« Call for papers for ABA/AALS joint conference this Fall in DC | Main | Noting President Obama's (still) stingy clemency record »
May 8, 2012
A gendered outcome?: lifetime probation for female teacher's aide engaged in sex acts with middle-schoolers
Though this local reportabout a state sex offender sentencing in Arizona is a bit prurient, the story (and all its prurient details) reinforces my sense that adult females sexually involved with under-age boys sometimes get much more lenient sentencing treatment than similarly situated males. The story is headlined "Gabriela Compton, Former Middle School Teacher's Aide, Gets Probation for Sexing One Student and Sexting Another," and here are the basics:
Welcome to the wide world of teacher sex-scandal sentencing, as former middle school teacher's aide Gabriela Compton was sentenced this morning to a life on probation. Compton, now 21, was arrested in March 2011 after principals at Phoenix's Western Valley Middle School found out Compton had been sending nudie pictures to students. As you can imagine, the teenage boys on the receiving end of those pictures didn't exactly keep the pics to themselves.
According to court documents previously obtained by New Times, the police investigation led to the cops finding out Compton had groped a student, and had sex with another.
Compton exchanged cell phone numbers with a 14-year-old male student in late February 2011, according to the documents, and the student asked Compton to send him a picture of herself. Compton cut to the chase, and sent over the picture of her topless, according to the documents, and the student sent her a picture back of a penis.... After a few more rounds of sexting, Compton picked up the boy and a few of his friends to drive them home, except she took a quick detour to have sex with the 14-year-old student in the back of her van while parked in an industrial park near 67th Avenue and Van Buren Road, the documents said.
Then a 13-year-old student told his story to the cops. He told police he did the sexting thing with Compton as well, and he and the 14-year-old student compared notes the nude pictures of Compton they received, according to the documents. The documents also stated Compton told the boy that she wanted to "rub his cock," and he replied by telling the teacher's aide that he wanted to grab her breasts -- and you betcha the teenaged boy told police he did, after Compton bought him some shoes and a shirt at the mall.
Compton asked the boy if he wanted to have sex, according to the documents, and told him that they could do it "for his birthday," which was coming up, but apparently not before Compton's arrest.
This additional AP story about this case provides more of the notable sentencing details (and less of the prurient ones):
Maricopa County prosecutors say 21-year-old Gabriela Compton was sentenced Tuesday to three terms of lifetime probation with sex offender terms for three counts of sex abuse. Compton was indicted in April 2011 on three counts each of sexual abuse and sexual conduct with a minor and one count of furnishing obscene or harmful items to minors.
Prosecutors say she entered into a plea agreement. Compton could have faced a prison sentence of at least 39 years if she was convicted on all seven counts. Compton was a special-education instructional aide at Western Valley Middle School. She was put on administrative leave in March 2011 and resigned soon afterward.
I am not a specialist on Arizona sex offender laws and sentencing, but I suspect that absent the plea deal, this sex offender was potentially facing decades of mandatory prison time. I also suspect that the judge's sentencing decision to give a teacher's aide who preyed on students only probation (albeit a lifetime term) would likely be subject to lots of controversy... if the aide was a man and the victims were girls. But when a woman molests (willing and eager?) young teenagers, then sentencing outcomes are (justifiably?) seen in a somewhat different light.
May 8, 2012 at 05:41 PM | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451574769e20168eb54151d970c
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference A gendered outcome?: lifetime probation for female teacher's aide engaged in sex acts with middle-schoolers:
Comments
If you asked the average parent of twins (a boy and a girl)--if you had to pick one, would you rather have your daughter with a 21 year old man or your son with a 21 year woman, the vast majority would choose the son. There's a reality here.
I'll say it--I have a double standard.
Posted by: federalist | May 8, 2012 8:30:03 PM
federalist --
Not to worry. Everyone has a double standard, truth be known.
Posted by: Bill Otis | May 8, 2012 9:23:32 PM
Teacher sex scandals have more to do with rupert murdoch's war against the teacher's union for preventing his education tech company from obtaining a hundred million dollar contract with the board of education of NYC. He also hired Joel Klein, former head of NYC Board of Ed under Bloomberg to lead this tech company. All these stories about teacher sex scandals, as well as stories about incompetent and other bad acts by teachers is Murdoch's manipulation of the press to turn public support away from teachers and toward centralized ed control. In NYC this gels with Mayor Bloomberg's plans as well (also someone who made his bones with media [Bloomberg TV]).
