Thanks for your post. I do like your take that it is important to recognise the consequences that actions bring. In this case, however, the consequences are wholly disproportionate. My concern is that this brings the law as a whole into disrepute as it shows that it is not applied evenly, making it very hard to make a judgment as to the consequences an action will cause.

As I say, I do like the message you promote - really enjoyed your site - but I find it a little utilitarian, and act-utilitarian at that. There are some things you do because they are, a priori, morally right (which can extend to civil disobedience - not that I think Mr Wilson’s case is an example).

There is also a question of fatalism; it is necessary to challenge the way things are, and not merely blithely ‘accept the consequences’.

There are also some actions that have delayed or diffuse consequences - failing to recycle, for instance. Without having heard your presentation, it’s hard to say whether you’re using an appeal to enlightened self-interest or a moral argument about consequences themselves.

Going back to the utility point, I do approve of what your organisation does as I’m sure it makes a positive difference on the ground and the message is, I think, a good one.

xD.

As former inmate from Federal prison, today I share with business executives and young people that simple message: Every choice has a consequence. http://www.chuckgallagher.com And, while I am extraordinarily sympathetic to Mr. Wilson’s plight, his example has helped other young people evaluate the power of their seemingly simple choices. As the founder of the Choices Foundation, perhaps Genarlow would consider stepping up and helping others understand the power of choice.

I am not suggesting that rape is less serious that drunk-driving. I am suggesting that this was not rape, that drunk driving is serious and that Ms Hilton’s lot in life means she receives a much easier deal than Mr Wilson.

Do please look over the webpage that I link to. If the difference had been one day - if he had turned sixteen that day and she was fifteen years, three hundred and sixty-four days old, it would be clearly ridiculous to sentence him to a decade in prison. I would say that the same applies here. Matt Towery, who introduced the legislation that has applied here, has said it is a miscarriage of justice for the boy to have been tried, let alone convicted, under this law.

The jury, when sitting, were not told that a guilty verdict would have resulted in a ten-year sentence. Had they done so, they might well have invoked the right of a jury to nullify a verdict that is correct to the letter of the law but not the spirit or, indeed, ignore a woefully bad law. Given, Matt, that you are a conservative and that this principle goes back to the 1600s, I’d have expected you to support, particularly as its point is to stop overly powerful executives influencing judiciaries to enforce its morality on others.

I disagree with you if you believe this, but I can understand why you might think consensual oral sex between a fifteen year old girl and a seventeen year old boy should be a crime. Surely, though, a decade behind bars is a little extreme?

xD.

But lets throw something else into teh mix isn’t it strange that whilst Republican grandees go up to ask President Bush to pardon Scooter Libby, who committed perjury and obstructed justice, nobody is asking the Presidnet to pardon this boy- (that may be to be fair because he only has the power to pardon for federal offences- Edmund?) but there should be a move to pardon this boy for what looks like a incident which shows that the law needs reform in this particular so that a seventeen year old having oral sex with a fifteen year old doesn’t become statutory rape.

Obviously not. Rape should be taken extremely seriously and that’s what the boy has, correctly, been convicted of. That’s why the real question isn’t about freedom, or process - Jimmy Carter aside, but about the nature of statutory rape.

I think the obvious problems in this case support factoring in age difference in whether sex with someone underage is necessarily statutory rape.