KS - Matthew Limon for sex abuse of 14yo boy, Paola, 2000

Casshew

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TOPEKA — The Kansas Court of Appeals today again upheld the 17-year prison sentence of Matthew Limon, who was sentenced for engaging in homosexual sex with a minor.

Under state law, if Limon had engaged in sex with an underage girl, he would have faced a maximum sentence of one year and three months in prison.

In 2002, the Kansas appeals court rejected Limon's challenge of his conviction, but the U.S. Supreme Court in June struck down a Texas law that criminalized gay sex and returned the Limon case to the Kansas courts for reconsideration.

The Kansas court today in a 2-1 decision affirmed the original sentence.

Judge Henry Green Jr. held that the facts in the Texas case differed from those in the Limon case; specifically in not dealing with sex with minors.

Judge G. Joseph Pierron was the lone dissenter, arguing that Kansas law that mandates higher prison sentences for illegal sex acts, based on whether the defendant is the same sex as the victim, was unconstitutional.

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Not only was his victim a fourteen-year-old child... but this offense happened at a group home for developmental disabilities. I hope he rots in prison. It would make no difference to me if his victim had been a 14-year-old girl. He's a child molester, not a persecuted gay man. He's a sick puppy who needs to stay right where he is.
 
Babs: If that's the case he should NEVER get out! That's sickening.
 
Babcat said:
Not only was his victim a fourteen-year-old child... but this offense happened at a group home for developmental disabilities. I hope he rots in prison. It would make no difference to me if his victim had been a 14-year-old girl. He's a child molester, not a persecuted gay man. He's a sick puppy who needs to stay right where he is.

I agree wholeheartedly.

Try not to fall over, Babs!! LOL
 
I was about to agree as well, but then I read the perp was only 18 at the time of the incident. While I think teens having sex with other teens is almost always a bad idea, nearly two decades in prison is rather steep for teen sex.

Because of the group-home setting, we are all picturing a developmentally challenged 14-year-old victimized by an adult with an unfair intellectual advantage. But we don't really know any of this, do we? (Except, of course, that one partner was 18 and the other 14.)
 
Nova, you are absolutely right (about me, anyways). I guess I just assumed as surely the piece would mention if the perp was mentally challenged?
In any case, you are right, I am not going to change my post so as not to confuse, but point taken.
 
Nova,

Good point. I'd want to know if the perpetrator was also a developmentally challenged member of the group home, or if he was an aid that worked there. To me, that would make all the difference.

I still believe 18 is adult and 14 is child. When a youth is between 13 and 18 I don't believe it is wise for the age of the "significant other" to be more than two years difference either way. An 18-year-old is significantly more developed and informed and less naive than a 14-year-old as a general rule. But I agree that the sentence should fit the crime.
 
Agreed, folks. And even if the 18-year-old was an employee (rather than a client), he can't possibly have been very high level or have received much training. This isn't to say he shouldn't have known better - he should have - but it's not the same as a doctor, say, taking advantage of an underage patient.

Still, the "line" (i.e., the age of consent) has to be drawn somewhere, and I'm not at all comfortable with 18-year-olds having sex with 13- and 14-year-olds. But a year or so in prison ought to be enough to deter those who can be deterred; 17 years is absurd (and unnecessarily expensive to the taxpayer).
 

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