A Difference in Kind or Degree?
North Carolina takes a zero tolerance approach school employees having sex with students. In this state, such conduct is a felony. Two recent cases show that there can be vast differences between conduct that constitutes violations of that law.
Take, for instance, the case of David Hamilton Arrowood of West Brunswick High School. Arrowood is forty-nine years old. He is married with kids. He is a high school teacher and football coach. Arrowood was arrested after a school official found him engaged in “improper activity” with a 17 year old female student at school. He has now been charged with seven counts of sex offense with a student by school personnel and seven counts of indecent liberties with a student by school personnel.
The school system suspended him with pay pending an investigation.
Arrowood had been teaching and coaching for almost a decade before the girl in question was even born. Investigators think that the inappropriate relationship had been ongoing for more than five months.
It is very hard to find even a little sympathy for Arrowood. Assuming the allegations are true, and as Arrowood was caught in the act, that does not take a great leap of faith, he seems likely to be a predator. He has no business teaching in a high school and felony charges seem appropriate.
The case of Heather Shelton seems to me to be of a completely different nature. Shelton, 22, was hired two months ago as a teacher's aide working with special needs students at North Buncombe High School.
She met a 19 year old male high school senior while away from school. He was not one of her students. It is alleged that on April 1 of this year, she had sex with the 19 year old. The alleged incident did not take place at school. Based on the news reports, it is hard to see Shelton as a predator.
Shelton, unlike Arrowood, has been fired. Like Arrowood, she faces felony criminal charges for violating the law that prohibits school employees from having sex with students.
One of the reasons I detest mandatory minimum sentences is that two charges of the same criminal activity can be as different as the conduct alleged against Arrowood and Shelton. While the same statute may have been violated, the differences seem larger than the similarities. The difference in degree is so large as to constitute a difference in kind. It may well be appropriate for the justice system to throw the book at Arrowood. Shelton should, perhaps, have her wrists gently slapped.
Comments
So, let me get this straight, a teacher can't have sex with a student from a different institute? Not even if the student is of age?
That seems problematic to me, to say the least.
I understand why a teacher shouldn't be allowed to have sex with a student from the same institute, but if there is no connection, I seriously can't see why it should be anyone's business.
I belive that in Denmark we have some kind of vague definition about positions of power, which the judge have to apply if relevant.
Posted by: Kristjan Wager | April 18, 2006 04:33 PM
The relevent statute applies to elementary and secondary schools, not to colleges and universities. The age of consent in North Carolina is 16, but there are obvious problems with allowing 16 year olds to have sexual relationships with their teachers. In NC (and most American) high schools, all teachers are in positions of authority over all students. The law does not forbid teachers from having sexual relationships with students who attend other high schools, though my guess is that such relationships would not be socially approved.
On the other hand, under the same law non-teacher school personel (such, perhaps, as teacher assistants) who have less than a 4 year gap in ages with their victims may be prosecuted as a misdomeaner sexual offense. From the article, it was not clear to me whether or not Ms Shelton was being prosecuted for a felony or a misdomeaner.
Posted by: William | April 18, 2006 05:25 PM