Loony Wisconsin

Michael Kuehl, 2004

If anything, famously "progressive" Wisconsin is even battier than the "Land of Loons." Since at least 1997, women have been sentenced to jail and even prison not only for having sex with young men as old as 16 and 17 but also, even more appallingly, for acquiescing to intercourse and "sexual contact" with criminals and predators who raped and assaulted them.

Lori Hanson

In Prairie du Chien, a small town on the Mississippi River, ex-teacher Lori Hanson was sentenced to 2 years in prison for having a love affair with a 16-year-old student.

(Jeff Cole, "More women being charged with sex abuse," JS Online, April 14, 2003.)

And unlike men convicted of aggravated assault, murder, gang shootings, dozens and scores of armed robberies, muggings, burglaries, etc., she must register with the police for life so people can be informed that a "sex criminal" is living in their communities or neighborhoods. Unlike myriads of the most vicious and depraved criminals - i.e., those not recently convicted of felony sex offenses - she'll never be totally free.

Trudy Anderson

Trudy Anderson, a home economics teacher suffering from manic-depression, was originally charged with felonies that carried a maximum sentence of 80-years in prison for having consensual sex with a 17-year-old football star. The stud wanted to see Colorado and the Rocky Mountains, and she deferred to his wishes.

For this she was charged with felony "child kidnapping" - the same offense as men who violently abduct, rape, and murder little girls. She was sentenced to 7-months in county jail and 20-years of registration as a "sex offender" and is now under "active community supervision." Although the "child" was "raped" in a small town in North Central Wisconsin, the soap opera details of this case were often featured on the front page of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

("Teacher accused of fleeing with boy now faces sex charges," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 8, 1999, p. 1A.)

Carla Paulsrud, a high school dance instructor, faced a maximum sentence of 60-years in prison for having a love affair with a 17-year-old delinquent. Incredibly, the maximum penalty of "only" 60-years was offered in a plea bargain. She could have been charged with 50 counts of "sexual assault" and faced a maximum sentence of 500-years in prison for transporting a punk to sexual nirvana! She was ultimately sentenced to a year in county jail, 6-years of "extended supervision," and registration for life as a "sex criminal."

Under the law, her 17-year-old paramour was unconditionally and automatically a "child" when he had consensual sex with Carla but unconditionally and automatically an adult when he committed various felonies.

("West Bend high school teacher charged with having sex with pupil: Boy, 17, told police relationship was consensual, complaint says," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, January 23, 2003, pp. 1B, 2B.)

Laurie Mosher

Most outrageously, Laurie Mosher was sentenced to 30 months in prison for having consensual sex with a 17-year-old student. But her sentence wasn't nearly harsh enough for many people. Of six people who wrote the judge after sentencing, five "applauded" his decision and "(t)wo of the five said his sentence wasn't harsh enough"! "One writer said Winnebago County Circuit Court Judge Robert Haase's sentence was 'lenient at best'."

The vindictiveness, sanctimony, hysteria, and ignorance are mind-boggling.

"'I think a man would have received a longer sentence for the same crime, so Mrs. Mosher should be grateful,' wrote Linda Gomach, a correctional officer at Taycheedah Correctional Institution - the prison where Mosher could end up serving time."
("Alex Hummel, "Responses to judge mostly support Mosher's sentence," January 2, 2003, www.greenbaypressgazette.com.)

This new-age Torquemada ...

... is ignorant not only of the law but also the sentencing practices of most Wisconsin judges.

First, if her hypothetical man were not a teacher, it's possible he wouldn't even be prosecuted. And if he were prosecuted, the charge would be a misdemeanor that carried a maximum sentence of 9-months in county jail. For nonviolent first-offenders, the average sentence for men convicted of having sex with 17-year-old girls is probably 30 days in county jail or less. Also, not so long ago, the age of consent was 16 in Wisconsin.

Only yesterday, in most situations, consensual sex between men and and 16- and 17-year-olds was completely legal. As for a male teacher convicted of the same offense as Laurie Mosher, I challenge her to name a single case in which a man was sentenced to 30 months in prison or longer for having consensual sex with a 17-year-old female student. In the entire country, in those states in which the age of consent is 18, how many men have been sentenced to 30-months in prison or longer for having consensual sex with 17-year-old girls? How many male teachers?

I wonder if Linda Gomach and her ilk read this story in the Oshkosh Northwestern:

"The 26-year-old boyfriend of a teen murder suspect received a $940 fine Monday after being convicted on a misdemeanor charge of having sexual relations with the minor.

David J. Kintopf, of Oshkosh, pleaded no contest in Winnebago Circuit Court to one count of sexual intercourse with a minor based on a sexual relationship with 17-year-old Kristen K. Cleaver.
Judge Thomas Gritton imposed the fine without an order for jail time or probation. Cleaver, now 18, is scheduled for jury trial late next month on a charge of first-degree intentional homicide related to the death of her newborn daughter. Kintopf is one of two men whom prosecutors believe may be the child's father. The other man, 27-year-old Russell Lang, was sentenced in June to 60 days in Winnebago County Jail."
("Cleaver boyfriend fined $940," Oshkosh Northwestern, Sept. 23, 2003, p. C1.)