Posted by: m | May 8, 2012 10:13:45 PM
Having been an adolescent boy myself at one time, I have to agree with federalist. And it's crass, but seeing the photo of the defendant, I seriously doubt that I would ever have considered myself a "victim" if she had seduced me when I was in middle school. That's pretty politically incorrect to say, but I guarantee that I am not the only one who feels that way. I agree that the article's playful, mischievous tone is inappropriate, however.
The victims in this case apparently welcomed her advances, so I for one have no problem with a sentence of probation.
Posted by: C.E. | May 8, 2012 11:53:27 PM
so. would certanly NOT be the first time the DA and courts ignored the victim to hammer the defendant!
Posted by: rodsmith | May 9, 2012 12:29:21 AM
"I'll say it--I have a double standard."
And so the truth of the conservative mind comes out. 'I don't think I'm better than you; I am better than you."
In other words,
sexism rocks.
next up: racism hotter and wilder than you've ever seen before. 9 Central/8 Pacific.
Posted by: Daniel | May 9, 2012 12:32:30 AM
To the feminist witch hunter lawyers and their male running dogs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4GZFbCqx18
Van Halen's Hot for Teacher
Shouldn't a crime cause a harm? What harm took place in this case?
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | May 9, 2012 1:06:49 AM
Daniel: All -isms are folk statistics, mostly accurate, most of the time. You are like a child, buying PC false propaganda.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | May 9, 2012 1:08:46 AM
Just read the book "Lip Service" and it underlines the double standard and the problems with it at some point shown here. Really now, remember the case about the teacher who got pregnant with a 13 year old kid? It still is adults abusing their power & it isn't just some sex farce here.
Posted by: Joe | May 9, 2012 5:35:53 PM
hypocrites all....what about the 'poor victims', guess in this instance the real perverts of justice expose their double standard chauvinistic pig faces only when the circumstances are reversed and it favors their personal whims and fantasies
Posted by: amy | May 9, 2012 7:59:24 PM
Joe, there's no doubt that adult child sex when the kid is 13 is wrong. The issue is whether the sex of the perp/victim matters, and I think that it does because the harm tends to vary by sex. And there is almost never any hint of physical coercion when the perp is a woman.
Posted by: federalist | May 9, 2012 8:00:22 PM
I was careful -- fwiw -- to qualify, saying "at some point" and when the punishment is probation, it just might be that that point has been reached.
If "physical coercion" is the concern, make that an aggravating factor. These cases often aren't a matter of "physical coercion" as in the teacher physically forces the girl, let's say, to have sex. It is a matter of psychological coercion and in various cases other pressures.
The point remains. In fact, in some cases, particularly for a particularly emotionally fragile boy (or if the teacher gets pregnant), a case involving a woman teacher and a boy student can be worse. All factors must be looked at. There remains a stereotype -- "no doubt" even is a bit of an exaggeration because some will be like "oh that kid was lucky, she's a fox!" -- here and "at some point" it goes too far.
Posted by: Joe | May 9, 2012 8:16:10 PM
Not only is she a woman, so she gets the benefit of that aspect of the double-standard, but she's also an *attractive* woman, so she gets that benefit as well.
Posted by: Guy | May 9, 2012 10:12:50 PM
Amy: Shouldn't a person you label a victim suffer a harm? What if an act is a benefit? Should it be a crime?
For 10,000 years of human civilization, 14 was considered the age of adulthood. Only the rent seeking lawyer has changed that to 18, an age when nothing unique happens in nature, to keep people out of the job market and to deprive them of their full adult rights and responsibilities. Aisha, Mohammed's second wife, was 9 at the time of marriage, so that age of marriage is a cultural artifact, without objective justification. (Aisha had Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), and made her husband's life a nightmare. Her father took pity on the easy going, kindly Mohammed, came over to the house and spanked Aisha, to straighten her out. Her ODD served a good purpose later when she became a conquering warrior Queen. Mohammed's first wife was an older, successful business woman.)
Feminism is to 2012 what the KKK was to 1912. Both are PC because enforced by judges. Both are lawyer founded, run, and managed false ideologies designed to plunder the productive male. The KKK lynched 5000 well to do black males, and took their assets. Lynchings were out in the public, with post cards being sent to friends and relatives, depicting the hangings. The genocidal maniac murderers had full immunity from the local prosecutors and judges who likely belonged to the Klan, and shared in the plunder.
The feminist has orchestrated an excess number of murders of productive black males amounting to 5000 a year. That means the feminist racial holocaust of black males is 100 times more deadly than that of the KKK. They did it indirectly, with full deniability by destroying the black family. The black family had survived 300 years of severe stress. It did not survive the feminist lawyer onslaught. Why go after the black family? To grow the size of government, making many times the take home pay of KKK. The government is a wholly owned subsidiary of the criminal cult enterprise that is the lawyer profession. Its hierarchy happens to be almost all male and white. These elite lawyer s make 99% of the government policy decisions, no matter who the figurehead elected is.
