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80 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. 111 (2002-2003)
Gender-Neutral Statutory Rape Laws: Legal Fictions Disguised as Remedies to Male Child Exploitation

handle is hein.journals/udetmr80 and id is 131 raw text is: COMMENT Gender-Neutral Statutory Rape Laws: Legal Fictions Disguised as Remedies to Male Child Exploitation I. INTRODUCTION In early 1997, the King County Department of Public Safety Special Assault Unit received information that Mary K. Letourneau, a thirty-five-year-old sixth grade teacher and mother of four children, was having sexual intercourse with ... a thirteen-year-old student at the school where she taught.' Letourneau was subsequently charged with two counts of second-degree rape of a child.2 Upon the entering of a guilty plea and sentencing under the Special Sexual Offender Sentencing Alternative (SSOSA), Letourneau only received 180 days in the county jail.3 The court ordered that she have no contact for the maximum term of life with her victim.., or with any minors without the supervision of a responsible adult having knowledge of the convictions.' The SSOSA was revoked less than two weeks after Letourneau was released from the county jail when she was discovered in the company of the victim.5 Only then was she sentenced to serve eighty-nine months in prison.6 Although an increasing number of women have been prosecuted for statutory rape, there are continuing allegations that women are not treated the same as male offenders. Specifically, there are allegations that authorities fail to perceive the sexual relationship between an adult female and a male adolescent as statutory rape, that women are not prosecuted as often as men, and that women do not receive similar sentences. The sentencing in Letourneau reflects this 1. State v. Letourneau, 997 P.2d 436, 439-40 (Wash. Ct. App. 2000). 2. Id. at 440. 3. Id. 4. Id. 5. Id. 6. Id.

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