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Monday, March 14, 2011

Indiana Sending Consenting Adults to Prison For Sex

Lawmakers in Indiana should be embarrassed for allowing to remain on the books laws that criminalize consensual sex between adults. Police should be embarrassed for apprehending people for this “crime.” Any prosecutor, judge, or juror involved in bringing charges, convicting, and sentencing someone for this “crime” should be embarrassed.

Terry A. Hickmott of Rushville was sentenced Friday [March 4] in the Rush Circuit Court to a four year prison term after pleading guilty to Incest, a Class C Felony.

Four year prison term. Why? Where’s the threat to the public or anyone else? What a waste of taxpayer money.

Charges were filed last November by then Chief Deputy Prosecutor Philip Caviness, alleging that the now 32 year-old Hickmott engaged in sexual intercourse or sexual deviate conduct with his sisters.

Philip Caviness, you are wasting your office! Why do you care if people are enjoying sex with each other?

As part of his plea, Hickmott admitted to having sexual relations with one of his adult sisters. Hickmott’s sisters, Rachael Hickmott and Jennifer McDonald, also are charged with incest and their cases remain pending.

So, then, who exactly is the victim?

A condition of his plea agreement is that Mr. Hickmott have no contact with either sister while serving his sentence or while on probation.

How dare anyone tell an adult he can’t have contact with his own sisters when they are willing to have contact with him and apparently are in love or at least attracted to him?

“This is an unpleasant case, and thankfully cases involving allegations of adult siblings having sex with each other are rare,” Caviness said.

Unpleasant for whom, sir? Are you jealous? Rare is not good enough... “cases involving allegations of adult siblings have sex with each other” should never be criminal matters in the first place.

“Under Indiana law, consent is not a defense to the charge of incest. You simply are not allowed to have sex with your biological sibling.” Caviness continued by saying, “Chief Deputy Prosecutor Phillip Morgan handled this case since he took the job in January, and I am pleased with how he resolved it.”

Morgan should be embarrassed, too.

Morgan added, “The statutory sentencing range for a Class C felony is 2 to 8 years in the Department of Correction, and we felt this sentence was fair. Sadly this was a situation that seemed to require incarceration to make sure that this illegal activity stopped.”

In other words, they all still want to be with each other. Why not let them? I beg you to provide one good reason why these lovers should be kept from each other. I wonder how they were found out? I don't see anybody quoted in the story complaining about these people having sex.

How infuriating: sending adults to prison for having sex with each other.

This is a good example of why we need a Marriage Equality Amendment, so that every adult will have a right to love, sex, and marriage (if that is what he or she wants) with any consenting adults. Consanguinamory and consanguineous sex between adults should not be illegal anywhere.
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5 comments:

  1. This blog does a great job of tracking news and opinion articles, but those articles are merely the fluffy foam on the tops of the waves. The deeper currents are much more significant as well as much more thoughtful. I suggest expanding this blog's coverage to include the critically important area of law review articles. Some can be found online, and others might require a visit to your local law library. Free public law libraries can typically be found downtown in major cities and in the library systems of colleges and universities.

    Here are some online examples (and the footnotes in these articles will lead you to many, many more law review articles worthy of exploration!):
    -----
    http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=442520

    Is Incest Next?

    Brett McDonnell
    University of Minnesota Law School

    Cardozo Women's Law Journal, Vol. 10, No. 2, February 2004
    -----
    http://www.bu.edu/law/central/jd/organizations/journals/bulr/volume88n5/documents/COLLINS-PUNISHINGFAMILYSTATUS.pdf

    BOSTON UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW, 2008

    PUNISHING FAMILY STATUS - when does, and when should, the state use the criminal justice apparatus to burden individuals on account of their familial status?
    -----
    http://hlr.rubystudio.com/media/pdf/inbred_obscurity.pdf

    INBRED OBSCURITY: IMPROVING INCEST LAWS IN
    THE SHADOW OF THE “SEXUAL FAMILY”
    HARVARD LAW REVIEW, 2006
    --------
    http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlg/vol321/59-108.pdf

    ACCIDENTAL INCEST: DRAWING THE LINE – OR THE
    CURTAIN? – FOR REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGY
    Harvard Journal of Law & Gender, 2009
    NAOMI CAHN
    ------

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you very much for your input. I will check those references out. If you have anything to add yourself to this blog or send to me you can contact me at fullmarriageequality - at - yahoo - dot - com.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I should add... thanks for the compliments and yes, much of the news and opinion in mainstream access is fluff, unfortunately.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You've got to be kidding. You CONDONE incestual sex because they'are adults? What a sad and warped value system you adhere to. My guess is you are empty at the very core of who you are, attempting to fill that space with any and all things you can possibly indulge yourself in, only to find that place still unfullfilled. Deny it aloud, but I bet I'm dead on. You embrace biological brothers and sisters who are clearly ignorant of any decent and healthy boundaries, having sex together (shaking head at the ignorance, YOURS, that validates the ignorance of the people involved.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You condemn adults for loving each other? You are the one with the sad and warped value system. And since you do not have any reason to justify your bigotry, you try to attack me personally. But guess what? Expressing your "shock" (perhaps you doth protest too much) does nothing to defend your outdated views. Which is exactly why full marriage equality is going to happen, whether you like it or not.

      Delete

To prevent spam, comments will have to be approved, so your comment may not appear for several hours. Feedback is welcome, including disagreement. I only delete/reject/mark as spam: spam, vulgar or hateful attacks, repeated spouting of bigotry from the same person that does not add to the discussion, and the like. I will not reject comments based on disagreement, but if you don't think consenting adults should be free to love each other, then I do not consent to have you repeatedly spout hate on my blog without adding anything to the discourse.

If you want to write to me privately, then either contact me on Facebook, email me at fullmarriageequality at protonmail dot com, or tell me in your comment that you do NOT want it published. Otherwise, anything you write here is fair game to be used in a subsequent entry. If you want to be anonymous, that is fine.

IT IS OK TO TALK ABOUT SEX IN YOUR COMMENTS, BUT PLEASE CHOOSE YOUR WORDS CAREFULLY AS I WANT THIS BLOG TO BE AS "SAFE FOR WORK" AS POSSIBLE. If your comment includes graphic descriptions of activity involving minors, it's not going to get published.