ACLU of Florida Statement on Prosecution of 18-Year-Old Kaitlyn Hunt [View all]

[ScreamingMeemie]

http://aclufl.org/2013/05/21/aclu-of-florida-statement-on-prosecution-of-18-year-old-kaitlyn-hunt/


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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.

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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."