Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/04/13/sex-assault-charge-dropped-against-marine-after-it-turns-out-the-14-year-old-girl-he-hid-on-base-told-him-she-was-22.html
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This specific aspect seems relevant:
Stewart said the commanding general “withdrew and dismissed” the charge because she discovered that prosecutors held back “exculpatory evidence” related to her own team’s discovery of the girl’s multiple other liaisons with men where she presented herself as being of legal age.
Apparently the prosecution was deliberately withholding potentially exculpatory information that they had; which is, deservedly, pretty damning to a case: doesn’t mean that it’s actually exculpatory, I’d assume that there are some pretty weak attempts at age verification in this particular vein; but if the prosecution is hiding it you certainly can’t assume that it’s because they just didn’t think it was important.
Obviously, in an ideal world the question of whether it was sexual assault or not would be the only one at play; but when trying to run a court things tend to go badly over time if you let the prosecution think that they can get away with things; much as in an ideal world you’d get to take all evidence into consideration but you absolutely cannot keep the cops in line without being willing to strike illegally obtained evidence.
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I have never met a 14 year old who could pass for 22, so the prosecution screwed the case by assuming that that would be exculpatory and hiding it. He may have met with her thinking that she would be 22, but he probably figured it out pretty quickly, but didn’t let that stop him.
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Pretty sloppy job by the prosecution, it’s almost like they wanted to let him free without taking the responsibility
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That’s not why it’s not exculpatory. It’s not exculpatory because so called “statutory rape” is a strict liability crime. That means it doesn’t legally matter if the defendant knew the girl was underage because there’s no intent required to be convicted of the crime. I don’t understand why the prosecution withheld the information about the girl’s behavior because it doesn’t fucking matter. And I don’t understand why the charges were dropped because whether he knew her age or not doesn’t fucking matter. This is a strict liability crime for a reason: we want people to make sure the people they are having sex with are able to consent and do consent. The result of this case baffles me, from a legal standpoint.
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There’s a certain sort of word that’s just a bit too fermented for straight news writing and calling men having sex with 14 year olds “liaisons” is a great example. My guess is that it’s a quote from the defense that the reporter neglected to attribute.
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I looked young for my age yet I have no recollection of anyone I ever dated demanding to see my drivers license first. Even writing this seems absurd as nobody I know has ever produced ID for age verification for any situation other than buying alcohol or clubbing.
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Does that apply under military justice? AIUI, they function under a whole different set of rules than the rest of us. Of course, IANAL, so 
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It does still apply.
Reasonable mistakes in knowing someone’s age can be a defense. Also, in most states, if the two people are close in age (say 16 and 19), it’s either not considered rape or it’s a misdemeanor.
Here, the girl was 14 and claimed to be 22. I guess the prosecutor thought a jury would buy the reasonable mistake in age defense, but 14 seems awfully young for someone believing they were 22.
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The passing of O.J. Simpson is as good as time as any to remember that someone can be guilty as sin but still escape accountability due to misconduct by police or prosecutors.
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Does anyone know how old the man was? You can be a marine at 18. It’s not great, but a man sleeping with a 14 year old who said she was 22 and thinking she’s not that age but maybe is 16 or 17 (I am adding that in, I agree its hard to believe he thought she was 22) is different than a 24 year old doing the same thing. In my view. Also, the uniform code of military justice probably has significantly different provisions than the local jurisdiction. I don’t know what it says about statutory rape. Not sure I think this guy is evil, but he probably was older and should be ashamed of himself, and faced harsher punishment, to say the least.
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Other reporting says he’s been a Marine for four years, so probably at least 22. This is not like an 18-year-old hooking up with a 16-year-old. He’s a creep who would deserve serious consequences for his actions even if she was over 18. He got lucky that the prosecutors were caught breaking the rules.
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Sure he said that, but it’s a BS excuse from the general. The “exculpatory” evidence was online posts from the child (some of which the defendant had already seen). Her statements don’t change that it’s statutory rape, and also the defense already knew the girl had claimed to be 21. Just because the general grossly mischaracterized things doesn’t mean we should
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Am I misunderstanding this paragraph? It seems that there is a circumstance where the belief of the perpetrator is a defense, when backed with a preponderance of evidence. Would this account for the questions you raised? (And if this is the case, I hate it, for the reasons you also described).
(2) Under 16 years.—
In a prosecution under this section, it need not be proven that the accused knew that the other person engaging in the sexual act or lewd act had not attained the age of 16 years, but it is a defense in a prosecution under subsection (b) (sexual assault of a child) or subsection (c) (sexual abuse of a child), which the accused must prove by a preponderance of the evidence, that the accused reasonably believed that the child had attained the age of 16 years, if the child had in fact attained at least the age of 12 years.
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I was only addressing doc’s question of whether this was still a strict liability crime under the UCMJ. It is. I also literally mentioned the defense you brought up, so you’re just repeating what I said for some reason.
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I didn’t mean to imply that I was impressed with the evidence, except in the very narrow sense that it seems to tick the boxes for ‘material’ and ‘favorable’; which makes the prosecution just deciding to withhold it a pretty serious procedural problem. It certainly seems to be on the thin side of those standards, hardly smoking gun stuff; but the fact that the charges were dropped because the general wasn’t satisfied with the behavior of the prosecution; rather than because she was satisfied with the defense of the defendant, seemed pretty relevant to the story.
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Thanks for clarifying. 
I somehow missed the comment where you addressed that. 
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My point is that when describing systems that have a long history of covering up and downplaying rape and sexual harassment (which the marine corps does) we shouldn’t just accept their framing of things at face value.
In this case the “exculpatory” evidence was an instagram message from the girl to the defendant claiming she was 22 (which the defense presumably already had) and statements from the girl to other soldiers saying the same thing she told the defendant. That is only exculpatory in a court where if a 14-year old says she’s 22, then statutory rape is ok
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Well - screw that guy then. Gross.
Lets circle back to the part where multiple men had sex with this same 14 year old. Are they also marines on this base?
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