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Woman faces eviction for having sex as teenager



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Wendy Whitaker may not be allowed to live in the 100-year-old bungalow she owns with her husband. The 28-year-old was forced out of the house in 2006 and cannot volunteer at her local church. She says she was arrested for returning home to do her laundry.

Whitaker is a sex offender: When she was a 17-year-old high school sophomore, she had oral sex with a 15-year-old boy. Whitaker pleaded guilty in 1997 to sodomy and served five years of probation. But she and her husband have been forced to move several times in the last two years because Georgia's sex offender registry laws prevent offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school, church, playground, school bus stop or other place where children congregate.

"I know what I did was wrong, but do I really deserve to keep going through this over and over?" said Whitaker, who is the lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the registration laws. "Does my husband deserve it? I'm being punished over and over again."

Though Georgia's supreme court in November struck down as unconstitutional an earlier version of the law, the state legislature quickly passed a new version that keeps intact most of the law's strictest provisions. The new law, still considered one of the nation's toughest sex offender laws, went into effect this month. It is one of a rash of laws enacted by state legislatures in the last several years that restrict where sex offenders can live, and in some cases, bars them from living within 2,500 feet of schools.

(Excerpts / Scott Michels, ABC News
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Do you think Whittake is right in opposing the existing sex offender laws or do you feel that her punishment is appropriate?
JanaPokana

37 responses // Woman faces eviction for having sex as teenager

  • What she did at the age of seventeen with a boy of fifteen is very, very common, and I'm sure the young man enjoyed it to the full and was a willing participant only two years younger then her. I feel that in her case, this law is far too harsh, and her punishment is far from being appropriate.
    Vierotchka
    1 response to this
  • this case is an excellent example of the reversal of justice. the original premise of 'paying' for the crime has become a life long endeavor. once an individual is convicted, does the time and pays the fines, they are constantly discriminated against in the public arena as a 'convicted felon'. this affects primarily the ability to procure gainful employment which is not an option, it is a necessity. i hope the individual in the story is successful in her fight on this issue as it is evidently a battle that has yet to be fought. on the topic of convicted felons, i say this is a way to combat our national issue of illegal workers, convicted felons were and still are citizens of this country and reintegration into society dictates that we as a nation accept them back from the hell of "corrections" and hire them - not illegals!!

    Hire a convicted felon!!!
    shine0854
    1 response to this
  • As a Georgia resident, I know this law is nuts! There are many in her situation. Teens have sex, our laws need to get over that. Let's convict the adult men and women who rape children.
    shroomfairy
  • As long as people like Whitaker are punished for such trivial "offenses," these laws will never convey the seriousness of the crimes they are designed to prevent.
    azalea
  • This why the law needs to be used appropriately instead of in this strict adherence that hinders people's lives.

    She was still in school and had sex with someone that was with her in school. She was not 20, out of school and walking around a high school going who wants oral sex come right on over and I'll give you a good time.

    She knew him. They did it. Bam...done. Oh yeah parents. Is it not the parent that decides to press charges? Was it such in this case? This will make sure what your child did didn't happen....prosecute. Smart parenting...which they failed to do prior.

    I think she got punished and didn't deserve to be on that list. I think the charge and the listing can be different. Certain things can be charged but they will not go on the list. And why wasn't her record expunged like many criminal teenage offenders when she turned 18?

    Lame all around. I hope she fights it or someone with the money and the knowledge helps her. I like that she was very humble about being wrong for what she did...there's no anger just frustration that it won't go away.
    J_Jammer
    1 response to this
  • watch this comment being used here, here, here and here
    This is totally unjust. Most (or at least many) sex offender laws are very useful and deserve to be there, but this is just ridiculous. And while I don't think she should have been punished in the first place in this particular case (who turned her in by the way? the fifteen year old didn't like his BJ?) she has already paid for her crime and then some. There need to be certain levels of severity for these statutory sex crimes, and the punishments should reflect that.
    Jayhawker
  • I don't know the story. I gather from the other comments that it's easy to assume that the boy enjoyed it, but if charges where pressed, he clearly did not. I think that if he was exploited in any painful way, then this woman should pay for what she did.

    A lot of people dismiss female sexual offenders because they believe, "oh, you know he wanted it," but that isn't always the case. They can be deeply traumatized, and it's every bit as valid as the charges against a man exploiting a woman.

    Call be crazy for giving the victim the benefit of the doubt against a sex offender.
    yessuh
    2 responses to this
  • Azalea, I completely agree.
    This is a perfect example of misplaced policy that does not protect it's people.
    Besides, is this 1898? How can it still be illegal for a 17 year old to give a blow job??
    iOw
    • iOw
    • 1 month ago
  • We need to start drawing bolder lines between what this is and what a real sexual offense is. There is no justice in lumping people like Whitaker in with the real child rapists and molesters.
    egarlow
    2 responses to this
  • I didn't even know you could be a registered sex offender as a teenager if it was only a 2 year difference with consent.

