ACLU of Florida Statement on Prosecution of 18-Year-Old Kaitlyn Hunt
http://aclufl.org/2013/05/21/aclu-of-florida-statement-on-prosecution-of-18-year-old-kaitlyn-hunt/snip-
he following is a statement from the ACLU of Florida on the case of Kaitlyn Hunt, a Sebastian, Florida high school student who faces felony charges for having a relationship with a 15-year-old female schoolmate.
The ACLU of Florida condemns the prosecution of 18-year-old Kaitlyn Hunt. The facts as we understand them suggest that the state is prosecuting Kaitlyn for engaging in behavior that is both fairly innocuous and extremely common. Such behavior occurs every day in tens of thousands of high schools across the country, yet those other students are not facing felony convictions (and, in Florida, the lifetime consequences of a felony conviction) and potential lifelong branding as sex offenders. This is a life sentence for behavior by teenagers that is all too common, whether they are male or female, gay or straight. High-school relationships may be fleeting, but felony convictions are not.
While effective laws are certainly needed to protect Florida’s children from sexual predators, one cannot seriously maintain that Kaitlyn’s behavior was predatory. Application of this law to Kaitlyn’s conduct is another example of the troubling trend in Florida and across the country of criminalizing teenagers. The school-to-prison pipeline is filled with students whose behavior is better addressed by school officials and parents, not by a criminal justice system that turns ordinary teenagers into convicted felons who are prevented from meaningfully contributing to society because of their unjust convictions. Even if Kaitlyn is able to avoid sex-offender registration, a felony conviction will harm her for the rest of her life, catastrophically damaging her employment prospects and even her right to participate in her community as a citizen and vote.
Her promising future could be ruined merely because she engaged in behavior that countless other students in every school operating under the state attorney’s jurisdiction also engage in. This prosecution does nothing to protect Florida’s young people but instead causes a great deal of harm.
-snip
http://www.change.org/petitions/assistant-state-attorney-brian-workman-stop-the-prosecution-of-an-18-year-old-girl-in-a-same-sex-relationship
On edit: It has also come out today that the state attorney has dropped charges in a similar case (same ages/same district) just today.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/FreeKate/
http://www.freekate.net/
Her mother's words on how this came about, for those concerned about the facts:
As the summer of 2012 came to an end, the future looked bright for 17-year-old Sebastian River High School senior Kaitlyn Hunt. Voted the student with "Most School Spirit" by her peers, Kaitlyn was an active cheerleader, a basketball player, a camp counselor and cheering coach, and a medical assistant training to join the nursing program at Valencia College after graduation. She looked forward to a career helping others and a memorable final year of high school.
"At the beginning of the school year, Kaitlyn made friends with a 14-year-old freshmen girl in Sebastian River High's IB program who played varsity sports and took classes with upper classmen. The girls were peers in the same social circle, and as happens every day high schools across America, their friendship eventually developed into more. In September, shortly after Kaitlyn's 18th birthday, the girls began dating, and they eventually expressed their affection for one another in intimate ways.
When the girls' basketball coach found out that two of her players were dating, she kicked Kaitlyn off the team and informed her girlfriend's parents that their daughter was in a same-sex relationship. The parents then conspired with police to entrap Kaitlyn and press charges.
The police recorded a phone conversation between the two girls, who today are 18 and 15, in which they discussed their relationship. Kaitlyn was arrested and charged with two counts of felony lewd and lascivious battery on a child 12-16. Kaitlyn's girlfriend denies that Kaitlyn ever pressured her and is adamant that their relationship is entirely consensual, but her parents are out to destroy Kaitlyn's life. After two separate judges ruled that Kaitlyn could finish her senior year with her peers, her girlfriend's parents appealed to the Indian River County School Board, who expelled Kaitlyn sent her to the alternative school.
The law is designed to protect our children, but the law does not serve its purpose when it is applied to consensual behavior between peers."
= new reply since forum marked as read
Florida § 794. 05
"Unlawful sexual activity with certain minors if someone age 24 or older engages in sexual activity with someone age 16 or 17."
How can she be prosecuted? These are teenagers doing what teenagers do.
Witch. Hunt.
The girls met on the same basketball team when Kaitlyn was 17 and the other girl was 14. The basketball coach (I might add "Coach of the Year" in FL this year) kicked Kaitlyn off the team and called the other child's parents. the parents (Pentecostals, I might add) called the police instead of Kaitlyn's parents (which is what normal parents would do if face with a situation and they didn't want their child dating someone older), and had Kaitlyn arrested when she turned 18.
They felt that Kaitlyn had "turned their daughter gay." 
Just when we think we're getting somewhere.
Two thirds of high school seniors having sex before graduation doesn't mean that they all had sex with adults when they were 14. Or that the 18 year old seniors were having sex with 14 year old freshmen. Why would we need to lock up 2/3 of high school seniors?
I agreed with the decision to allow Plan B to be bought by 15 year olds. What does a 15 year old's access to contraception have to do with keeping older and more mature adult students from taking advantage of a child?
I mean, if the 18 yo was a boy (or MAN, the second he turned 18, as some would say), would ANYone here be saying the same thing(s)?
Frankly, I tend to think ... not.
In fact, I suspect the opposite ... that many DU'ers would be complaining about the 'horrific rape culture' or some such, and demanding that such an evil, predatory monster be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for his reprehensible sexual predation upon an innocent, too-young-to-consent 14 year old BABY.
And no offense to my fellow guys, but if we're honest, a 14 yo girl is probably a lot closer to the same maturity as an 18 yo boy than they are an 18 yo girl .. And based on that, I think the case could be made that it's actually a 'worse' offense when Kaitlyn's a girl vs. if she were a guy ... and yet ... a guy would be condemned very strongly for doing this by most everyone, and most everyone seems to want to defend Kaitlyn.
So this is why I ask ... the question in my title above.
Personally, I don't have a huge problem with what happened here whether it was a girl, or a boy. I'm sure this will be controversial to say, but I think if 14 year olds are old enough to be tried and convicted as adults (which they most certainly have been in a number of states) when they commit a crime, then if we are to be consistent in terms of our 'logic', they should probably be considered 'old enough to consent' to sexual activity, esp. with a reasonably near-aged peer in a loving type of relationship, as was clearly the case here. Disclaimer: I say that because I despise seeing children tried as adults, not because I think the age of consent should be 14 years old 
And also, I'm just really not a fan of the way we seem to want to criminalize friggin' everything as the solution to our 'problems'.
However, as long as there's no evidence that Kaitlyn is being specifically targeted because she's gay, I don't really have a huge issue her paying some kind of consequences for this misbehavior. But ... I really don't think a felony charge and 'sex offender' registry is really very appropriate. This should be reserved for ACTUAL predatory behavior. Someone exhibiting a pattern of seducing youngsters, luring them into sex, and then dumping them. THAT is what punishment like that should be reserved for if you ask me.
As an aside, when I went to HS (80's) a sizable majority of the freshman (14-15 yo) girls were hot for the senior (17-18) guys, and that's because their maturity level is generally much more comparable than with couples of the same age. And there were TONS of 'couples' in this exact 'arrangement'. However, all the Seniors KNEW that they were playing w/fire if they kept it up with the minor girl once they turned 18. These laws are nothing new, and Kaitlyn unfortunately showed some pretty bad judgement in her actions. But I do understand ... the heart wants, what the heart wants. Esp. at that age.
