Butt slappin’ justice
Posted
August 20, 2007 at
8:28 pm by
Jessica
The two 13-year-old Oregon boys who were accused of sexual harassment when they acted out a crass, stunt show movie called “Jackass” — which included slapping a few girls buttocks and coppin’ a feel of their breasts — were let off the hook today.
Photos have emerged of the poor, nerdy boys who were probably crapping their pants in worry over a charge that could have ruined their lives. The boys were required to apologize and ante up $250 in damages to the four girls. Charges were dropped because, well, the whole thing was ridiculous.
They were originally charged with felony and misdemeanor sex abuse charges in February. Amid growing public opposition to sending the boys to prison and putting them on a sex offenders’ registry, prosecutors dropped the felony sex abuse charges and added misdemeanor harassment charges, then later dropped all sex abuse charges, leaving only the harassment counts.
The judge dismissed the final charges following negotiations between prosecutors and the defense, and discussions with the four girls about whether they wanted the case dismissed.
Picture of Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison, the scary, “felons”
Tags: cory mashburn, Criminal Justice, McMinnville, Orgeon, Ryan Cornelison, sexual harassment charges, Yamhill County Judge John Collins
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7 Responses to “Butt slappin’ justice”
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1. Petulant Pixie said:
August 21, 2007 @ 9:27 am | Quote
I’m glad that the charges were hugely reduced, but I do think that there is some merit in scaring the shit out of little boys for that. Can you imagine being the mother of a 13 year old girl when she comes home and tells you that a couple of boys were grabbing her butt and feeling her breasts? While the boys are kids, so are the girls! That is horrible! No, not felony horrible, but it’s still horrible enough that the boys should be made a public example of and scare them with words like “felony” and “sex offender”.
2. Petulant Pixie said:
August 21, 2007 @ 9:29 am | Quote
Oh, and maybe the parents ought to have some forced education on what appropriate viewing is for 13 y.o.s. Jackass?? With no further explanation as to how you cannot just do those things? They dry humped little girls in the hallways!
3. creative-type dad said:
August 21, 2007 @ 11:47 pm | Quote
Maybe the D.A. can go after REAL criminals now
4. Petulant Pixie said:
August 22, 2007 @ 8:57 am | Quote
While I agree that this isn’t a felony. I wouldn’t go so far as to say tht sexual assault to 13 year-old girls isn’t a crime. Do you have daughters? How would you feel if one of them came home and told you that two boys slapped her butt and felt up her chest and humped her in the hallway at school? You’d just laugh and roll your eyes and say, well, boys will be boys? I bet there’d be a bit of outrage on your part.
5. rotney11 said:
August 30, 2007 @ 7:21 pm | Quote
people seem to have overlooked that the girls were doing the same thing, which i cant understand why the cops didnt take them to jail,,how many times could the cops have strip searched the yummy little girls in 5 days,,of course some of them would rather strip search little boys,,,this whole thing was so ridiculous
6. Petulant Pixie said:
August 31, 2007 @ 8:56 am | Quote
There was nothing in that article about the girls doing the same thing. If they were, then that makes it a different story. I can only comment on what I read in the article that was linked though.
7. Art said:
January 17, 2008 @ 11:35 am | Quote
The original news stories pointed out that yes, indeed, girls were seen slapping the boys’ butts, but nothing about the girls touching the boys’ breasts.
However, given that the assistant prosecutor who brought these charges to court was a female, I think a very fair question to ask is: Would she truly have brought similar charges against a girl or girls for doing exactly the same thing? (Oh, I know, I’m being hypothetical here, but I believe the “divide” is very real) NO, I really don’t believe any girl would have been charged in such an incident. It’s mostly because it wasn’t the girls involved who called the police, made the original complaint, but rather the school’s principal. Now, that brings up a good question: What exactly was that administrator doing, allowing such an activity involving BOTH boys and girls to go on in his school in the first place? Can we say “brain fade”, or perhaps more honestly, “incompetence”? I think both fit.
Truthfully, it’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if the good, old-fashioned hard maple paddle doesn’t really have a place, hanging from a hook in the principal’s office. It seems to me that the “Board of education, applied to the seat of learning” would have been FAR more appropriate than to turn those two boys over to an obviously overzealous, perhaps feminist, prosecuting attorney eager to make a name for herself, for her career advancement (I suspect however, that the results for her aren’t at all what she would have preferred). I mean, come on! Did what those boys stood accused of REALLY constitute felonies.
What are we coming to in this country? A return to the scenes of Dickensonian England, where Charles Dickens once observed a 10-year old boy being hanged for the horrific crime of stealing a loaf of bread?