Case Analysis Essay on Age Gap

Introduction

Jeremy and Jimmy were both in the same college class, and they began flirting. A party which was to take place during the weekend made them start communicating through the phone, and this led them to discover they had the same personalities and a lot in common. They met in Jeremy's dorm where they committed fornication and Gary who was one of the students noticed the act and reported the matter to the campus police. They were interrogated and admitted to having sex, and they were asked for their IDs, Jimmy was 17 years while Jeremy was 20 years old. Jeremy was arrested for statutory rape as she had slept with a minor, Jimmy, who was 17 years.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Jeremy was prosecuted under the state's law which read, "Statutory rape is sexual contact by an individual who is below the legal age of consent, which is defined as 18, and is punishable by a minimum of 5years in prison and long life registration as a sex offender." There was recent legislation amendment which added the following to that statutory rape language; "where sexual contact is consensual and where there is no more than a gap of two years in the age of parties that are involved. The court ruled out, and Jeremy was convicted of statutory rape and sentenced to 5 years imprisonment and was registered as a sex offender. Jeremy appealed to the state Supreme Court.

He appealed on two issues; one is that there is no meaningful difference between a two years age gap and a three years gap- the gap between him and Jimmy and the second issue was that he never had the intention of committing rape. On the first issue, the court noted that it was the intent of the legislature in adding the two-year gap rule in that when one is a minor and the two-year gap in age between consensual partners no longer requires the minimum five-year sentence or lifelong sex offender registration. In this amendment, the court brought out that 2 to 3 years is not a significant difference so long as the minor is not less than 16 years of age, in this Jeremy's convict was looked into again. According to the second issue, he had no intentions of committing rape as he had thought Jimmy was at least 18 and he could not have had sex with him if he had known her age. The court believed that Jeremy was being truthful and would, therefore, lessen the convict due to the benefit of the two issues. However, it was not prepared to add a requirement to the statutory rape. CASE BRIEFING ON AGE GAP (question 1)

"Statutory rape is sexual contact by an individual who is at or above the legal age of consent with an individual who is below the legal age of consent, which is defined as 18 and is punishable by a minimum of years in prison and lifelong registration as a sex offender. This is the statutory rule of law in which the court convicts. The legislation had added to the statutory rape language that where sexual contact is consensual and where there is no more than a two year age gap between the parties involved, the minimum sentence and lifelong registration as a sex offender are not required. In this statutory rape case where a 19-year-old man consents with a 16-year female, the court listens to both the prosecutor and defendant before making the judgment.

The prosecutor prosecutes in line with the statutory rape in which it is sexual contact by an individual who is at or above the legal age of consent with an individual who is below the legal age of consent. He prosecutes the man before the court as the man is 19 years old, he is above the legal age of consent, consents with the 16 years old female, who is below the legal age of consent which is 18 years old. According to the defendant, statutory rape could not be used in this case as they also were to look into addition rule by the legislature that stated that "where sexual contact in consensual and where there is no more than two year gap in age between the parties involved, the minimum sentence and lifelong registration as a sex offender are not required. The defendant used an earlier court statement in which it argued whether there was any significant difference between a gap of two years and a gap of three years.

Conclusion

According to an earlier case one year ago on Jeremy and Jimmy who had 20 years and 17 years respectively, the court had ruled out saying that there was no meaningful difference between a two year age gap and a three a year age gap. In addition it had noted that it was the intent of the legislature in adding the two year gap rule, that a two year gap in age between consensual sexual partners when one is a minor no longer requires the minimum 5 year sentence or lifelong sex offender registration, to indicate that a 19-year-old having consensual sex with a 16-year-old would still be guilty of an act but that the court would be able to sentence the 19-year-old offender to something less than 5 years or no time at all and to the option of not requiring sex registration for life or at all. The alleged has 16 years which is the youngest age allowed by the legislature's additional language; hence the 19-year-old man would receive a lighter sentence. Therefore, the court tries the punishment based on this ruling.