Ricky is off probation, his younger brother can have his friends in the home while Ricky is there. But most parents don’t want their children in a home with a registered sex offender. And the reality is that children around Ricky do present a dangerous vulnerability… for Ricky. Any allegation against him, even the most patently false, could have disastrous results.
His probation officer had him dismissed from the school system, saying, according to Duval, “He is a liability to them.” He was denied G.E.D classes because they were offered on a school campus, and the State Board of Education denied him online classes because he was on the registry.
Ricky was eventually allowed to take G.E.D. classes, at a local police station.
He now lives his life in near solitude, helping to take care of his mother and trying to sort out how he is going to make something of the rest of his life. He had a job in a fabrication plant, but was “laid off” when his employers discovered his history. Effectively in prison, Ricky will remain that way for the rest of his life unless something changes.
Ricky and his mother are both involved in trying to effect those changes. They have both taken the story public, and Duval has an on-line radio program to raise awareness of what the registry actually does. She has managed to get the story covered by some television stations and newspapers. She also has an internet petition demanding changes in the laws. Primary among those demands is that the states recognize the difference between sexual predation and consensual sex between teens.
In many places, including Oklahoma, the law sees no such difference, and consequently makes no legal distinction between someone who lures a child into a car and rapes them and someone like Ricky Blackman.
The Court Knew Better
It was a difference, however, that the prosecution in his case was apparently able to see, even as they held twenty years in prison over the young man’s head in order to coerce a guilty plea. It was the prosecution that recommended to the court that Blackman receive two years probation with deferred adjudication. In that recommendation, they advised the court that this course of action would be sufficient to rehabilitate the defendant.
One only need consult a mental health professional with experience dealing with sexual offenders to learn that the nearly universal perception is that recidivism for sexual offenders is high. In my considerable time in the field, it was the general consensus of clinicians that predators were untreatable, and that incarceration was the best option. (There is research that disputes all this, but in Blackman’s case, it was always perceptions that guided events, not reality.)
That being said, prosecutors are generally less generous than psychotherapists. With their recommendation to the court, the prosecution openly acceded to what everyone else in that courtroom already knew.
Ricky Blackman was not a sexual predator.
Ricky Blackman was just a kid that had sex with a girlfriend he thought was a year younger than him.
Ricky Blackman had no business being there in the first place.
At this point, though, it was too late. Blackman was caught up in a system largely devised by politicians clamoring to quell public fears about the safety of children. Fanning the flames of public outrage, and sometimes lighting them, lawmakers run for office against each other on platforms largely consisting of “tough on crime” one-upmanship. One ever more draconian measure after another is offered up as a sales pitch to a panic-ridden, woefully ignorant public that will sign on to whatever sounds the most extreme.
The result is laws that not only fail to protect our children, but in the case of Blackman and others, have actually started destroying them. Elected politicians, like prosecutors and judges, fearful of being seen as soft on crime, force people like Ricky through the legal gauntlet without compunction. They have become robotic assassins, creating unthinkable collateral damage in a war that is supposedly being waged in the public’s best interest.
Meanwhile, children are no safer on the streets than they have ever been.
His Whole Life in Front of Him
It is perhaps fitting to point to the silver linings in this story. Duval, the loss of her sight notwithstanding, has emerged as a dogged and tireless advocate for her son, and for bringing problems with the sexual offenders registry to the public’s attention.
Ricky has found some focus for the future as well, though it took some hits and misses. He wanted to get a law degree and work to change the system for the better, but he won’t be allowed to practice law anywhere, because of the registry. Now he takes private lessons in web design, a profession suited for someone who has little reason to leave the house. He also wants to reach out to young people and caution them about the hazards and consequences of teen sex. The jury remains out on whether that can ever happen.
These are thin consolations, lending neither redemption nor solace. Even if Mary Duval had not lost her eyesight, she would never again see the Ricky she knew before all this happened. Her life is, and will be, consumed with trying to find justice for her son. She openly admits this may never happen.
Ricky, at nineteen, is supposed to have his whole life in front of him. When he should be looking forward to the time he will marry and have children of his own, his path looks to be marked by a single set of footprints. His ideas on women are not what they used to be.
“I don’t trust them,” he says. “When I see one looking at me I just walk away.”
Still, he is a young man with a message, albeit forged in the fires of adversity. It is a message that assaults the complacency in which we all too often and too easily find comfort.
“Anybody who looks at the registry should not judge people just for being there,” he says, “There are lots of people that don’t belong. People like me. There are even people that had to pee so bad they went outside and the next thing you know someone takes a picture with a cell phone and they end up on the registry too.”
Right alongside the child rapists.
