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Georgia Supreme Court Issues Just Result in Sexual Assault Case
A recent ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court underscores the importance of carefully drafting state laws to avoid unreasonable and irrational results.
October 18, 2009 /Parenting PR News/ -- Georgia Supreme Court Issues Just Result in Sexual Assault Case
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A recent ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court underscores the necessity that the state legislature uses the utmost care in drafting state laws. Even though the court reached the correct conclusion in this case, the decision would not have been necessary if the law had been properly constructed at the outset.
Chase v The State
In Chase v. The State, the high court was asked to consider consent as a valid defense to a charge of sexual assault of a student by a teacher under O.C.G.A. 16-6-5.1(b). In the case, the student, Christy Elaine Garcia, was a 16-year-old junior attending Harlem High School in Harlem, Georgia. She admitted to pursuing a romantic relationship with a teacher at the school, 28-year-old Melissa Lee Chase. Chase was not Garcia's teacher at the time of the incident. The two did develop a relationship with one another and had one incidence of sexual contact.
Although Garcia's father and stepmother, with whom she lived, had knowledge of the relationship and allowed Garcia to stay with Chase, Garcia's mother did not know about it. After finding a note from Chase to Garcia with romantic overtures, Garcia's mother reported it to the police. The police then charged Chase with sexual assault for her illegal sexual contact with a student.
At trial, Chase claimed the charges should be dismissed because the relationship was consensual. However, the trial court disagreed, interpreting the language of O.C.G.A. 16-6-5.1(c)(3) to invalidate consent as a defense to the charges. Consequently, Chase was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 5 years probation and was required to register as a convicted sex offender.
On appeal, the appellate court upheld the finding by the trial court, again interpreting the language of the statute to prevent Chase from bringing a valid consent defense. Chase appealed the case to the Georgia Supreme Court.
Sexual Assault: O.C.G.A. 16-6-5.1
The statute at the heart of the debate in the Chase case has four subsections:
- Subsection "a" defines the terms in the statute
- Subsection "b" makes it a crime for someone with supervisory or disciplinary authority over another to have sexual contact with them, including those who are in a student-teacher relationship
- Subsection "c" defines sexual assault for those with supervisory or disciplinary authority over someone in legal custody or detained in a hospital or other institution
- Subsection "d" applies to sexual assault committed by those who work in long-term care, nursing homes, home health care and hospices against the patients
Importantly, only subsection c has language that explicitly says that consent is not an accepted defense to the crime, stating: "consent of the victim shall not be a defense to a prosecution under this subsection" (emphasis added) (O.C.G.A. 16-6-5.1(c)(B)(3)).
The Georgia Supreme Court's Decision
In reversing the decisions by the trial and appellate courts, the Georgia Supreme Court stressed the importance of reading the statute in accordance with the plain language of the law. After considering the statutory language, the court concluded that the explicit removal of consent as a defense to the law only applied to subsection c (those with authority over legal or hospital detainees) and not to the other subsections of the statute.
The court also stated that the statute must be read in harmony with Georgia's other laws, including the age of consent law. In Georgia, the legal age of consent for sexual contact is currently 16, meaning that anyone age 16 or older can enter into a consensual sexual relationship. Thus, state law only prohibits sexual contact with minors who are age 15 or younger.
In accordance with Georgia's consent law, the court reasoned that it would produce an illogical and unjust result if consent was removed as a defense to the other subsections of O.C.G.A. 16-6-5.1. If there was no consent defense, then the age of the parties would not matter and only the status as a teacher and student who had sexual contact would be necessary to convict under this law - a law which carries a 10-30 year prison sentence.
Accordingly, a professor could be convicted for having sexual relations with a consenting adult graduate student who was 30 years old. It is difficult if not impossible to make a persuasive argument that the legislature intended such an absurd result.
Thus, the Georgia Supreme Court reversed the lower court decisions and ruled that consent is in fact a valid defense to a charge of sexual assault under O.C.G.A. 16-6-5.1(b).
Conclusion
Although the court absolutely reached the right decision in Chase, one would shudder to think of the consequences if it had not. If the trial court's decision had been upheld, Chase would have lost 10 years of her life behind bars, spent another 5 on probation and then, to add further insult to injury, been forced to register as a sex offender in the state - all for engaging in a consensual sexual act.
The truth of the matter is that the court never should have had to decide a case like this one. Elected legislators need to take time to carefully consider the full implications of proposed legislation when they are drafting laws, especially when it comes to criminalizing and punishing certain behaviors. Certainly, had the Georgia Supreme Court ruled otherwise, Ms. Chase would not have been the only person in the state to be unfairly punished by an absurd law.
Article provided by Ross & Pines, LLC
Visit us at www.rossandpines.com
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