    Georgia is intense!
    deceptacon_core
  • Let's do a little bit better job at reporting here. We don't have the full picture. The story does not say whether or not it was consensual and leaves us to assume one way or the other. The premise is clearly that the law goes to far but without knowing all the facts in this case it's hard to say. I will say that blanket statutes usually do not serve justice as justice is never really blind and each situation is usually different from the next.
    KineDa
    1 response to this
  • What a stupid interpretation and application of sex offender restrictions. Glad that there's nothing more important and dangerous going on in Georgia than to pursue this kind of criminal.
    sindlinger
    1 response to this
  • What a crock! That is so unfair to her. She was 17 and he was 15. If she was 19 and he was 17 it would not have made any difference to the law. Besides, I thought it was only considered a crime if the individual was 18 or older. The laws are changing and turning people into adults before they are actually adults. She was still a child in high school. She is not a sex offender. The law is focusing too much on unimportant little things when we have real rapists and child molesters out there on the streets that get away with what they do.
    mchav18
  • This is a prime example of why I vote against sex offender registry laws. Theoretically they're great, but the fact is that most of the people labeled "sex offender" are not the kind of people that label was invented for.

    One of the people I live with was convicted when he was 19 for having sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend. He served jail time (!), and to this day he finds it difficult to find a job that will pay him enough to make ends meet. He's a "sex offender" and yet I, a young woman who is not related to him or in a relationship with him, am perfectly comfortable sleeping in a room across the hall. What does that tell you?
    Allsunday
  • I personally think that it's wrong to prosecute a 17 year old girl for fooling around with a 15 year old anyway, they obviously both wanted it and made a decision to do it. I know these laws are in place for a reason, but sometimes it's hard to believe anyone committed a real crime.
    SLindsayM1991
  • "Whitaker pleaded guilty in 1997 to sodomy"
    ??????????????????????????????????
    cdltnla
  • people treat age as if it is some physical milestone. i know of 18 year olds who are 1000 times more mature and capable of making an informed decision than many "adults." i think that rigid adherence to an age number is oppressive and narrow-minded. while i do recognize that laws must be written as blanket policies, there has to be a better way for us to protect our children from sexual predators. can we have psychologists on hand to determine if harm has been done? can we appropriately handle this situation on a case-by-case basis without people slipping through the cracks? does anyone have a better idea?
    edbr
  • ya what is with the sodomy charges?

    She likes it in the butt, but who gave it to her
    clayjj05
  • I don't understand. How is oral sex sodomy? Secondly, 17 doesn't strike me as old enough for it to count as a statutory crime. It would make more sense if she was 19 and he was 14, but they're close in age. There are plenty of people who have a two year gap in their relationship that are married and have children. My parents for one thing.

    It doesn't strike me as a statutory rape case. I also wonder about the boy. Did he bring up theses charges or was it his parents that pressed him into it?
    zeephile
    1 response to this
  • They wouldn't have charged her with sodomy if he did it to her I don't think. I presume she exploited him. What a pig.
    cdltnla
  • I thought that you had to be 18 in order to be charged with having sex with a minor. Also, I don't get the sodomy charges.

    If she did it to him then yeah I can see him pressing charges. Obviously, he enjoyed the blow job though. I still think her record should have been expunged since she was a minor herself when it occured.
    caterpillars2us
  • I wish this story didn't exist. She has done nothing wrong, besides live in the wrong part of the country.
    piratazephyri
  • I saw a show about that on 20/20. One person was even killed by some wacko. On the sex offender registry, there is no way to tell the difference between a guy who had sex with a girl his age around 16 or so, and a kiddy raper.

    Some assholes actually think positively about that kind of shit, people being kicked around for having teenage sex. It's mostly the parents who file charges and shit like that.

    Fuck the government.
    FallenMorgan
  • Attention all Crackers, your kids are having sex, talk to them. Be honest and direct.., do not talk to them, they are smarter than you and more experienced!
    rwadams666
  • http://sexoffenderissues.blogspot.com/
    ZMan6919
  • high school. idk what else to say. thats like a daily event, seriously....
    pvl1
  • whoa whoa WHOA!
    you mean to tell me this woman gave oral sex and gets charged with sodomy? WOW
    this is why the sex offender law is so dumb
    Problem is when people do a check they dont see what the crime is they just see
    "pervert" and they are classified with the child raist and pornographers, she did what most kids do
    and it was only a two year differnce, we should be like colorado legal age of consint is 15 and any age is ok like as it's not 10 years over
    Chuck_st_chuck

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