And Laurie Mosher was sentenced to 2½ years in prison with no chance for parole!

"I think a man would have received a longer sentence for the same crime, so Mrs. Mosher should be grateful"!

If Trudy Anderson, Laurie Mosher, Lori Hanson, and Carla Paulsrud had been the mayors of their respective cities, judges, prosecutors, state legislators, professional athletes, violent criminals with 10-20 prior felony convictions, doctors, lawyers, billionaire CEOs, even the Governor or Attorney General, they would have been guilty of a misdemeanor which carried a maximum sentence of 9-months in county jail. But as teachers, they faced a maximum sentence of 10-years in prison for each alleged count of penetration and "sexual contact," decades and even hundreds of years in prison for behavior that's legal in virtually all European countries for adults not in positions of authority over children and in most European countries for adults in positions of authority over children if their power is not abused.

In Europe

I quote from the Archives of Sexual Behavior, "Sexual Consent: The Criminal Law in Europe and Oversees," Vol. 29, No. 5, 2000, p. 416:

"In Europe, in one-half of the jurisdictions, consensual sexual relations with 14-year-old adolescents are legal; in three-quarters, with 15-year-olds...
In nearly all jurisdictions, such relations are legal from age 16 onward. Most states apply a higher age limit for contacts in relationships of authority. If the authority is not misused, the age limit in most jurisdictions is set between 14 and 16..."

The point is not so much that we should emulate the superior and cosmopolitan Europeans - and certainly not that we should lower that age of consent to 12, as in Spain and Holland [*] - but that behavior which is legal in all or most European countries can't be all that horrible or even "serious."

[* No, this has been changed into 16. Ipce webmaster]

Who is the molester?

But sentencing women to jail and even prison for having sex with young men as old as 16 and 17 is not the height of insanity and gratuitous cruelty. Wisconsin judges even send women to prison for assenting to sex with punks who rape and assault them. In one case, moreover, the "molester" was clearly innocent of engaging in any willing "sexual contact" with her definitional "victim."

Cassandra Sorenson-Grohall

In Milwaukee, on April 7, 1997, Cassandra Sorenson-Grohall (a 28-year-old former teacher at an "alternative high school") was sentenced to 4-years in prison for having sex with a delinquent who initiated the liaison by raping her and then sustained it by threats and manipulation.

The irony is priceless. The only assault was committed by the "victim" - her lawyer repeatedly called it "rape" and noted that the "child" might have been "waived" into adult court had she reported the attack - and she goes to prison for "second-degree sexual assault of a child."

("Former teacher gets 4 years for having sex with student: 15-year-old boy apologizes for affair, says he started it," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 8, 1997, p. 1B.)

Lamentably (and, given her fate, ironically), she decided not to report the crime for fear that her assailant might go to prison and become "more of a delinquent." As for the intrigue - which, according to psychologists, was not a

"sexually-motivated crime but one manipulated by the 'victim'" (to quote from a letter she wrote me) -

"I knew this was wrong yet I was not sure how to stop it without hurting him."

Astonishingly, the same psychologists also concluded that she was not a "sexual predator," nor a "threat to society and children." She describes her "crime" as a "mistake made out of overcaring and naivete."

At sentencing, virtually everyone was pleading for "mercy" and "leniency" (50 people wrote letters of support) -even the "victim." Savor the irony, the sheer absurdity of it: a teenage criminal pleading for "mercy" for the woman he sexually assaulted. But, apparently, the honorable Jeffrey A. Kremers was as oblvious to such ironies as he was impervious to calls for leniency and simple fairness.

Assumptions

To judge and prosecutor, both CSA victimologists(?), the draconian sentence was based on two ludicrous assumptions:

Consequently, this teenage criminal and rapist was treated exactly like a victim of violent-forcible rape - exactly like the woman he raped would have been treated had she reported the sexual assault - and exactly like a victim of child molestation.

The law

Under the law, he was as much a "child," as much a "victim" and "innocent," as a 7-year-old boy or 9-year-old girl. Despite his age, his size, his criminal record, the rape of his teacher, his generally odious behavior, the delinquent was blameless. To this judge, apparently, indisputable evidence that this punk initiated the affair by raping his teacher was not even a mitigating factor!

In this case, incongruously, the juvenile was old and mature enough to form the intent or mens rea to assault his teacher, and possibly mature enough to have been "waived" into adult court had she reported the assault - but not old and mature enough to legally consent to subsequent intercourse with the women he sexually assaulted.

Put differently, he knew what he was doing, legally and morally, when he raped the woman - but he didn't know what he was doing when he engaged in subsequent intercourse with her. Had she pressed charges, her tormentor might have been tried as an adult. But, fatefully, she chose not to inform the police, and thus he remained a "child" under the law.

In cases involving sex between women and underaged teenage males, I thought I'd never see a worse travesty than the Cassanrda Sorenson-Grohall case - not even in Wisconsin. I was wrong. In some ways, the Melissa Bittner case is even more sickening.

Melissa Bittner

On June 25, 2002, also in Milwaukee, the 22-year-old ex-music teacher was sentenced to a year in prison for allegedly initiating 15-20 acts of "sexual contact" with a 16-year-old student.

