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Legal Issues for a Child Who Was Kidnapped at Birth (For a Novel)

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  • 01-24-2018, 12:28 PM
    Dogmatique
    Re: Legal Issues for a Child Who Was Kidnapped at Birth (For a Novel)
    Quote:

    Quoting SilenceintheLibrary
    View Post
    I didn't say incest was legal. The baby was kidnapped at birth. Her abductor was concerned that he might sexually abuse his daughter when she got older, not that he had already done it. My personal life is not relevant to the post, but as I stated, the birth mother did not want a baby and would have preferred putting her up for adoption if she'd felt that was an option.

    Marriage does not erase a past crime - like statutory rape.
  • 01-24-2018, 12:33 PM
    SilenceintheLibrary
    Re: Legal Issues for a Child Who Was Kidnapped at Birth (For a Novel)
    Sadly, it was doing so in Virginia, which is why they changed the law. I read a recent article in the Washington Post about it. Men were literally evading arrest by marrying their victims.
  • 01-24-2018, 12:39 PM
    PayrolGuy
    Re: Legal Issues for a Child Who Was Kidnapped at Birth (For a Novel)
    I think you need to do a little more research and not take what you read in the Post as research. Best as a quick look tells me the last time that section of Virginia law was changed was 2014 and I didn't check to see what the change was.
  • 01-24-2018, 12:57 PM
    jk
    Re: Legal Issues for a Child Who Was Kidnapped at Birth (For a Novel)
    Quote:

    Quoting SilenceintheLibrary
    View Post
    I didn't say incest was legal. The baby was kidnapped at birth. Her abductor was concerned that he might sexually abuse his daughter when she got older, not that he had already done it. My personal life is not relevant to the post, but as I stated, the birth mother did not want a baby and would have preferred putting her up for adoption if she'd felt that was an option.

    You didn’t say it was a concern about after the child grows up and you were speaking about the father having an interest in his own child (incest) and you specifically said his activities were legal.

    Quote:

    There is also the very real concern that a man who has a sexual interest in young girls might harm his own daughter. The kidnapper could not have gotten help from the authorities, because they would have returned the child to her father. While his ideology would disgust most of us, it was still perfectly legal.

    I was speaking as to how a parent would likely feel regarding their child being kidnapped. The only reason I mentioned your personal life was simply in curiosity as to why you believe a woman could feel benefitted by their child being kidnapped. If you have no children then it may be difficult for to understand how unlikely your storyline would be.


    I have no intention of arguing with you. I posted with the intent of helping you understand things as a possible reader may see things in conjunction with the involved laws. It appears you feel a need to defend yourself rather than seeing what I post with the intent I meant.


    Hopefully ive provided you with some benefit and wish you all the best.
  • 01-24-2018, 02:07 PM
    SilenceintheLibrary
    Re: Legal Issues for a Child Who Was Kidnapped at Birth (For a Novel)
    Quote:

    Quoting jk
    View Post
    You didn’t say it was a concern about after the child grows up and you were speaking about the father having an interest in his own child (incest) and you specifically said his activities were legal.




    I was speaking as to how a parent would likely feel regarding their child being kidnapped. The only reason I mentioned your personal life was simply in curiosity as to why you believe a woman could feel benefitted by their child being kidnapped. If you have no children then it may be difficult for to understand how unlikely your storyline would be.


    I have no intention of arguing with you. I posted with the intent of helping you understand things as a possible reader may see things in conjunction with the involved laws. It appears you feel a need to defend yourself rather than seeing what I post with the intent I meant.


    Hopefully ive provided you with some benefit and wish you all the best.

