With children and teens, a sexually charged situation can get out of control or be misinterpretted. Protect your child from damaging criminal charges.
Today’s world sends mixed messages to children. On the one hand teenagers and even children are sexualized in the media and advertising, but on the other hand sex offenses are not tolerated at all. Unfortunately, many children have been put into situations where they act on the messages that the media sends, but then find themselves charged with sex crimes.
These cases can range from a child that is sexually curious and involves other children, to a child that acts on their sexual urges without understanding what they are really doing, to things like the so called “sexting cases.” If a child is convicted of a sex crime in Washington State, they are required to register as a sex offender. Their sex offender status will make it difficult, if not impossible, for them to have a normal childhood and to do things like go to school, have friends, date, get a job, go to college, or any of the other things that any parent wants their child to experience.
Defending Juvenile Sex Crimes
Defending juvenile sex crimes is different from defending adult sex crimes. The criminal defense attorney has to understand that a child thinks differently from an adult. Behavior that might be predatory in an adult could is likely the product of confusion or ignorance, when it is manifested by a child. Additionally, many children that are accused of sex crimes are themselves the victims of sex crimes, sometimes very recent sex crimes. It is important to understand that nothing occurs in isolation. A good defense starts by looking at the whole child, and not just at the offense and the events surrounding it.
Another significant component to a juvenile sex crimes defense is understanding the cultural elements that play into behavior and that can also provide a foundation of the criminal defense strategy. Much as been said about so called “hook up culture.” What is apparent is that teenagers are entering into casual sexual relationships at a younger age and with more partners. These casual sexual relationships put a teenager at risk for a juvenile sex crime charge. It is easy for boundaries to become blurred in this type of relationship, and it is easy for a misunderstanding or a mistake to turn into a criminal charge. Understanding these relationships, gives a criminal defense lawyer valuable insight into how to conduct witness and victim interviews and how to frame a defense.
Technology plays an increasing role in criminal defense. In the past it was sometimes very difficult to determine what the alleged victim and the accused had said to each other. In the era of email, text messaging, Twitter, FaceBook, and MySpace, it is increasingly possible to find a great deal of evidence about what all the parties were saying to one another and how they were communicating prior to and after the incident. Additionally a criminal defense lawyer can look at the parties’ social media activities and use this to build a list of potential witnesses.
Defending a juvenile sex crime also means being willing to mount a tough effective defense in cases that are often very emotional and hotly contested. Your criminal defense lawyer must be willing and able to put the state to its proof, question the victim’s account, impeach prosecution witnesses, and dig up every single piece of exculpatory evidence