("Messmer teacher sentenced in sex case," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 26, 2002, p. 3B.)

Fortunately, a long article in Milwaukee Magazine I read by accident a few months later discloses what really happened.

Almost surely, Melissa was the victim and her "victim" was the assailant. Almost surely, the "victim" assaulted Melissa at least 6 times and initiated juvenile acts of "humping" (i.e., simulations of intercourse while clothed, sort of a "lap dance" in reverse).

"According to Bittner, the 'humping' occurred six times. She says she was so scared and intimidated by his advances that she froze, though she always asked him to stop. In the one incident where Devon says Bittner masturbated him, she claims he forced her hand down his pants and she barely touched his penis."
(Pegi Taylor, "The Other Side of Darkness," Milwaukee Magazine, November 2002, p. 61.)

A punk assaults his teacher, then he accuses her of the assaults that he committed and invents 10 -15 more "escapades," and she's arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned for the crimes that her "victim" actually perpetrated - and for others that never happened! Yes, even worse than Sorenson-Grohall.

True, Melissa wasn't actually raped by an adolescent predator. But, unlike Cassandra, she was factually innocent, the victim of false accusations, and she never assented to intercourse with her tormentor. Her only crime was being a woman and a teacher, getting up in the morning and going to work and performing her duties. What happened to her could have happened to virtually any female teacher.

Blindly

Apparently, to judge from what I read in Milwaukee Magazine, police and prosecutors never conducted an unbiased and thorough investigation but blindly accepted as true the unsubstantiated allegations of a disturbed and malicious punk. Then they arrested and jailed Melissa and threatened, bullied, and manipulated her into "confessing" to assaults that were actually perpetrated by her accuser.

If they had talked to Melissa and asked her what happened, as a free woman in an atmosphere devoid of inquisatorial menace, and interviewed people who could have corroborated her version of events, and if they had weighed the facts with even a scintilla of rationality, intelligence, skepicism, objectivity, honesty, and realism, they would have concluded that Melissa's account of what happened was far more believable.

Only CSA victimologists and the authorities they indoctrinate would find the allegations of this predator to be even remotely plausible. Why would a woman like Melissa Bittner - a newlywed in love with her husband, a 22-year-old first-year teacher - aggressively seduce and and initiate puerile acts of "humping" with an obnoxious, wildly lascivious, and potentially violent teenage male. That she would initiate or even consent to juvenile simulations of intercourse with this vile and dangerous creep is simply incredulous. Melissa Bittner should not have even been arrested.

If they had been men ...

For the edification of "masculists" and "equity feminists" and millions of other ignoramuses, let's compare the sentences of Cassandra Sorenson-Grohall, Laurie Hanson, Melissa Bittner, Carla Paulsrud, and Laurie Mosher to those of just a few men convicted of molesting (and possibly even raping) prepubescent children ages 12 and younger.

A comprehensive study of the sentencing practices of Wisconsin judges over the last 4 decades would uncover myriads of similar cases, hundreds even more egregious. And so too, ten-fold, with men convicted of nonsexual crimes?

Just a few cases from Milwaukee, the city in which Cassandra and Melissa were sentenced to prison because they were raped and sexually assaulted, respectively, by adolescent predators.

Dontrell Amahd LeFlore

For 6 or 7 years, and especially during his life as an "adult," Dontrell Amahd LeFlore must have thought he was given a virtual license by the State of Wisconsin to commit almost every crime imaginable, including murder.

Somewhat surprisingly, his illustrious career was described in some detail in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

"A 20-year-old man in constant trouble with the law since 1994 was sentenced Thursday to 64 years in prison for killing a motorist while trying to outrace police through a residential area. Dontrell Amahd LeFlore didn't finish high school, never held a job, fathered three children and was arrested several times by the age of 19... 

(Judge Kitty) Brennan said she gave LeFlore the maximum sentence because he had been in continual trouble since age 14. Between February 1998 and January 2000, LeFlore was charged with felonies including substantial battery, cocaine trafficking, leaving the scene of a fatal accident, second-degree recklessly endangering safety, first-degree intentional homicide and first-degree recklessly endangering safety, according to court documents. While the charges all carried potential prison terms, he only received jail time and probation because they were reduced or dismissed."
("Judge sentences fleeing driver who caused fatal accident to 64 years," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 9, 2001, p. 7B.)

But it wasn't enough that while fleeing the cops at perilous speeds, he "ran a stop sign" and killed a wife and mother of two small children. After killing the woman, he assaulted at least 2 people.

"Leflore still has two other pending cases, however: one with a charge of battery to a witness; and the other with charges of battey to a witness and battery to a prisoner..."
("Jury convicts fleeing driver in fatal car crash," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, January 31, 2001, p. 3B.

Obviously, the crimes mentioned above are but a small part of his overall criminal history. His record as a juvenile, as a pure and innocent "child," is "sealed" as if its disclosure would imperil the security of the United States. Almost surely, since age 14 if not earlier, he committed scores if not hundreds of crimes, misdemeanors and felonies, for which he was never convicted, prosecuted, or even arrested.