Little at this point would ameliorate the damage done to this family. The Kafkaesque tempest that overtook them three years ago still darkens every horizon and pummels the simplicity out of life that they used to take for granted. It rattles their doors and windows, as though trying to shake loose the last of their dignity. And it has swept away hope for the future, leaving behind only the solemn, desperate need for peace.
We love to think that justice is blind. But we also pray that those who administer that justice are people of vision. When systems become so twisted that the letter of the law strangles its spirit, then justice cannot exist. It will die as surely as the dreams of a teen-age boy when the world caves in around him.
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Mary Duval has an online petition in Ricky’s behalf. Petition
Paul Elam is the editor of A Voice for Men
Sexual Predator Insanity
By Paul Elam | Aug 3, 2009
At sixteen, Ricky Blackman was fairly typical of teen-age boys. He loved sports, especially basketball and football, and played them well enough to have realistic hopes for a scholarship. He liked socializing and hanging out with his friends. And girls—of course there were always the girls.
His Middle American upbringing produced unsurprising ambitions. He dreamed of serving his country in the Navy after school, and ultimately of a career in law enforcement. He was, by all accounts, a healthy and well adjusted young man.
Skip ahead three years, and you’ll find Ricky and his life have changed radically. He takes private instruction in web design because he isn’t welcome on a campus. He no longer trusts the law he once wanted to serve, and, when in the presence of young women, he panics and withdraws. In fact, his life, once so full of promise and hope, is now little more than a daily struggle to survive, and a challenge to even find reasons for doing so.
While Ricky’s view of the world has changed since his younger days, it is nothing compared to the way the world’s view of Ricky has changed. He has become the ultimate pariah and outcast. He is, at least in the eyes of most, pernicious persona non grata; human refuse hardly worthy of life itself.
It all started before his seventeenth birthday. Ricky was at a local hang out for teens and met a girl there. Amanda was from his area, said she was fifteen years old and they seemed to have much in common. They began seeing each other, and eventually had sex on two occasions.
The encounters would undo the rest of his life.
Like many young people trying to impress someone they like, Amanda lied to Ricky about her age. She later told Ricky’s mother, Mary Duval, that she was only fourteen, and pled with her not to let Ricky know. Mary promptly told her son of the confession, and he cut off the romance immediately. They found out later that she still wasn’t being entirely honest.
Later Amanda, a runaway, became involved with the police, who discovered her prior ties with Ricky. She admitted the sexual relationship to the police during questioning. She also admitted that she had lied to Ricky about her age. After evaluating the situation, Amanda’s parents weren’t interested in pressing charges and the police weren’t interested in making an arrest. Until, that is, the Dallas County (Iowa) District Attorney’s office got wind of the case.
Shortly after Ricky turned seventeen, he was questioned by the police. His mother was present, and it was her instinct to remove Ricky from the interview. But she had just undergone surgery on her eyes and was disoriented due to the post-operative medications she was taking, so she allowed Ricky’s then-stepfather to handle things. Unfortunately, the stepfather wanted the matter quickly resolved, and signed a waiver for the police to question him without legal counsel.
The police had something they wanted Ricky to sign as well.
It was a simple statement that he had, in fact, had sexual relations with Amanda. Ricky was apprehensive, but he signed. It was, after all, the truth. And in Ricky’s world, the truth served an honest person well.
“Sorry to tell you,” the police officer told Ricky after he had signed the statement. “Amanda admitted she lied to you about her real age, but she was only thirteen.”
It probably wasn’t the tactics Ricky envisioned, when he thought of becoming a police officer: Get a kid to sign a confession, and then tell him what he just confessed to. Ricky’s naiveté took a hard blow. But it was only the first of many times that the real world would land on him like a Mack Truck.
The officer told him that the case would be sent back to the D.A., and that it might come to nothing since Amanda had confessed to lying about her age. He also advised him, in a rare moment of clarity and honesty from the system, that it could go either way.
The Arrest Made the Papers
Ten days later, Ricky was handcuffed in front of his friends and taken to jail. He was charged as an adult with two counts of third degree sexual abuse, a felony. In an almost artistic manipulation of timing and the system, police and prosecutors used laws applying only to juveniles to garner evidence and a confession, and then used it all to charge him criminally as an adult.
He was threatened with twenty years in prison (more time than he’d yet been alive), but that was only the beginning of a two-pronged assault on his life. When the arrest made the papers, complete with Ricky’s full name, address, and the nature of the charges against him, the community in which he had lived and thrived turned on him in an instant.
When Ricky and Mary went food shopping, cashiers in one line at a local grocery store refused to check them out, forcing them to go to another line while other customers glared. His younger brother, who was nine at the time, was badgered and humiliated at school.