    My apologies if I have sounded curt; I've been trying to reply during short moments of downtime at work. I appreciate that you want to help, but I would prefer to discuss only the legal aspect on this thread. In other words, I would like to know more about jury nullification and whether it might happen in a case like this, where the birth mother believed her child was better off with someone else, but I don't want to get off track and start debating the plausibility of plot points, such as whether a mother would ever not want to raise a child she has birthed. As much as I enjoy hearing reader's perspectives, I am afraid if we start debating plot points here that the thread will lose its intended purpose. The legal questions are what I am trying to learn more about here. If you have questions about my writing in general, feel free to PM me, but I'd like to keep the thread focused on legal facts.
  • 01-24-2018, 02:18 PM
    PayrolGuy
    Re: Legal Issues for a Child Who Was Kidnapped at Birth (For a Novel)
    That's the thing with jury nullification. There isn't case law on when it can be used. A defense lawyer doesn't even have to bring it up in trial. A jury could just look at the facts of the case and all decide that the law as applied in that case doesn't warrant a conviction.
  • 01-24-2018, 02:24 PM
    SilenceintheLibrary
    Re: Legal Issues for a Child Who Was Kidnapped at Birth (For a Novel)
    Quote:

    Quoting PayrolGuy
    View Post
    I think you need to do a little more research and not take what you read in the Post as research. Best as a quick look tells me the last time that section of Virginia law was changed was 2014 and I didn't check to see what the change was.

    I've read articles from several sources. In some states, including (in the past) Virginia, statutory rape charges are dropped if the perpetrator marries the victim. It's senseless (which is why the laws are changing) but is probably left over from a different era in which marriage was viewed very differently. There was one man in Northern Virginia who used the same tactic to escape charges twice (the first marriage ended in divorce). This may not apply if charges have already been filed - I will have to look into that more - but apparently it was no longer considered a crime once they were married.

    Quote:

    Quoting PayrolGuy
    View Post
    That's the thing with jury nullification. There isn't case law on when it can be used. A defense lawyer doesn't even have to bring it up in trial. A jury could just look at the facts of the case and all decide that the law as applied in that case doesn't warrant a conviction.

    Interesting...I will have to learn more about it and when it has been used in the past. I'm grasping at straws a little, but my test audience so far is feeling highly sympathetic towards the abductor and is begging me to find a way to keep her out of jail. Admittedly, I'm also sad about having to send her to jail, because I know it will break her "daughter's" heart. But while I'm willing to use a little license, I don't want to get crazy. It's a thin line to be sure!
  • 01-24-2018, 02:36 PM
    PayrolGuy
    Re: Legal Issues for a Child Who Was Kidnapped at Birth (For a Novel)
    A google search of "jury nullification cases" brings up a lot.

    I found the story in the Post that I think you are talking about. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...=.b8c1060c6ad1

    It is not a change in the statutory rape law it is a change in the age which one can legally marry.

    According to the article

    Quote:

    The change is aimed at curbing forced marriage, human trafficking and statutory rape disguised as marriage. Activists say the previous law created a “fast-track to child marriages” for abusers who could evade investigation by child-welfare officials by simply marrying their victims.
  • 01-24-2018, 02:44 PM
    SilenceintheLibrary
    Re: Legal Issues for a Child Who Was Kidnapped at Birth (For a Novel)
    Quote:

    Quoting PayrolGuy
    View Post
    A google search of "jury nullification cases" brings up a lot.

    I found the story in the Post that I think you are talking about. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...=.b8c1060c6ad1

    It is not a change in the statutory rape law it is a change in the age which one can legally marry.

    According to the article


    Yes, that was what I meant. People now have to be 18 in order to marry in Virginia (or 16 if legally emancipated), whereas in the past they could marry at 16 with parental permission, or younger if they were pregnant or had given birth. Although a grown man would normally have been charged with statutory rape for having a sexual relationship with an underage girl, they were apparently able to avoid it if they married the girl in question. That has changed; while staturory rape laws are technnically the same, that loophole no longer exists.
  • 01-24-2018, 02:55 PM
    PayrolGuy
    Re: Legal Issues for a Child Who Was Kidnapped at Birth (For a Novel)
    Quote:

    Quoting SilenceintheLibrary
    View Post
    Yes, that was what I meant. People now have to be 18 in order to marry in Virginia (or 16 if legally emancipated), whereas in the past they could marry at 16 with parental permission, or younger if they were pregnant or had given birth. Although a grown man would normally have been charged with statutory rape for having a sexual relationship with an underage girl, they were apparently able to avoid it if they married the girl in question. That has changed; while staturory rape laws are technnically the same, that loophole no longer exists.


    Only if they could get the parents to go along with it.
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