Studies show that "chronic criminals" like young Dontrell commit on average 15-20 felonies a year. His victims -major and minor, dead and alive, direct and indirect- probably number in the hundreds if not thousands. And he never served a day in prison until he made the dire mistake of committing one of the few crimes that left-liberals take seriously - along with consensual sex between women and underaged teenage males - killing someone negligently in a car accident.

If only he had limited his depredations to murder, aggravated assault, cocaine trafficking, and the like, he might still be walking the streets of Milwaukee and fathering illegitimate children. Savor the madness: If this thug has been put away for 20 years at age 15 or 16, at least hundreds of people would not have been victimized, and 2 or 3 would still be alive.

Antonio Dewayne Buford

In March of 1999, a 21-year-old man

"who had unprotected sex with a woman although he knew for a year he was HIV-positive has been placed on probation for five years and ordered to spend three months in jail"
on a charge of first-degree recklessly endangering safety.

"Antonio Dewayne Buford also was ordered Thursday to spend three months at home under electronic monitoring."
The criminal complaint
"said he told the woman that he had known of his condition and was trying to infect her as revenge, even though he had been infected by some else."
("Man gets jail time for trying to give AIDs to woman," Herald Times-Reporter, March 13, 1999, p. A-4.) 3 months in jail for attempted murder!

Donald Williams

With 187 prior arrests from 1971 to 2001 - most, apparently, for his specialty, breaking into hospital rooms and stealing from patients - Donald Williams, age 50, was finally sentenced to 10-years in prison by Judge Jeffrey Cohen.

"I'm not going to place him on probation for the 72nd time, or whatever the case may be," the judge exclaimed.
"Mr. Williams hasn't gotten the message," repined Assistant Discrict Attorney Michael Mahoney.
("187 arrests later, hospital thief senenced to 10 years in prison," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 11, 2001, p. 3B.)

187 Arrests, 71 felony convictions or "whatever," and not a day in prison!! And think of all the times, hundreds I'm sure, he wasn't even arrested. Imagine all the people - young children, women, old people, cripples, paraplegics - he terrorized, and whom he could have murdered, raped, assaulted.

DiIulio's reconstruction

And this, surely, is a typical case of a "nonviolent" offender sentenced to prison for drug trafficking. Writes John J. DiIulio:

"In a 1996 study I conducted with George Mitchell of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, we reconstructed almost the entire adult and juvenile criminal histories of a sample of prisoners from Milwaukee County.

Take the case of the prisoner serving two years for 'possession WITD' (with intent to deliver) a tenth of a gram of cocaine. He had five prior arrests, three prior incarcerations, and was a habitual parole and probation violator.
He began building his diversified criminal portfolio with juvenile burglaries. He leavened it as an adult with occasional armed robberies."
(John J. DiIulio, "Against Mandatory Minimums," National Review, May 17, 1999, p. 49.)

All this -scores of burglaries and armed robberies in additon to cocaine trafficking - and only 6-16 months in prison. Before "truth-in-sentencing" was enacted in January 2000, imprisoned felons were routinely granted "discretionary parole," i.e., release from prison after serving  ¼  of their nominal sentences. So he might have served only 6-months, and no more than 16-months (his "mandatory release" time after serving 2/3 of his nominal "2-year" sentence).

George Jones

Another man sentenced to prison for "drug possession" was George "Mule" Jones. On November 28, 1997, the MJS reported that Jones, 52, was

"charged Wednesday with murdering Shameika Carter, 24..."
And that he was also
"under investigation in the strangulations of nine of 10 other north side women dating as far back as 1986."

In 1973, in his native Mississippi, the "Mule" was sentenced to 5 years in prison for "killing a woman during a sex-related attack." Shortly after his release, apparently, he took the overground railroad to Milwaukee. Whatever his motives, he couldn't have made a wiser decision.

"Despite a series of arrests dating to 1980 that resulted in his being booked into the Milwaukee County Jail about 20 times, Jones served less than one year in prison a decade ago and a smattering of jail time since. More often than not, he walked away a free man...
Arrested three times this year alone for attacking women, the man know as 'mule" was recently sent back to the streets with orders to take an anger management course...
He was arrested numerous times in Wisconsin for possession of drugs, at least once with intent to deliver, as well as various weapons offenses."
("Man avoided prison despite may arrests," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 28, 1997, pp. 1A, 8A.)

The MJS offered a chart of Jones' arrests in Milwaukee alone, from September 13, 1980 to November 26, 1997, when he was charged with "first-degree intentional homicide." The 20 some "incidents," many involving multiple offenses, included charges of

(And, one must add, these were only the crimes for which he was arrested. After all, he might have committed 10 murders and who knows what else during his 17-year reign of terror. If he averaged 15-20 felonies a year, like similar "chronic criminals," he might have committed as many as 250-300 felonies.)

And he only served 6-months in prison!!

On November 17, 1987, he was arrested on "suspicion of possession with intent to deliver," and sentenced to 2-years in prison. But despite a 15-year history of violence and habitual criminality -including a rape/murder conviction- he was granted "discretionary parole" in August 1988!!

Unlike Jones and myriads of other violent and dangerous recidivists, Cassandra Sorenson-Grohall was denied "discretionary parole," and thus served almost 3 years of her life in prison.

