Criminal

Teen Faces Felony For Lesbian Relationship

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Teen Faces Felony For Lesbian Relationship

Eighteen year old Florida resident Kaitlyn Hunt currently faces fifteen years in prison for her relationship with her sixteen year old girlfriend.   Here is a description of the story: 

Florida teen Kaitlyn Hunt, 18, started dating her 15-year-old girlfriend last year. The older of the two teens,  Kaitlyn, was arrested and subsequently charged with “sexual battery on a person 12-16 years old.” If found guilty of this crime, Kaitlyn could serve up to 15 years in prison and be required to register as a sex offender. But the assistant state attorney offered a deal: if she agrees to 2 years of house arrest and one year of probation, she can forgo trial.

The case has stirred up controversy about the application of this law: is the crime Hunt is being charged with an abuse Florida’s sexual battery law or is the Florida law itself being applied abusively?

It’s impossible to estimate how many Florida teens have violated the sexual battery statute:809,984 teens attend the state’s high schools and it’s certain that thousands of them are sexually active. Kaitlyn’s family believes the law was misapplied to their daughter for discriminatory reasons.

Private Prisons: Pernicious Public Policy?

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Private Prisons: Pernicious Public Policy?

That was the question being debated on Lawyer to Lawyer. Here is a description of the show:

n this edition of Lawyer2Lawyer host Bob Ambrogi discusses private prisons with Susan Herman, president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and Adrian Moore, vice president of the Reason Foundation, a non-profit in support of libertarian principles and privatization.

  • Susan Herman was elected president of the ACLU in October 2008. As Centennial Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, she teaches courses in the area of Criminal Law and Procedure and Constitutional Law. The ACLU has been studying and protesting against private prisons as a for-profit business for decades.
  • Dr. Adrian Moore is vice president of policy at the Reason Foundation. He has conducted studies, written publications and scholarly articles on the privatization of prisons and how they yield quality corrections at a lower cost. He has served on boards and commissions developing or overseeing privatization at the federal, state, and local level.

Tune in to hear Herman and Moore debate and discuss the colossal incarceration rate, the profit motives of private prisons, the politics behind it all, and the impact on prisoners’ rights.

Murder and Mental Illness: “Dr. Gilmer and Mr. Hyde”

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Murder and Mental Illness: “Dr. Gilmer and Mr. Hyde”

This American Life recently ran a riveting story about a beloved family doctor who bruttally murdered his father. Here is an introduction to the story: 

Dr. Benjamin Gilmer . . . gets a job at a rural clinic. He finds out he’s replaced someone — also named Dr. Gilmer . . .  — who went to prison after killing his own father. But the more Benjamin’s patients talk about the other Dr. Gilmer, the more confused he becomes. Everyone loved the old Dr. Gilmer. So Benjamin starts digging around, trying to understand how a good man can seemingly turn bad.

“Will Accused Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Get the Death Penalty?”

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“Will Accused Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Get the Death Penalty?”

This was the question being investigated on the Lawyer 2 Lawyer podcast.  Here is a description of the show: 

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving brother of the accused for the Boston marathon bombings, has become a face of the media lately. His prosecution and potential sentence raises many questions for both the public and the legal world. Attorneys and co-hosts J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi joinAttorney Jack Cunha and Professor Douglas Berman to discuss the prosecution and trial of the suspect.

  • Jack Cunha, of Cunha & Holcomb, is a practicing criminal attorney based in Boston, Massachusetts. A former instructor at Suffolk and Harvard Law Schools, Cunha lectures nationally for various associations and schools such as The National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, Harvard Law, and CLE Programs mainly on criminal defense.
  • Douglas Berman, Professor of Law at The Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, has taught a myriad of courses at Ohio State including criminal law, criminal punishment and sentencing, and the death penalty. He is co-author of a casebook, Sentencing Law and Policy: Cases, Statutes, and Guidelines. He also writes a popular blog titled Sentencing Law and Policy.

Tune in to hear what these experienced professionals have to say as they answer questions such as: Although Massachusetts outlawed the death penalty in 1984, will prosecutors use federal law to seek the death penalty for Tsarnaev? Will the fact that the suspect is only 19 call for mitigation? and more.