Before whites feel smug or safe, the feminist lawyer is now after the white family. It has placed a lucrative money bounty on divorce, and federalized the enforcement of child support. Only a self-defeating, self-hating fool would get married today, if he is a productive white male. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that family law is a state responsibility. Yet federal laws attacking the white family stand because they are so lucrative to the lawyer profession (The Family Support Act of 1988, the Child Support Recovery Act of 1992, and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996).
The result? A census finding of a 10% increase in the fraction of opposite sex couples living together but unmarried, each year. Why promotion of bastardy by the feminist lawyer running the government? To generate massive social pathologies caused by bastardy, requiring the growth of their enterprise, government.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | May 10, 2012 1:14:56 AM
i've said it before and i will say it again - the fact that a 20 year old woman is sexually pursuing 14 and 13 year old boys suggests that she has serious issues and is therefore quite likely that the female icky perv is more dangerous than the male icky perv. quite simply, 14 year old boys were not even worth considering as potential sexual partners as a 14 year old girl - for a 20 year old woman to be chasing middle school students means she is one sick person and therefore extremely dangerous. you men here are pathetic for putting your fantasies involving 20 year old women in front of your reasoning to see that here is a dangerous sexual predator who went after immature children rather than being attracted to adults. there is something seriously wrong with that woman and you are too busy thinking with your penises to see that gabriela is a dangerous sexual predator icky perv who needs to be permanently locked up.
if anyone does not believe that relationships between a female teacher and a male teacher are dangerous ask gregory (i think that was his name) smart. oh wait, you can't because his wife manipulated her teenaged boyfriend to kill him.
39 years in prison would have been an appropriate sentence for gabriella - followed by removal to an off short treatment resort - this sentence is an absolute joke basically saying that if you are a young woman you can get away with being a sexual predator with no consequences. for a predator and an icky perv, this sentence is nothing but a slap on the wrist. especially since there is something seriously wrong with this woman to be attracted to immature boys and as a dangerous icky perv it is only a matter of time before she offends again.
erika :)
Posted by: Erika | May 10, 2012 10:34:03 AM
the sexting aspect of the case does get me hope that the feds will come in and charge gabriela with receiving child porn so she will at least get a fraction of the prison sentence she deserves. come on feds, the article seems to makes it pretty clear that one of her objects of predatory desire sent her a child porn image - the state dropped their ball on sentencing but at least receiving child porn will put her away for a while.
oh and some of you men really are pathetic. did you even bother to notice that she was a special education teacher's aid - so the students she seduced and molested arere likely special education students. that is extreme levels of predatory behavior. gabriela is one sick woman and being locked securely away in prison is the proper place for her.
erika :)
Posted by: Erika | May 10, 2012 3:05:38 PM
Erika: A crime should cause a harm, rather than a benefit. 14 is the age of adulthood according to nature. Feminists are deniers. No debate possible with a denier because they argue in bad faith, and already contradict facts, intentionally, for propaganda. Thus deniers have to be purged from all faculties, and employment rolls. I would try to disqualify the prosecutor. If the judge refused that motion, I would try to disqualify the judge for being a feminist denier. The burden rests on the prosecution, of course. Each assertion should be tested in a Daubert hearing. For example, the word minor is used. Prove a 14 year old is not an adult. The word, exploitation, is used. Prove any coercion was used. If a claim of trauma is used, prove any harm took place.
I know one way to get the lawyer to switch sides, in a millisecond. No, it is not the careful presentation of a mountain of facts.
Write a check for a $10,000 retainer. The lawyer will passionately defend the opposite.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | May 11, 2012 9:10:49 AM
mr. claus, to say there was no harm involved in this case is speculative at best - considering that on a list of desirable sexual partners for the average adult woman a 14 year old boy ranks somewhere around serial rapist, its pretty clear that Gabriela isn't exactly selective on who she has sex with. what if she has a veneral disease and those boys caught it from her?
even without that, there is likely to be substantial long term social and emotional harm for those boys - quite simply not only was gabriela having sex with 14 year olds, she was such a tramp that she was cheating on them. what happens to those boy's emotions when they realize that what they thought was the woman of their dreams was a slut? will they ever trust women or girls again?
the harm may be years in the future - at the minimum, gabriela buit the boys at extreme risk of harm. quite simply she is a dangerous icky perv who belongs in prison for a long time.
of course, you realize mr. claus that if your 123d was actually in effect that gabriela would be executed, right? she was convicted of three felonies?