Anti-prison lobby's

In a MJS debate on prisons with Gregory Stanford, George Mitchell writes of the "anti-prison" lobby's

"most important goal, namely, strengthening community corrections programs such as probations and parole."

And, predictably, he mentions

"the all-but-abandoned intensive sanctions program," under which "many 'low-risk' participants committed murders, robberies, sexual assaults, and burglaries."
(George A. Mitchell, "Don't buy the hype that prisons take money from schools: half-truths mark prison, school debates," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 14, 1999, p. 2J.)

Freddy D. Nash

In late August and early September of 1997, just a few months after Cassandra Sorenson-Grohall was sentenced to 4 years in prison, "intensive sanctions" offenders committed 3 murders that were reported on the front page of the MJS.

"Another murder in Milwaukee has been linked to a man being supervised in the community under the state's intensive sanctions program.
Freddie D. Nash, 21, confessed to police that he shot and killed Robert Cameron, 24, on July 23 on the north side, according to a police report...
Intensive sanctions is a program that allows offenders to serve their prison time at home on an electronic bracelet and leave a prison bed for a more serious criminal. The controversial prison alternative was criticized last week when it was leaned that Patrick Neal Rucker, a man arrested in a double murder on the Northwest side on Aug. 21, was supposed to be at home under the control of his ankle bracelet.
("Sanctions offender held in murder," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 3, 1997, p. 1A.)

By the time of his arrest for murder, Nash

"had abided by the rules sufficiently to earn his way off electronic monitoring. Nash is a twice-convicted felon. He pleaded guilty to armed burglary in late 1994 for breaking into a home with two other men. Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge John Franke sentenced him to five years in intensive sanctions.
In January 1997, Nash committed another felony, fleeing from a police officer in his car. Again he pleaded guilty and was sentenced on Feb. 24 of this year to nine months in the Milwaukee County House of Corrections."

Johnny L. Miller

Then, a few days later, another embarassment for the fools and idiots who run Milwaukee's criminal justice system.

"A habitual criminal with a history of parole and intensive sanctions violations burglarized at least 139 apartments this year while under supervision by the State Department of Corrections, police said Monday.

Johnny L. Miller, 42, remained in the community under increasingly less supervision despite years of broken rules, failed drug tests and a stint with the state's intensive sanctions program that resulted in Miller asaulting a police officer who encountered him burglarizing a Shorewood apartment building.

His criminal record dates to 1975. In 1993, Miller was sentenced on two counts of burglary to intensive sanctions by Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Wagner. In March 1995 -because Miller again was 'craving cocaine'... - he smashed the lobby door of an apartment building...
Miller was wearing the monitoring bracelet at the time. A Shorewood police officer contronted Miller, who kicked the officer in the calf, punched him in the chest and then grabbed the officer's thumb, dislocating and fracturing it.
Reserve Judge William P. Moser sentenced Miller to a prison term of two years..." ("Supervision didn't stop burglary career, police say," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 9, 1997, pp. 1A, 11A.)

On September 10, the MJS reported that Judge Wagner was "frankly amazed" that "Miller was not behind bars..."

"On Tuesday morning, Wager heard the case of habitual criminal Dwight A. White...
Despite having racked up at least 33 arrests in Milwaukee since 1980, and despite being suspected in more than 300 burglaries, White was placed on intensive sanctions by the Department of Corrrections partway through a 1994 prison sentence for burglary...
White escaped from intensive sanctions and was appearing in court Tuesday on charges of burglary, criminal trespassing, and obstructing an officer."
("Judge who sentenced burglar 'amazed' at result," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 10, 1997, pp. 1A, 8A.)

'Intensive sanctions'

In an article on "intensive sanctions" immediately following the second murder case, Mary Zahn and Alan J. Borsuk reported that

"convicts placed in 1996 in the state's controversial program of intensive supervision outside prison typically had lengthy criminal histories...
An examination of the records of 83 cases involving people from Milwaukee County who were placed in intensive sanctions in 1996 by the Department of Corrections found that, on average, offenders had been charged with 4.8 felonies and 3.8 misdemeanors before entering the program.

One had 13 previous criminal cases. And the records of 34 of the offenders (41% of the group) included a charge of habitual criminality. More than half had been charged previously with a violent offense - most often domestic violence or battery - and a third of the group had charges related to guns on their records.

The newspaper's analysis also showed that about 60% of a sample of 249 convicts put on intensive sanctions in Milwaukee County were people who were already on parole or probation and who committed either a new crime or a serious infraction of their parole or probation conditions.
("Convicts in program have long records: repeat felons in sanctions," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 7, 1997, pp. 1A, 16A.)

The 'wisdom' of Wisconsin

But the public needn't have worried - for when all those "low-risk offenders" on "intensive sanctions" were slipping out of their stylish ankle bracelets and murdering and raping and robbing and breaking into people's homes, when George "Mule" Jones was murdering 10 or more women and committing scores if not hundreds of other felonies, and when mobs of brutes and crazies with histories of violence and predation were given the freedom to commit thousands of murders, robberies, burglaries, assaults, and rapes, Cassandra Sorenson-Grohall was securely imprisoned.

