The United States has been widely criticized for sentences that continue to rise across the federal and state criminal codes. Politicians love to increase sentences to advance their public persona as “tough-on-crime” leaders. Now, Canada has granted a Florida mother asylum from the United States over what the immigration court viewed as an excessive sentence. Denise Harvey, 47, was convicted of five counts of unlawful sexual activity with a minor in 2008. The minor was the 16-year-old friend of her son. She and her family fled to Canada to avoid 30 years in jail for the sexual relationship.
Harvey was still on bail when she fled Florida where prosecutors insisted that a 30 year sentence was just. She was later arrested in Saskatchewan in April 2011.
She can now apply for Canadian citizenship.
The decision is highly unusual but offers a glimpse into the growing divide between the United States and other countries on sentencing. This was a despicable act but this was a consensual relationship with a boy who was two years away from the age of consent. Florida law states:
794.05 Unlawful sexual activity with certain minors.–
(1) A person 24 years of age or older who engages in sexual activity with a person 16 or 17 years of age commits a felony of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084. As used in this section, “sexual activity” means oral, anal, or vaginal penetration by, or union with, the sexual organ of another; however, sexual activity does not include an act done for a bona fide medical purpose.
The 30 year sentence in Florida is wildly out of sync with other states and countries. It is notable that this case follows another case before the Florida Supreme Court where prosecutors secured an 80 year sentence for a man who fired a gun four times in the air — or 20 years per bullet. The justices expressed doubt that they could do anything about the outrageously excessive sentence. It appears that Canada did not feel so constrained in the face of such sentencings.
Source: Daily Mail
What did her son think after he found out his friend was slamming the meat stick to his momma hahaha
FWIW… “age of consent” is a LCD term for “maturity”. Further, there is no established measure of “maturity”. Even a 60 year-old can exhibit “immaturity”.
Mandatory sentencing for such an abstract “offense” is absurd.
These draconian laws were drafted to prevent men from having sex. Texas recently upped its age of consent, directly to prevent men from legally marrying 14-year-old girls at the YFZ Ranch. That women have been getting caught up in this dragnet, something never intended, is backlash that is viewed as collateral damage. If the law prevents one-million men from having sex, thirty years in the slammer for this woman is, well, a good bargain.
Why aren’t people upset at the Supreme Court for repealing the Eighth Amendment (prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment)? It effectively did so when it upheld a 50-year sentence for petty theft under California’s three-strikes law. But if a jury awards high punitive damages against a corporation for manufacturing a dangerously defective product, the Supreme Court strikes it down.
Seems reasonable to me.
RTC, When I was 16 I had a perpetual boner and would f@ck a warm pie or a sun warmed cantaloupe if given the chance.
Warspite hit the nail on the head.
This kid has bragged to every other kid in town. He has medals on his
man-wall; trophies in his man-trophy case.
Etiquette or law? What’s the jurisdiction in this case?
Yeh, but somebody thought she was a MILF
LOL!!! But RTC, I’ve seen much foxier teachers who boink their students than this woman.
This may work to Canada’s advantage.
“Canada: You’ll come for the adventure, but stay for the MILF’s!
Schulte: “it really would depend on the state Brickhouse’s father was in and the year as to whether it broke the law or not. When I was growing up, the state I lived in had an age of consent of 18 but NJ had an age of consent of 14.”
Good point. It was Indiana back in 1916
Males should start porkin around age 14. At 16 one is old enough to work at a cathouse cleaning rooms and getting paid in trade. This woman should not have been charged with a crime but should have been given a dime. The kid need a roll in the hay. A roll in the hay keeps the doctor away. Florida comes up on the blog again each day as the worst state in the Union for justice. Worse than Mexico. Its hanging in there with Nigeria.
No one put a gun to her head to have sexual intercourse with a child. At 47 she is old enough to know it was illegal. If Canada wants that child molester, lets send them more.
As we are seeing with the Executive branch of the federal government; we cannot pick and choose the laws we want to follow. If the sentencing laws are draconian then change the law or change the behavior.
Anybody else remember the stories we were told in primary school, about those nasty olde English who would hang or transport people for stealing a loaf of bread?
Well, we’re there.
My “bias” is for crime prevention, not for crime prediction.
As for crime prediction, I have been quite capable of using a form of psychoanalysis in which the countertransferenc(es) do not contain psychological defenses, and have, sadly, been able to predict that some people I encountered would, almost certainly, commit multiple murders, which they subsequently did. In two such situations, my social environment had allowed to be acquainted with the murders and to know the people who were murdered; I had visited the homes of three of the four people who were murdered.
I brought attention to my concerns to “proper authorities” prior to the murders, but was summarily ignored by the “proper authorities” not only prior to the murders, but also after them.
There are non-traumatizing and non-retraumatizing ways of doing psychoanalysis, ways which are very nearly the antithesis of Freudian methods.
Such methods have been around for some time, one such being very well described in the work of Fritz Redl and David Wineman, in two volumes, “Children Who Hate” and “Controls from Within” and, subsequently, in a single volume, “The Aggressive Child.” Those books have long been out of print, but can be found through used booksellers. My research library has all three.
I am not out on a limb. I stand on the firm ground of objectively verifiable tangible reality.
Thank you Canada. Hopefully living next to a more advanced society will have some common sense rub off on us. In France this is typically part of a movie plot. Of course we won WW2 for them so what do they know?