Duval read the writing on the wall, and immediately made plans to take Ricky and his brother to Oklahoma in hopes that they could put the matter behind them. Unfortunately, the move would have to wait until the Dallas County Prosecutor’s Office was done with him.
That process began with a rare, upbeat moment that seemed to promise a partial reprieve. The prosecution offered a deal with Ricky that almost seemed reasonable, given the circumstances. He would plead guilty to one count of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child, a class D felony, which would be expunged from the records if he satisfied the terms of his two-year probation. He would not have to state a felony on job applications, and, because of the adjudication, he would not be placed on a sex offenders’ registry.
It seemed like the best offer possible, all things considered, and Ricky agreed to the plea.
Ricky and his mother took their seats in the courtroom. Then, just minutes before the hearing was scheduled to begin, the state appointed attorney advised them that there had been a recent change in Iowa law.
Any plea arrangement Ricky made would be contingent on being placed on a sex abuser registry for ten years. Both Ricky and his mother erupted in tears at the news, causing a commotion in the courtroom. It took some time for them to compose themselves.
The “recent” change in the statute had happened, they would discover, nearly a year earlier, but right now, Ricky had just moments to decide whether or not to take the deal.
He didn’t want to be placed on the registry. He didn’t think it was right. But to fight it was risking two decades behind bars; a place where young men, especially those not hardened by criminal life, were sure to find out what real sexual deviance and assault are all about.
It was a double blow for Duval, who had lost her eyesight entirely, just five weeks before the hearing. Now she could lose her son.
Ricky took the deal, but almost ran into another snag with the court. The prosecution wanted Ricky to state on the record that he had lured the girl to his home for the purpose of having sex. The request was clear. In essence they wanted Ricky to commit perjury, a real crime, so they could have on the record a phony allocution to something he never did. Blackman, with courage almost unimaginable for his age and the circumstances, refused. He told the court that the sex was what they both wanted, and he wouldn‘t make a statement to the contrary.
They entered his statement into the record and closed the case. Ricky had received the adjudication, and they were now free to move away from Iowa.
It was something Ricky couldn’t wait to do. The promise of getting away and making a fresh start almost made the situation bearable.
A Fresh Start
The state of Oklahoma, and some of its citizens, had other plans.
They’d had no idea when they moved, but Oklahoma law required Ricky to register as a sexual offender for life. And because of the age difference between him and Amanda, he would be listed as a Level Three Offender, which labels him as violent and dangerous, and his crime as “aggravated.” He was placed on the sexual offender registry, and, as a result, Ricky’s life has been affected in ways that most of us cannot imagine.
Since moving to Oklahoma he has been kicked out of school, ousted from public parks, and verbally abused by neighbors and strangers. One neighbor shouted obscenities and videotaped him whenever he stepped outside his door. The same man came to their home and told Mary Duval he would not quit bothering them till she took her “child rapist” away. He was not interested in the facts surrounding Ricky’s case. He had seen everything he needed to know about Ricky Blackman on the “Offender Registry.”
Ricky cannot live or go within 2,000 feet of schools, parks or any other establishments where children are known to be present, and this forces him to live as far from town as possible. It also means he cannot attend his younger brother’s football games, or go almost anywhere where he could make and maintain friendships. He cannot even attend church unless he informs the clergy there that he is a sex offender and gets their permission.
Now that Ricky is off probation, his younger brother can have his friends in the home while Ricky is there. But most parents don’t want their children in a home with a registered sex offender. And the reality is that children around Ricky do present a dangerous vulnerability… for Ricky. Any allegation against him, even the most patently false, could have disastrous results.
His probation officer had him dismissed from the school system, saying, according to Duval, “He is a liability to them.” He was denied G.E.D classes because they were offered on a school campus, and the State Board of Education denied him online classes because he was on the registry.
Ricky was eventually allowed to take G.E.D. classes, at a local police station.
He now lives his life in near solitude, helping to take care of his mother and trying to sort out how he is going to make something of the rest of his life. He had a job in a fabrication plant, but was “laid off” when his employers discovered his history. Effectively in prison, Ricky will remain that way for the rest of his life unless something changes.
Ricky and his mother are both involved in trying to effect those changes. They have both taken the story public, and Duval has an on-line radio program to raise awareness of what the registry actually does. She has managed to get the story covered by some television stations and newspapers. She also has an internet petition demanding changes in the laws. Primary among those demands is that the states recognize the difference between sexual predation and consensual sex between teens.
In many places, including Oklahoma, the law sees no such difference, and consequently makes no legal distinction between someone who lures a child into a car and rapes them and someone like Ricky Blackman.