Given the wisdom and genius of Wisconsin bureaucrats, politicians, prosecutors, and judges, the "intensive sanctions" program only applied to such "nonviolent" and harmless criminals - not to "sex offenders" like Cassandra Sorenson-Grohall.

"Intensive sanctions is a program that allows offenders to serve their prison time at home on an electronic bracelet and leave a prison bed for a more serious criminal."

The people of Milwaukee could leave their doors unlocked at night and walk the streets in perfect safety - for Cassandra Sorenson-Grohall was behind bars and razor wire in the women's zoo at Taycheedah.

The great minds who rule Wisconsin know a real criminal when they see one!

In fact as opposed to theory, reality as opposed to fantasy, Cassandra was the victim in this affair. In no sense was she a "danger to the community," a "threat to society," a "menace to her fellow citizens." Ironically, her "victim" was the "menace" and "danger" and "threat."

Nonetheless, because of the fantasies and theories of CSA victimologists, including judges and prosecutors, a nonviolent and harmless first-offender who should not have even been arrested received a harsher sentence than at least 80% of Wisconsin's convicted felons, including myriads of violent, dangerous, and "chronic" criminals.

According to George Mitchell,

"Wisconsin's incarceration rate is 31% below the national average."
And that "79% of criminals under control of the Department of Corrections are in 'alternatives to incarceration.' Only 21% are in prison."
(George A. Mitchell, "Don't buy the hype that prisons take money from schools: half-truths mark prison, school debates," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 14, 1999, p. 2J.)

When he wrote this, Cassandra was among the 21% in prison - even though she was far less of a "danger" and "risk" than virtually all of the 79% in "alternatives to incarceration" as well as hundreds of thousands of young males in their teens and twenties without felony convictions.

Regrettably, Mitchell doesn't say exactly what these numbers signify.

Does he mean that only 21% of Wisconsin's convicted felons are sentenced to prison? That 79% were never imprisoned? Or does the 79% also include those who were imprisoned but are now on parole or probation? If so, he doesn't say what percentage of the 79% in "alternatives to incarceration" were imprisoned and then released and what percentage were never imprisoned.

But a study by a Milwaukee "think tank" (apparently co-authored by Mitchell and quoted in the MJS) pointed out that most convicted felons aren't sentenced to prison. Regrettably, the MJS piece didn't say what percentage of convicted felons weren't imprisoned: 60%, 70%, 79%? But whatever the exact numbers, only a minority of Wisconsin's convicted felons are sentenced to prison -and Cassandra Sorenson-Grohall was one of them.

Dangerous women?

Over the last 3 or 4 decades, myriads of people have been the victims of murder, assault, robbery, burglary, rape, and child molestation because of the indulgent sentencing practices of Wisconsin judges. But not one serious crime - not one murder, aggravated assault, armed robbery, mugging, car-jacking, gang shooting, burglary, arson, violent rape, sexual assault of a young child - was prevented or deterred by the imprisonment of Cassandra Sorenson-Grohall.

If not imprisoned, there's not a chance in a million that Cassandra would have committed a "heinous" or violent or even serious crime. And given her hellish ordeal even before she was crucified with a 4-year prison sentence, I doubt that she even thought about having sex with another underage teenage male - especially since her "crime" was a "mistake made out of overcaring and naivete" that wasn't even "sexually-motivated" and her "vicitm" was a teenage criminal who forced himself on her and then manipulated and threatened her into further indulging his appetites.

Unlike Mary Letourneau, Julie Feil, and many others, she wasn't even guilty of the "heinous" crime of "falling in love" with a young man under statutory age. In this case, 2-days of probation and 5-hours of community service weren't even necessary to "protect society" and prevent recidivism.

As for consensual sex between women and underaged teenage males, I doubt if even one teacher was deterred from sending a young man to sexual paradise by the incarceration of Cassandra Sorenson-Grohall, Melissa Bittner, Lori Hanson, Trudy Anderson, Laurie Mosher, Carla Pualsrud., et al. Comparatively, the experience is so rare that it's statistically negligible. In not only small towns, obviously, but also large cities, it's nonexistent or virtually nonexistent.

In Milwaukee, each year, over a hundred people are murdered, and thousands are the victims of aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, violent-forcible rape, and sundry lesser offenses.

Who are dangerous?

From 1996 (when Cassandra was arrested for having a liaison with a teenage criminal who raped her) through 2002 (when Melissa Bittner was sentenced to a year in prison for initiating a series of "humpings" and the like that were actually perpetrated by her "victim), approximately 1000 people were murdered in Milwaukee. I'll let the reader imagine and calculate the number of aggravated assaults, muggings, armed robberies, burglaries, violent/forcible rapes, sexual assaults of young children, physical abuse of young children, gang shootings, drug offenses, ad nauseum.

During this same period, Cassandra and Melissa were the only two female teachers convicted of "sexual assault of a child." And given the facts (demonstrable innocence and "mitigating circumstances"), neither should have even been arrested, much less imprisoned. So, during this period, at the least, and possibly over a span of 10-20 years or even longer, victimologists obsessed with the sexual depravity of women may not be able to present a single case in which a teacher aggressively seduced a male student for purposes of sexual gratification or even committed the heinous crime of falling in love with an underaged teenage male. And this in a metropolitan area of some 1.6 million people.