Erika :)
Posted by: Erika | May 11, 2012 6:50:40 PM
C.E.: "And it's crass, but seeing the photo of the defendant, I seriously doubt that I would ever have considered myself a "victim" if she had seduced me when I was in middle school"
me: is that because she looks like she could pass for a middle schooler herself?
MEOW!
erika :)
Posted by: Erika | May 11, 2012 6:56:42 PM
Erika: 123D are for violent offenders. It could include shoplifting, but for a drug kingpin, known to be violent. If the drug kingpin is a good businessman, and not violent, shoplifting could not be used in the count. The executive branch would be responsible for keeping us safe, in torts. If you forget to sign your income tax statement, or other made up crimes, that is not a strike.
To my knowledge, increased risk has not been criminalized, and it has even been rejected in torts. If the teacher coerced the boys, that is harm, including the use of blackmail or quid pro quo for grades.
To have a sex mentor would be tremendously helpful to the maturation, self confidence, even pride, and eliminating sex as an all day obsession, and its pursuit as an all day affair. This may be true of girls as well as boys. That is the attraction of the fantasy, rather than straight sex. The latter could be procured from a prostitute all over the streets of the city, but no one savors a fantasy about prostitute sex.
I have known older females who got involved with professors, and loved it. Several married the guy.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | May 12, 2012 1:27:44 AM
You actually believe that "for a 20 year old woman to be chasing middle school students means she is one sick person and therefore extremely dangerous" and "gabriela is a dangerous sexual predator icky perv who needs to be permanently locked up". You don't know what you're talking about, but you want to completely destroy a (stupid) woman's life because of YOUR issues. Anyone who would advocate life in prison for a women who had sex with some willing adolescents is one sick person and therefore extremely dangerous. I think you are more dangerous to society than Gabriela Compton, ericka. :)
The people saying this sentence is ok because there was no harm done, how is this any different with a girl? If the facts of a case show that the girl was the aggressor and the adult male was simply weak and gave in to her advances, which is not at all what the evidence here shows, why should he be punished more severely?
The criminal intent in a statutory rape charge is the predatory seduction of the younger party. When the younger party is the sexual aggressor (again, not what happened here) then where is the harm, or the criminal intent? Yes we take people who are predators, and lump them in with people who aren't. Because, yeah, if a guy in his 20s falls for some hot jailbait, he is an evil person who society needs to be protected from, right?
The problem with statutory rape cases is the same problem as with many other kinds of cases: lazy prosecutors don't want to actually prove any facts, especially since the "victims" in these cases do not see themselves as victims and often refuse to cooperate with the prosecution. So the result is that the courts are forced to turn a blind eye to criminal intent and the factual circumstances which should play the primary role in whether the case is charged at all, are instead left to play a very minor role at sentencing. All the statutory rape laws need to have some kind of aggravation or criminal intent component where the adult abused a position of trust and responsibility (as was the case here) or employed coercion/bribery/seduction in order to specifically target under-age adolescents. When you have a case where some 18 year old guy had sex with his friend's 15 year old sister because she threw herself at him at a party one night, and the guy gets 2 years in prison for it, we have truly sick society. (yes that is a real case I've seen)
I blame people like ericka and the politicians who pander to them.
Posted by: lawguy | May 13, 2012 9:21:43 AM
Statutory rape has strict liability. It is the only crime with no intent to prove. It reflects the views of the feminist lawyer and its male running dogs. The feminist view is that all sex is rape, because of the greater political power of males. So a female throws herself at a male and begs. That is because of his greater political power, not his great abs, and the size she heard about from her friends. Fully 40% of the people on sex registries are in that category, not rapists.
Second, the age of adult consent is a lawyer falsity. Nature says, 14. The lawyer says, 18. This false orthodoxy is enforced at the point of a gun. The motive is to generate government make work jobs for lawyers, and to go after the productive male. The statutes setting the age of consent are therefore crimes themselves, like no show jobs for mob members in longshoremen unions.
While statutory rape is being prosecuted, and prison beds are filled by ordinary males, only 10% of violent rapes result in any inconvenience to the serial rapist and killer.
Isn't time to fire the lawyer from criminal law policy, this feminist incompetent, this self-dealing idiot?
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | May 13, 2012 12:57:04 PM
The reason for the double standard is, adult males can make a teen girl pregnant
But a adult female cannot make a teen boy pregnant.
If boys could get pregnant, there would be no double standard.