The Court Knew Better
It was a difference, however, that the prosecution in his case was apparently able to see, even as they held twenty years in prison over the young man’s head in order to coerce a guilty plea. It was the prosecution that recommended to the court that Blackman receive two years probation with deferred adjudication. In that recommendation, they advised the court that this course of action would be sufficient to rehabilitate the defendant.
One only need consult a mental health professional with experience dealing with sexual offenders to learn that the nearly universal perception is that recidivism for sexual offenders is high. In my considerable time in the field, it was the general consensus of clinicians that predators were untreatable, and that incarceration was the best option. (There is research that disputes all this, but in Blackman’s case, it was always perceptions that guided events, not reality.)
That being said, prosecutors are generally less generous than psychotherapists. With their recommendation to the court, the prosecution openly acceded to what everyone else in that courtroom already knew.
Ricky Blackman was not a sexual predator.
Ricky Blackman was just a kid that had sex with a girlfriend he thought was a year younger than him.
Ricky Blackman had no business being there in the first place.
At this point, though, it was too late. Blackman was caught up in a system largely devised by politicians clamoring to quell public fears about the safety of children. Fanning the flames of public outrage, and sometimes lighting them, lawmakers run for office against each other on platforms largely consisting of “tough on crime” one-upmanship. One ever more draconian measure after another is offered up as a sales pitch to a panic-ridden, woefully ignorant public that will sign on to whatever sounds the most extreme.
The result is laws that not only fail to protect our children, but in the case of Blackman and others, have actually started destroying them. Elected politicians, like prosecutors and judges, fearful of being seen as soft on crime, force people like Ricky through the legal gauntlet without compunction. They have become robotic assassins, creating unthinkable collateral damage in a war that is supposedly being waged in the public’s best interest.
Meanwhile, children are no safer on the streets than they have ever been.
His Whole Life in Front of Him
It is perhaps fitting to point to the silver linings in this story. Duval, the loss of her sight notwithstanding, has emerged as a dogged and tireless advocate for her son, and for bringing problems with the sexual offenders registry to the public’s attention.
Ricky has found some focus for the future as well, though it took some hits and misses. He wanted to get a law degree and work to change the system for the better, but he won’t be allowed to practice law anywhere, because of the registry. Now he takes private lessons in web design, a profession suited for someone who has little reason to leave the house. He also wants to reach out to young people and caution them about the hazards and consequences of teen sex. The jury remains out on whether that can ever happen.
These are thin consolations, lending neither redemption nor solace. Even if Mary Duval had not lost her eyesight, she would never again see the Ricky she knew before all this happened. Her life is, and will be, consumed with trying to find justice for her son. She openly admits this may never happen.
Ricky, at nineteen, is supposed to have his whole life in front of him. When he should be looking forward to the time he will marry and have children of his own, his path looks to be marked by a single set of footprints. His ideas on women are not what they used to be.
“I don’t trust them,” he says. “When I see one looking at me I just walk away.”
Still, he is a young man with a message, albeit forged in the fires of adversity. It is a message that assaults the complacency in which we all too often and too easily find comfort.
“Anybody who looks at the registry should not judge people just for being there,” he says, “There are lots of people that don’t belong. People like me. There are even people that had to pee so bad they went outside and the next thing you know someone takes a picture with a cell phone and they end up on the registry too.”
Right alongside the child rapists.
Little at this point would ameliorate the damage done to this family. The Kafkaesque tempest that overtook them three years ago still darkens every horizon and pummels the simplicity out of life that they used to take for granted. It rattles their doors and windows, as though trying to shake loose the last of their dignity. And it has swept away hope for the future, leaving behind only the solemn, desperate need for peace.
We love to think that justice is blind. But we also pray that those who administer that justice are people of vision. When systems become so twisted that the letter of the law strangles its spirit, then justice cannot exist. It will die as surely as the dreams of a teen-age boy when the world caves in around him.
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Mary Duval has an online petition in Ricky’s behalf. Petition
Paul Elam is the editor of A Voice for Men
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Governor Waits to Decide if He Will Pardon Romeo case in Florida
Crist delays decision on Fla. 'Romeo-Juliet' case
article hereThe Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Gov. Charlie Crist has delayed a decision on whether to pardon a man listed as a sex offender in what's known as a "Romeo and Juliet" case.
Married for 10 years, Virgil and Misty McCranie of Panama City Beach first had sex as teenagers. At 19, though, he was an adult and at 14 she was a minor. That's a crime in Florida.
Jealous over his relationship with another woman, she told her father and they went to police. Virgil McCranie pleaded no contest to lewd and lascivious behavior with a child and was placed on probation.
He's also required to register as a sex offender. He asked Crist remove that requirement with a pardon Thursday, but the governor said he wants to give it more thought before he decides.
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