And even if 2 or 3 or 4 women were deterred, such viciousness only deprived 2 or 3 or 4 young men of the joyous affirmation of having consensual sex with attractive older women.

Only the severity and frequency of this offense in general could justify the cruelty of these sentences on grounds of deterrence. And consensual sex between women and underage teenage males (especially teachers and students) is not only the rarest of all felonies, far rarer than even murder, but also the most inconsequential, the only "crime" in which the "victim" is lucky to be "victimized," the only "crime" from which the "victim" derives more satisfaction than the "criminal."

Dear judge ...

In a letter I asked the judge in the Laurie Mosher case this question: If Laurie Mosher was released from prison and moved into your neighborhood, would you and your family and neighbors be in any danger? Who'd be more likely to murder you, rape your wife or daughter, assault your son, molest your young children, break into your home, steal your car, vandalize your property? Laurie Mosher or her "victim."

And I now ask every politician, bureaucrat, judge, and prosecutor in Wisconsin: Who'd you rather have as a neighbor? Who'd be more likely to murder you, rape your wife or daughter, etc.? Cassandra Sorenson-Grohall or her "victim"? Cassandra or "Mule" Jones. Melissa Bittner or her "victim"? Melissa or Dontrel Amahd LeFlore? Lori Hanson or men convicted of aggravated assault, armed robbery, gang shootings, and murder? Laurie Mosher or men who've committed scores of muggings and hundreds of burglaries?

But if Jones, LeFlore, and thousands of other psychopaths, brutes, predators, gangsters, and degenerates not recently convicted of sexual crimes moved into your neighborhood, you'd have no right to know about their criminal records; whereas Cassandra Sorenson-Grohall, Lori Hanson, Laurie Mosher, and Carla Paulsrud must register with the police for the rest of their lives so people can be informed that a "sex criminal" is living in their communities and neighborhoods. Their mug shots will be on the internet, in the Wisconsin sex offender registry, until they pass from this world at age 87 or 94 or 102!

To call this insane would be an understatement.

With some rare exceptions, there's absolutely no need to protect male "youths" under age 18 from "female predators." As we've seen, many women jailed and imprisoned for "child rape" or "sexual assault" should have been protected from the teenage males whom they theoretically "victimized."

But even if one concedes, for the sake of arugment, that criminalizing sex between women and teenage males under 16 or even 18 is morally imperative, somehow essential to the survival of American/Western civilization, then I'd argue that such intrigues should be criminalized as misdemeanor "sexual misconduct." And since teenage males know what they're doing when they have sex with adult women and are not the "victims" of "rape" and "child sexual abuse," both actors should be legally culpable.

Yet the law is based on the absurd premise that the adult woman is 100% guilty and the young man 100% innocent, regardless of the circumstances, and that the supreme pleasure of having sex with an older woman is an unspeakable and life-destroying violation.

When a 20-year-old adult and his 15-year-old accomplice commit murder, violent rape, armed robbery, aggravated assault, etc., the law doesn't presume that the "child" is too young and immature to form the mens rea to commit violent crimes.

It doesn't presume that the adult is 100% guilty and the "child" 100% innocent, regardless of the circumstances; it doesn't presume that the "child" was "coerced" and "manipulated" by the adult into committing acts whose consequences he didn't understand -even if the "child" was a knowing and willing accomplice and possibly the "ringleader."

Both actors are criminally responsible, even if the adult was the dominant partner who clearly manipulated the juvenile, and the 15-year-old will probably be "waived into adult court." For example: Lee Malvo faces the death penalty for committing mass murder, at age 17, with 42-year-old "father figure" John Muhammad.

If young men under age 18 don't know what they're doing when they have sex with adult females, then they not only shouldn't be "waived into adult court" when they commit murder and other violent felonies; they shouldn't even be prosecuted.

If, in affairs between women and underage teenage males, the woman is 100% guilty and the "child" 100% innocent, if teenage males as old as 16 and 17 are too young to consent to sex with adult females, then not only should Lee Malvo not be executed, not only should he not be "tried as an adult," he shouldn't even be prosecuted.

Obviously, Lee Malvo faces the death penalty or, at the least, life in prison, not because he's as "mature" as John Muhammad, not because he's as "responsible" as John Muhammad, but because he understood the consequences of his actions when he blew apart people's skulls with a high-powered rifle.

Just as obviously, if teenage males under 18 (and, in some jurisdictions, such as Wisconsin, even boys as young as 10) are criminally responsible for their actions when they commit murder and violent rape - even if they aren't "waived into adult court" - why shouldn't they be responsible for their actions when they have consensual sex with adult females? Why should teenage males under age 18 be treated as adults (or quasi-adults) when they murder and rape but like "children" when they have love affairs and "one-night stands" with adult females?

Virtually everything that Ernest van den Haag says about executing "minors" is also germane to the issue of consensual sex between women and young men under statutory age:

People mature earlier than they did in the past; yet we hold them accountable for their actions later, if at all. This hardly makes sense....

