Man sentenced to prison unjustly.

[AngelofSorrow]

I honestly found this news article so disturbingly wrong that I couldn't help but share it. I won't explain it, I'll just quote the article it self and Im sure everyone would understand why.

ORANGE COUNTy, Fla. -- A 13-year-old girl's sexual shenanigans have put a second man behind bars. Morris Williams, 22, told the judge he thought the girl was 18-years-old, but he found out Tuesday that ignorance is not a defense.

Morris Williams' mother wailed as he went off to jail. The judge asked for media not to show 13-year-old Alisha Dean's face in court, but her pictures are all over her MySpace page and they portray a sexy, 19-year-old divorced woman. "She told me she had just turned 18," Williams said.

Williams said Dean picked him up on the street and after a few conversations they had sex. When he heard she was not 18, he went to her father. "He was like 'well, she's 13,'" Williams said of a conversation with Dean's father.

Williams said he never did it again, but Dean has done it before with 24-year-old Darwin Mills. Mills was sentenced to five years in prison. Dean's father wanted Williams to join Mills there. "One of the reasons for the law is the fact that minors have poor judgment," said Jerry Dean, the girl's father.

Williams' father believes the jail sentence sends the wrong message to Alisha. "I guess we just sit back and count how many after this," Henry Smith asked after his step-son was sentenced to jail. Dean's family admits Alisha still stays out late and has yet to delete her misleading MySpace page.

Williams will serve six years probation with the first year in jail. The other five years he will have to wear an ankle monitor. His attorney says he will come back to court to ask again for a shorter sentence.

http://www.wftv.com/news/16348047/detail.html

[Matron]

Well, ignorance isn't really a defense, but if she truly looked that old, and lied like she did, I do think that the sentence was too severe, now that will follow him around the rest of his life- that he is a registered sex offender.

What I want to know is what punishment will the parents face, allowing the girl to stay out late and meet guys from the internet. This sounds like just as much, if not more so, their fault, than the man sitting in jail right now. I know my 13 yr old son (this July anyway) doesn't act like this, and he'd never be allowed to stay out late ( hell, the kid doesn't stay out at all unless I know who he's with and what he's doing, as well as the parents of who he's with), and his internet usage is monitored. Hard not to be with the computers all in one room, lol!

I guess the lesson to learn here is to treat potential sex partners/girlfriends like cashiers treat people buying cigs or alcohol- check ID unless they look at least 35, and then hope it isn't fake.

[Priest4hire]

Ignorance isn't a defence? I thought it was ignorance of the law that wasn't a defence. What even happened to "actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea"? (It means "the act does not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty.")

This is living proof that our conceptions of sex are seriously screwed up.

[Matron]

All I really meant was that in this day and age, with girls looking older and older and more grown up all the time, a man can't be too careful, and the courts don't really take I thought she was 18 as a defense, right or wrong. I also agree that the guy shouldn't have been sentenced to 5 years, or time at all for that matter, and that he shouldn't have to go through the rest of his life as a registered sex offender- that's wrong.

I actually think he was trying to do the right thing here. He thought she was 19, then when he found out she was under age, he went to her father and told him. Why else would he have done that if he didn't want to make the girl's father aware of the things his daughter was out doing?

[AngelofSorrow]

The fact that they've allowed the daughter to do this twice is proof of their bad parenting. What they should have done is tried to get both men off of their offenses because it was their daughters fault, beat her, and sell her computer cause she doesn't deserve one to begin with. My daughter would never see the light of day if she pulled this.

[Matron]

You're right about that, bad parenting. I know that you can't know every move your kid makes every second of the day, however, a good parent should know if their 13 year old daughter is posing as a 19 yr old divorcee and screwing around with men she meets online, and put a stop to it. There is just no excuse for being that clueless about what a kid that age is doing, none whatsoever.

Call me old fashioned, but I do always know where my kids are. My son will be 13 in July, and we live in an area where it's not easy to just take off on your bikes or walking and go hang out. So I always know that my son either in school, or at a friend's house- and we either drop him off or the friend's parents pick him up, and I also made it a point to know the parents, and trust them. That's my job as a parent, it's not the job of other people out there. My oldest daughter is only 11, but I am going to have to be extra diligent with her, because of her disabilities, to know what she's doing and who she's doing it with. ( and the idea of her getting older physically, but not getting older mentally, scares the hell out of me)

[Titan Voltaire Maximus]

That is absolutely horrible. I really do appreciate the laws we have set in our country, but stuff like that just makes me sick.

[Priest4hire]

I still don't see how having sex with a biologically matured, if very young, girl is so damaging that mens rea should be suspended. Can anyone objectively point out the harm caused by his unwitting act such that he should be so isolated from society and made to pay such a burden? Someone actively seeking out 13 year olds is one thing but something like this is nothing but a black mark on liberty.

[Jarrid]

Ignorance isn't a defence? I thought it was ignorance of the law that wasn't a defence. What even happened to "actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea"? (It means "the act does not make a person guilty unless the mind is also guilty.")

This is living proof that our conceptions of sex are seriously screwed up.

Bingo.

[Mary]

I still don't see how having sex with a biologically matured, if very young, girl is so damaging that mens rea should be suspended. Can anyone objectively point out the harm caused by his unwitting act such that he should be so isolated from society and made to pay such a burden? Someone actively seeking out 13 year olds is one thing but something like this is nothing but a black mark on liberty.

I agree completely! I also think that if the judge wants to keep this from happening again he is punishing the wrong person. I think the parents should be the ones punished. Having this happen once should have been their warning to control their daughter. But letting it happen a second time? It seems obvious that she was misleading this guy about her age so he'd sleep with her(though this article seems to be a bit one sided). In some places this would be enough for him to be declared innocent. Unfortunately he slept with her in the wrong state.