Essay: Sex and Justice

Essay: Sex and Justice - 11.16.2010

A recent horrifying case involving teen suicide has gotten wide attention. The case got Michigan Radio’s Political Analyst Jack Lessenberry thinking about the state’s sex offender registry.

If news is what people are talking about, then the big story in Michigan last week wasn’t the budget deficit, or Governor-elect Rick Snyder’s efforts to put together an administration.

No, the big story was a horrifying case where a fourteen-year-old girl killed herself after having sex with an eighteen-year-old boy.

And it ought to make us all think about a lot of things, including whether the Michigan Sex Offender registry makes any sense.

In this tragic case, both teens at first told police the act was consensual, but later the girl appeared on local TV news, and said she had been raped. Following that, the kids in her high school evidently turned on her. Eventually, the child went home and hung herself. This story is distressing on too many levels to count.

Whatever actually happened between the teens is hard to determine, though police say the girl said she told the boy she was eager to lose her virginity. If so, she later had second thoughts. As a journalist, I am appalled that a local so-called news station put this child on TV, identifying her by name, as she talked about her sex life.

Grownups ought to know how cruel the world can be.

But this whole episode really ought to draw attention to an appalling institution called the Michigan Sex Offender Registry.

Since the 1990s, the registry has listed anyone convicted of a so-called sex crime and indicates where they live. The idea was to protect children by allowing families to discover if a convicted sex offender lives in the neighborhood.

That may make some sense in the case of serious pedophiles, though it also could be seen as a dangerous invitation to vigilante action. But the registry also includes those convicted of a wide variety of far lesser offenses, including drunk frat boys who relieved themselves in public. They are on there with the serial rapists.

The main problem is in cases like this one. In Michigan sixteen is the legal age of consent. But in our highly sexualized society, there are many sixteen year old boys who are active with their almost sixteen year old girlfriends. Legally, they are committing a felony.

Cold-case suspect found dead in prison cell

11-7-2010 Colorado:

A day after an inmate was charged in two cold-case sexual assaults, he was found dead in his cell at Sterling Correctional Facility.

The body of habitual criminal Michael Anthony Carey, 51, was discovered at 1:20 p.m., said Katherine Sanguinetti, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Corrections.

Logan County coroner Dave Tennant said he will perform an autopsy in the next day or two.

Prison authorities reported Carey's death as a "possible" suicide, Tennant said.

Denver cold-case Detective Larry Moore II filed an arrest warrant Wednesday morning against Carey for a 1997 sexual assault case involving a 15-year-old girl and the assault of a female jogger the following year. Both cases were linked by DNA.

Sanguinetti said after the stories were reported in The Denver Post and by 9News, prison officials asked Carey if he wished to be taken out of the general prison population and placed in segregation for his protection. He declined, she said.

The cold cases in which Carey was accused occurred four months apart in 1997 and 1998. In the first, a 15-year-old girl said a man forced her to perform a sex act after she accepted his offer a ride in his truck. In the second, a jogger said a man in a truck tried to run her over, knocked her down and then forced her to perform a sex act.

In each of the assaults, the suspect told the victims where to walk after getting out of his vehicle.

Carey had a criminal record dating to 1978 for crimes that included burglary, drug dealing, assault, drunken driving and robbery. He was first arrested for indecent exposure in 1994 and was arrested twice more for the offense in 1998 and 1999. In 2000, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison for drug manufacturing and assaulting police, according to Colorado Bureau of Investigation records. ..Source.. by Kirk Mitchell:

Stepmother of 38-year-old man accused of shooting teen girl in murder-suicide says he snapped, 'was just a lost soul looking for someone to love him'

Posted in Related Deaths

11-4-2010 Michigan:

MONROE -- Family of 38-year-old Raymond Bush, who police say abducted and fatally shot a 15-year-old Evart girl before taking his own life, defended him today as a good person who simply snapped.

Bush and the girl, Taylor Manley, had been in a relationship for about a year, said Bush's stepmother, Maryann Bush.

"I think he was just a lost soul looking for someone to love him," she said.

Bush was the father of a 17-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son from previous relationships. He bought and fixed-up a van for his daughter, who recently gave birth.

Maryann Bush said her stepson was afraid of going to jail after he was charged with sexually assaulting Taylor.

She is upset that others are portraying Bush as a pedophile.

"We all know that two families are suffering, but people are portraying him like he's a real bad person. But that's not like it was," Maryann Bush said.

She claimed Bush, who was not working, did not have a criminal record.

Oseceola County prosecutors say Taylor planned to testify against Bush at a probable cause hearing Wednesday, but Bush believed she would not.

Bush and Taylor got to know each other because she once lived next door to the grandparents of his son, in the Monroe area.

On Wednesday, Bush talked to his ex-girlfriend on the phone and later stopped at her home. Bush allegedly told the ex-girlfriend he killed Taylor and planned to kill himself because "that was the only way they could be together."

Maryann Bush believes the stress of the criminal charges and being under order not to contact Taylor made him snap. ..Source.. by John Tunison | The Grand Rapids Press

Florence Inmate Found Dead

11-4-2010 Arizona:

Florence, Arizona -- James Galloway, 54, was found dead in his Florence prison cell Oct. 26.

His death was an apparent suicide, according to Arizona Department of Corrections officials, but they are still investigating.

Galloway was serving 18 life sentences for multiple counts of sexual assault with a minor. He was sentenced in September 2008. ..Source.. by KPHO.com

Child Molestation Suspect Kills Self

10-29-2010 Georgia:

25-Year-Old Found Dead In Camden County Jail Cell

WOODBINE, Ga. -- A 25-year-old woman accused of molesting seven boys younger than 16 years old earlier this year was found dead in her Camden County Jail cell Friday.

Detention officers at the Camden County Sheriff's Office Public Safety Complex in Woodbine, Ga., said they discovered Amy Mykkanen hanging from an air conditioning unit by her bed sheet and unresponsive in her cell about 5:30 a.m.

She was unable to be revived.

Investigators said another inmate in the cell was asleep when Mykkanen hanged herself.

"She did leave a note saying she had planned this," Camden County Sheriff Tommy Gregory said. "She didn't let anybody know, and basically leaving a note to her parents and officers and inmates saying she was sorry for hurting them."

Agents with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Camden County Coroner's Office were called to investigate the death.

"We're trying to review to see if there's anything that we missed that could have keyed us off to prevent this," Gregory said.

According to an indictment, Mykkanen had sexual contact with seven boys younger than 16. She was facing eight counts of child molestation, one count of statutory rape and one count of enticing a child for indecent purposes.

Investigators said one 13-year-old boy's parents and grandparents called police in July and told them the boy had been molested by Mykkanen, an acquaintance of the family.

Investigators said they seized laptop computers with cameras and digital video cameras from her home.

Mykkanen's husband is in the Navy. The sheriff said he is deployed at sea and has been notified of his wife's death. ..Source.. by News4Jax.com