Posted by: james | May 17, 2012 6:19:04 PM
There are two components to this issue, notwithatanding the extremities of both Erika and Bill Otis. The components are not just about justice, but about public perception. In addition, there are more serious medical and emotional changes undergone by women if a pregnancy occurs that do not apply to men. (NOTE: I did not mean emotions caused by the sex act, but to the actual pregnancy itself).
In California, they established 18 as the age of consent primarily because of an epidemic of teens whom were getting pregnant every year, ostensibly "overwhelmingly" to adult (18 and over) men. Used stricty in this context, this would not apply to boys, as they cannot get pregnant. But no matter; the law was created for the pregancy reason alone.
Bill Otis brings up a point in which he enunciates how most adult males feel. The question of whether you would rather have your son with a 21 year old woman or your daughter with a 21 year old man is typical, and the vast majority of males would say the son. My question is this: so why not have different age of consent for males as for females? In other words, make it legal for boys 16 and older to be with adults (inference: able to be seduced by adults as well)?
Meanwhile, Erika brings up her icky perv moniker and gives it to the woman in this case, in fact she thinks the teacher is MORE of an icky perv because, well, sex is easier for women/girls to get than men/boys. La de da de da, in a nutshell.
Since this is a legal and not moral forum, I will ask this:
1. What should the sentence be of the 21 year old man who has sex with your:
a) 17 year old son
b) 15 year old son
c) 13 year old son
2. What should the sentence be of the 21 year old woman who has sex with your:
a) 17 year old daughter
b) 15 year old daughter
c) 13 year old daughter
3. Are there differences between 1 and 2 in the ages? This is key.
(NOTE: I understand the desire for the death penalty for those who harm our own kids in general; I'm asking this to be a rational exercise into one's own thinking.)
Posted by: Eric Knight | May 19, 2012 9:05:26 PM
ARGHHH...I screwed up. I meant heterosexual references. Please replace the above question with THIS:
1. What should the sentence be of the 21 year old man who has sex with your:
a) 17 year old daughter
b) 15 year old daughter
c) 13 year old daughter
2. What should the sentence be of the 21 year old woman who has sex with your:
a) 17 year old son
b) 15 year old son
c) 13 year old son
My apologies
Posted by: Eric Knight | May 19, 2012 9:08:19 PM
Eric: "1. What should the sentence be of the 21 year old man who has sex with your:
a) 17 year old daughter"
me: Misdemeanor conviction, probation only sentence and no sex offender registry for him - grounding until 18th birthday for her.
"b) 15 year old daughter"
me: felony conviction, sex offender registration for life. Short prison or jail sentence (about 1 year) if first offense. If second or subsequent offense, prison sentence to statutory max (likely 5 years) for each additional offense.
"c) 13 year old daughter"
me: felony conviction for rape, sex offender registration for life - long prison sentence - probably at least 10 years per offense and per victim up to possible life without parole sentence in cases with multiple offenses and multiple victims. Possible commitment as sexually violent predator at completition of sentence.
Eric: "2. What should the sentence be of the 21 year old woman who has sex with your:"
"a) 17 year old son"
me: Misdemeanor conviction, probation only sentence and no sex offender registry for her - grounding until 18th birthday for him.
"b) 15 year old son"
me: felony conviction, sex offender registration for life. Short prison or jail sentence if first offense. If second or subsequent offense, prison sentence to statutory max (likely 5 years) for each additional offense.
"c) 13 year old son"
me: felony conviction for rape, sex offender registration for life - long prison sentence - at least 10 years per offense and per victim up to possible life without parole sentence for offenders with multiple offenses and victims. Possible commitment as sexually violent predator at completition of sentence.
In this case, Gabriela had multiple offenses involving multiple victims - thus, in that case, the 39 year prison sentence would have been proper with the possibility of civil commitment as a sexually violent predator if she still remains a danger to children when she is to be released. In fact, I believe that a sentence of LWOP would have been proper for her crimes because she is an obvious sexual predator who engages in predatory sexual behavior. And yes she is an icky perv.
Erika :)
Posted by: Erika | May 22, 2012 12:54:13 PM
What, no Sex Ed. in schools anymore?
Posted by: Truth | Jun 11, 2012 10:16:05 PM
The facts are not completely accurate. An inexcusable mistake, yes, but the media tends to spill out "juicy details" before finding out the truth. People make mistakes, you shouldn't judge a person by their mistakes. Where would you be if someone judged you by yours? She obviously needs help and will probably have to see a therapist by law. There are always reasons why a person acts out, hopefully she will get the help she needs to be better and have a greater future.
Posted by: Anne | Sep 26, 2013 10:15:31 PM
