Reply #139: Spoiler alert [View All]

[saras]

If she were sixteen it would be legal for her to go with him...

...assuming she wanted to, of course. So if he thought she was sixteen and not thirteen, then nothing he did or was planning - according to the article we have available - was even illegal. When he found out she was thirteen, he was obliged to back off.

The problem is, nearly all of us agree that he is, really, personally, a creep that probably deserves this and worse (and we would not be surprised at all if later news reveals him to be a sex offender)

- BUT -

historically, this exact same perception of creepiness sufficient to justify summary judgment has been applied to many people who we wouldn't regard as creepy, but exercising their human rights. I'd hate to live in a world where everyone creeped out by what they thought was gay had the right to shoot it.

This is why we usually agree to the rule of law. I trust the law to throw the book at this guy if he's anywhere as bad as everyone seems to think he is - especially if he has a record. It's too bad that that likely won't result in anything useful happening, but that's a different issue.

I think either the girl or her mother would have been justified in shooting him if they were physically attacked.

But to shoot someone for saying something that's creepy but quite possibly legal is murder. And if I didn't think that, well, I'd have left a trail of dead a mile wide through middle school, as would many of us. I don't think anyone would have survived.

All told, I'm glad nothing serious happened to either the girl or her mother, and that he is in custody. Our system isn't particularly nice to sex offenders unless they're spectacularly wealthy, so I'm not worried about him being coddled.