Obviously, a small child may not understand the effect of his acts and, therefore, not intend them. A child also may not be able to tell right from wrong or understand that any act is morally and legally wrong. For either reason, children below the age of reason are not held criminally responsible...

A sixteen-year-old, unless severely retarded, knows that shooting can kill the victim and that murder is regarded as morally and legally wrong. He understands what he is doing when he murders and that it is wrong; that understanding does not begin on his eighteenth birthday.

(I think understanding on the average begins before sixteen, but the Supreme Court has drawn a line that other courts cannot disregard.)

To be sure, some juvenile murderers, although aware of the wrongness of their act, may not have very deep understanding of it; or they may be impulsive or emotionally immature. So may older murderers...

While some juvenile murderers are quite immature, others are quite mature...

It is simply unrealistic and silly to insist that no one under eighteen can be held fully accountable. Some seventeen-year-olds are quite mature, just as some twenty-five-year-olds are not."
(Ernest van den Haag, "Executing Juvenile Murderers is Just," The World & I, November 1989.)

How can a teenage "minor" understand what he is doing when he commits murder and violent-forcible rape, but not when he has sex with an adult female? If he understands what he's doing in the former situation, then he undertands what he's doing in the latter situation. If he understands the nature of killing and raping, then he understands the nature of sex.

Why is sex between adults and teenage "minors" the only act in which the former is judged to be 100% culpable and the latter 100% innocent? If "it is simply unrealistic and silly to insist that no one under eighteen can be held fully accountable" when he commits murder or violent rape, then its even more "unrealistic and silly" to insist that young men under 18 cannot be held even partially acountable when they engage in consensual sex with adult females.

Van den Haag is dead right:

"Understanding on average begins before sixteen."

Generally, according to the American Psychological Association, the age of reason and understanding begins at 14. In 1989, the APA issued an amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on the matter of abortion and pubescent underage girls:

"By age 14 most adolescents have developed adult-like intellectual and social capabilities including specific abilities outlined in the law as necessary for understanding treatment alternatives, considering risks and benefits, and giving legally competent consent...

(Additionally,) there are some 11- to 13-year-olds who possess adult-like capabilities in these areas."
(Quoted in Rind et al., "The Validity and Appropriateness of Methods, Analyses, and Conclusions in Rind et al. (1998): A Rebuttal of Victimology Critique From Ondersma et al. (2002 and Dallam et al. (2001)", Pscyhological Bulletin, 2001, Vol. 127, p. 752.)

(Vili Fualaau, pubescent at age 10, was one of those 11- to 13-year-olds "who posses adult-like capabilities in those areas." To most left-liberals, underage teenage girls as young as 13 and 14 are old and mature enough to make an informed decision about killing a fetus without their parent's permission, but salacious young men as old as 16 and 17 are too young and innocent to have consensual sex with adult females.)

This, of course, is why teenage minors ages 14-17 are routinely prosecuted as adults when they commit violent crimes -and even if they aren't "waived into adult court," assumed to be criminally responsible.

Why should they be treated any differently when they have consensual sex with adult females -especially when they're as old as 16 or 17 and/or the aggressors. The conclusions of the APA demand that either such affairs be legal or, if proscribed by law, criminalized as misdemeanors in which both participants are legally culpable.

(As for "conservatives" and their sermons on morality and "personal responsiblity": A punk rapes or assaults his teacher, and he not only goes unpunished but, even worse, is turned into a victim of "sexual assault" (the very crime that he actually committed) and "child sexual abuse." And the woman he raped or assaulted is sentenced to prison for "sexual assault" and "child sexual abuse." What a lesson in morality and "personal responsibility"!)

Dogmas

Given the zeitgeist, left and right, I have no illusions that the powers that be will ever adopt my rational and equitous proposal -or even consider such a compromise to lowering the age of consent in accordance with European standards. Alas, it's far more likely that they'll raise the age of consent to 20 or 21 - as with drinking and, in some jurisdictions, the viewing and buying of pornography - so women as young as 23 and 24 (assuming there's an age-disparity provision of 4 or 5 years) can be punished for having consensual sex with 18-and 19-year-old males. I'm half serious, given the dogmas of CSA victimologists.

Consider this: If teenage males as old as 16 and 17 are too young and innocent to consent to or initiate sex with women in their early and middle-20s (or, if one lives in Wisconsin, even their late teens), then so are 18- and 19-year-olds who have sex with women in their 30s and 40s. If teenage males as old as 16 and 17 are "traumatized" or seriously harmed by engaging in consensual sex with adult women in their 40s and 30s and even 20s, and if such damage is caused by a "disparity in power" due to age and experience, then so must be 18- and 19-year-olds who have consensual sex with markedly older females.

Physically and psychologically, there's absolutely no difference between the average 17-year-old and the average 18-year-old. And there's more disparity in age and experience between a 40-year-old woman and an 18-year-old male than between a 20-year-old woman and a 15-year-old male -and even more "disparity of power" between a woman in her 30s or 40s who seduces an 18-year-old virgin and a women in her early 20s, comparatively inexperienced, who sleeps with a 15-year-old who's had sex 29 times before with 4 different partners and who seduced the woman.

Inconceiveable?

In such a society, virtually anything is possible in the name of "protecting children."