Research Paper

When you look at the different states, the majority of them have the same laws for age of consent, but a few of them are different. The purpose of me researching this is because I have family members that is a Defendant of statutory rape, but in reality he is the victim. I believe he is the victim because he is the one having to sit in prison and waste his life away because of the laws in Washington State, while the Victim is out living her life and not being affected at all. The legal definition of statutory rape is: “Statutory rape generally refers to sex with a person who is under an age specified by statute. At this point, most state laws call it something else.”
This particular case was reported on the twentieth day of the second month in the year of 2008. He was sentenced on the seventeenth day of the third month in the year of 2008, almost a month after sitting in the county jail. He was charged with Rape of a Child Second Degree, in Washington state this means, “A person is guilty of rape of a child in the second degree when the person has sexual intercourse with another who is at least twelve years old but less than fourteen years old and not married to the perpetrator and the perpetrator is at least thirty-six months older than the victim.” If you look at both sides of the case (Victim vs. Defendant) you might ask your self, “How does this case affect both the victim and their (in this case a girl) family, and the defendant and their (in this case a boy) family?” Well, I can not write for the victim and her family except for what was said in court. For the victim, her mother got on the stand and said “My daughters life has been hell since John had been arrested” as well as “My daughter now has to go through counseling because of all the terrible things that John did to her”. I know the victims family personally and I know that she was not traumatized and she never went through counseling. Now for the defendant, his life has been completely ruined because he has now been sitting in prison since 2008, 8 years and almost 2 months. When and if he ever gets out, he will not be able to do anything with his life and will become a registered sex offender.
As for the defendants family, they have been the real victims in this case because they lost a beloved son, brother, uncle, grandson, and nephew. He was arrested when his baby sister was 7 or 8 years old, he was her father figure because she didn't have her father in her life, due to a similar case that will be talked about later on in the paper. Since his sentence, she has been tortured and bullied by the Victim. The Victim has approached her several times since his arrest and threatened to beat her up, she has approached her and told her that she has no reason to be pissed off at her, that she never did anything to her family and called her names (i.e. Whore, Slut, Skank, Etc.). The Victim has also told the defendants 16 year old sister that “she needs to leave town and stop showing her face around this town, no one likes the Doe family because her brother is a mistake and mess up.” As for the mother of John, she had some major problems with her son before he got arrested, but he's still her son and it affects her mentally and emotionally because John is her only son. She had nightmares, every night for a few years after he got arrested, these nightmares included things like her getting a call saying her son was getting the death sentence and she needs to come say her final good-bye's.
Laws in Washington state say that the age of consent is 16 years old, no minimum age for the victim, the age differential between the victim and defendant is 2 (if victim is < 12), 3 (if victim is < 14), 4 (if victim is < 16), and there is no minimum age of defendant in order to prosecute. The other case that will be talked about a little later on was done in Oregon. In the state of Oregon the age of consent is 18 years old, the minimum age for the victim is 15 years old, the age differential between the victim and defendant is 3, and there is no minimum age of defendant in order prosecute. So between the two cases there is quite a bit of differences for the age of consent, the minimum age of victim, and the age differential between victim and defendant, but not the age of defendant in order to prosecute. When it comes to the differences in the cases, the big one would be what the different defendants were charged with, in John's case, he was charged with 'Rape of a Child in Second Degree' in Washington and in Dell's case, he was charged with 9 counts of 'Sodomy against His Child' in Oregon, another big difference between the cases would be the two different States and their laws.