Former Alabama High School Teacher Avoids Criminal Charges By Marrying Former Student

Kimberly Dawn Bynum, 31, has found not just love but a criminal defense according to her lawyers. Bynum was facing charges of having a sexual relations with a former student from November 2011. The student was 17 at the time. However, her counsel recently told the court that she had married the student and was now living outside the country. The charges were promptly dropped.

Bynum reportedly met the boy in his 12th grade and began a sexual relationship towards the end of the school year, though there was no reported sex on school grounds.

It is not clear what happened to her first (inconvenient) husband or their “children.” Her school bio read:

“I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama where I graduated from Hewitt-Trussville High School. I earned my Bachelor’s of Science in Mathematics and Secondary Education from the University of Alabama. I am married to Nathan Garner, band director at Hamilton High School. We reside in Hamilton with our children, Ladybird (chocolate lab) and Bandit (ninja cat).”

The law itself is interesting because it makes it a crime as opposed to a disciplinary offense to have deviant sexual intercourse with a student under the age of 19. That is above the age of consent. It is also interesting to see oral and anal sex still criminalized under the law given the ruling in Lawrence v. Texas. Here is the statute:

Section 13A-6-81 – School employee engaging in a sex act or deviant sexual intercourse with a student under the age of 19 years.

(a) A person commits the crime of a school employee engaging in a sex act or deviant sexual intercourse with a student under the age of 19 years if he or she is a school employee and engages in a sex act or deviant sexual intercourse with a student, regardless of whether the student is male or female. Consent is not a defense to a charge under this section.

(b) As used in this section, sex act means sexual intercourse with any penetration, however slight; emission is not required.

(c) As used in this section, deviant sexual intercourse means any act of sexual gratification between persons not married to each other involving the sex organs of one person and the mouth or anus of another.

(d) The crime of a school employee engaging in a sex act or deviant sexual intercourse with a student is a Class B felony.

Criminalizing sexual contact between consenting adults (particularly with the added crime for oral or anal sex) raises some difficult questions. The law was clearly designed to encompass acts beyond sex with a child, which can be charged under other parts of the code. What do you think?

Source: Times Daily