Posted on 09/05/2008 1:14:06 PM PDT by llevrok
The state’s largest teacher’s union says teachers who have sex with their 18-year-old students should not necessarily face felony charges.
The Washington Education Association filed a “friend of the court” briefing in the state Court of Appeals case of former Hoquiam High School choir teacher Matthew Hirschfelder, accused of having sexual relations with one of his 18-year-old students.
“Eighteen- year olds aren’t kids,” union spokesman Rich Wood said. “They are minors. … And should consenting adults be subject to criminal charges? That’s the question behind this case and this law.”
Hirschfelder has been charged with first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor in Grays Harbor Superior Court. Prosecutors allege that the then 33-year-old Hirschfelder had sexual intercourse with one of his 18-year-old students in his office toward the end of the 2006 school year.
Last year, Hirschfelder’s attorney Rob Hill argued that the case should be dismissed because the girl was not a minor. Hill questioned the state law, which says, in part, that a person is guilty of first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor if “the person is a school employee who has ... sexual intercourse with a registered student of the school who is at least 16 years old and not married to the employee ...”
The employee must also be five years older than the student.
Superior Court Judge David Foscue, who recently retired, ruled that there “is no ambiguity in the text of the statute.”
“As long as she’s still a student in the school, she can still be a victim of this crime,” Foscue said last year.
Hill appealed the decision to the Court of Appeals, Division 2 in Tacoma, which is set to hear arguments at 9 a.m. Sept. 9 in Tacoma.
The Washington Education Association decided to file its amicus curae brief “because the decision could affect our 81,000 members,” according to Wood.
Retired Hoquiam teacher Betsy Seidel, who has sat in on just about all of the Hirschfelder hearings thus far, said her mouth about dropped when she heard about her former union’s filing.
“That is absurd!” Seidel simply said.
Added Hoquiam Police Chief Jeff Myers, “Under Washington law, the actual age of consent is 16 years old, so at what age do we expect these high school students to become ‘consenting adults?’ Can the WEA actually argue that this sort of conduct is professional and acceptable? …
“Thank God I only have one child left in high school.”
Wood said that the union believes that teachers should not have sexual intercourse with their students, regardless of age, and teachers caught doing so should go through the proper state investigation to see if they should lose their teaching license. Teachers should not, necessarily, face felony charges, he said.
“While a school employee may knowingly risk their certification and their employment for engaging in acts that are clearly prohibited by the (teacher’s) Code of Conduct, it is obviously much more serious for the same employee to face criminal charges based on an ambiguous statute that has neither been clearly defined by the Legislature nor clearly articulated by the relevant professional organizations,” writes attorney Harriet Strasberg, on behalf of the state union.
Strasberg was also the union attorney who helped stop the Hoquiam School District from terminating Hirschfelder after the sexual misconduct allegations came to light. The superintendent had fired Hirschfelder. Strasberg appealed through the grievance process and both sides decided to allow the choir teacher to resign.
Also filing a friend of the court briefing is the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, who also argues that two adults engaged in a consenting sexual relationship should have a right to privacy, under the Washington State Constitution, regardless of whether one of the adults is an 18-year-old student.
The Hirschfelder case takes on an added significance because a superior court judge in Benton County ruled that the law was too vague in the case of a 58-year-old Richland High School teacher having consensual sex with an 18-year-old student.
The defense attorney in that case had argued that both the student and teacher had a right to privacy, concerning their sexual relationship.
A decision by the Division 2 Court of Appeals won’t have much of an impact on the Eastern Washington case because they are under the jurisdiction of the Division 3 courts. However, the case may eventually reach the state Supreme Court.
The Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys has said they will pursue a “legislative fix” on the issue next year.
If they’re over 18 it isn’t really a crime is it? It’s just grounds for losing your teaching certification I imagine.
Wow, I actually agree with a union.
They are 18. Fire them, yes. Felony? No way.
Rather than simply redefine the word “minor”, the statute should be rewritten, and the degree of the penalty should remain.
Wonder what Mr. Wood thinks of his daughters little fling with Marivn the Metal Shop teacher...or his son for that matter
it’s the position of authority that’s the problem, moreso
than the age.
gubermint unions suck.
“Trust your daughter to our public school. We promise she’ll be safe right up to her 18th birthday.”
She didn’t cry rape, so is there a victim here? Looks to me like a perve and a hussy.
-PJ
I’m an English teacher on my lunch break. Reading this story just about made me upchuck my soup. Teachers should always have professional distance between themselves and their students... and if the law wants to make sex between students and teachers a felony, that’s fine with me, since it’s demonstrably unethical and immoral. Lots of unethical and immoral behavior is illegal and felonious.
There’s a reason why we need to privatize schools and kill the NEA. This article outlines one of the reasons. I can’t even believe anyone would come to this guy’s defense, let alone ask for a change in the law.
This is the kind of stuff that makes the rest of us teachers look awful. I offer a gob of spit hurled in the direction of the Washington Education Association.
No, it's a crime, because the teacher broke an actual law. The union has appealed the conviction on the grounds that the law, as written, is wrong. "Hill questioned the state law, which says, in part, that a person is guilty of first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor if 'the person is a school employee who has ... sexual intercourse with a registered student of the school who is at least 16 years old and not married to the employee ...'”
Seems to me that a rational court would reject the appeal: the law as written is unambiguous, and probably constitutional.
What the union is really trying to do, is get the courts to (once again) legislate from the bench. They know that no sane legislator would be caught dead trying to repeal this law in public....
Well, that should help with job recruiting.
P.S. I think an application of Lawrence vs. Texas would render this law null.
As a teacher you’re in a position of public trust , therefore sex with any student is a crime.
In many states it is a crime for a teacher to have sex with a student, even if the student is 18. Considering that teachers have unique access to students and are expected to act in loco parentis, in a parental role, many people consider this particular abuse of a teaching position to be an action that merits prosecution as a felony. As a teacher, I agree with those who want it to be illegal and not just grounds for firing.
You're going to send your daughter to school for close to 200 days a year, where her future depends on what we teach her and even what we write about her in letters of recommendation, and your tax dollars are going to pay for us to perform those duties whether you like it or not. Is it too much to ask that all teachers keep their hands to themselves when they teach?
I didn’t even read the case. The idea of removing the treason status from high-school teacher to student sex is, on its face, absurd.
No responsibilty, no accountability
The teachers union has become a criminal enterprise in it’s own right.
Support the liberal cause and they will make sure your kids are kept uneducated and indoctrinated.
Our schools have become mental health, family therapy and sex education centers.
I agree with them. It should be a fireable offense but having sex with a legal adult should not be a felony.
” The Washington Education Association decided to file its amicus curae brief “because the decision could affect our 81,000 members,” according to Wood. “
How sick is a teacher’s union that is worried they have a lot of teachers having sex with students, that this might put a crimp in their sexual conquests of young people.
Sick ba$tards think the kids are their own personal sexual cafeteria.
I think we need to start stringing up the male and female teachers molesting kids like they would have done in the good ol’ days to sexual perverts. Then run them out of town on a damn rail.
You leave your stinking, damn hands off the kids in the school. They aren’t your little sex pool, perverts.
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