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How California's Largest School District Blamed an 8th Grader for Her Rape
When “M.S.” was 13, her math teacher at Edison middle school in Los Angeles invited her to be friends online. Soon, according to a California appeals court, the same teacher started sending her sexually explicit messages. That winter, he called the 8th grader into a classroom and told her to shut the door. The teacher, Elkis Hermida, kissed and hugged the student. In March, he drove M.S. (as she’s referred to in court records, to protect her privacy), then 14, to a motel, where, according to the court, “they had sexual intercourse.” On a second occasion, “they … had sexual intercourse” in Hermida’s classroom.
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Instead the LAUSD made the civil trial needlessly hard on a 14-year-old that it had already failed to keep safe (though whether it acted negligently or not is as yet undetermined). In February 2013, the school district filed a motion to compel a mental evaluation of M.S. “and to permit questioning of plaintiff about her sexual history.”
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Dr. Katz testified that he believed the relationship made plaintiff more mature. “It always matures someone because you have to go through experiences which most teenagers don’t have to deal with. So you learn by experience.”
When asked his opinion as to plaintiff’s future prognosis, he stated that plaintiff is doing “quite well” and likely will not need future counseling as a result of the abuse.
Think about that.
In a court of law, America’s second-largest school district willfully advanced the argument that an 8th grader who has oral, vaginal, and anal sex with a teacher learns maturity from the experience and is unlikely to ever need counseling as a result.
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Even more incredibly, the trial court instructed the jury that “there is no ‘age of consent’ with regard to sexual relations involving a minor. A minor is capable of giving legal consent to sexual intercourse unless said minor has such a high degree of immaturity that the minor could not meaningfully agree to engage in the sexual conduct in question.” By law, a 14-year-old cannot consent to sex with an adult.
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In the same interview he [the attorney] said this:
Making a decision as to whether or not to cross the street when traffic is coming, that takes a level of maturity and that's a much more dangerous decision than to decide, “Hey, I want to have sex with my teacher.”
..
Instead the LAUSD made the civil trial needlessly hard on a 14-year-old that it had already failed to keep safe (though whether it acted negligently or not is as yet undetermined). In February 2013, the school district filed a motion to compel a mental evaluation of M.S. “and to permit questioning of plaintiff about her sexual history.”
..
Dr. Katz testified that he believed the relationship made plaintiff more mature. “It always matures someone because you have to go through experiences which most teenagers don’t have to deal with. So you learn by experience.”
When asked his opinion as to plaintiff’s future prognosis, he stated that plaintiff is doing “quite well” and likely will not need future counseling as a result of the abuse.
Think about that.
In a court of law, America’s second-largest school district willfully advanced the argument that an 8th grader who has oral, vaginal, and anal sex with a teacher learns maturity from the experience and is unlikely to ever need counseling as a result.
..
Even more incredibly, the trial court instructed the jury that “there is no ‘age of consent’ with regard to sexual relations involving a minor. A minor is capable of giving legal consent to sexual intercourse unless said minor has such a high degree of immaturity that the minor could not meaningfully agree to engage in the sexual conduct in question.” By law, a 14-year-old cannot consent to sex with an adult.
..
In the same interview he [the attorney] said this:
Making a decision as to whether or not to cross the street when traffic is coming, that takes a level of maturity and that's a much more dangerous decision than to decide, “Hey, I want to have sex with my teacher.”
More: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/lausd-ms-wyatt-elkis-hermida/410077/
This is just wrong on so many levels. The appeals court threw out a lot of this, but how can they make that argument to begin with?
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