Teh One Who Knocks
02-09-2018, 12:14 PM
By Stephanie Taylor / Staff Writer - Tuscaloosa News
https://i.imgur.com/rQw4e7B.jpg
A former Pickens Academy teacher who was involved in relationships with two students is appealing her conviction, saying the law that prohibits sex with students is unconstitutional.
Charli Jones Parker, 31, pleaded guilty in August to having sexual contact with students younger than 19. She is serving a three-year sentence at Tutwiler Prison and is expected to be released Sept. 10, 2020.
A Morgan County Circuit Court judge ruled the law prohibiting sex between a school employee and student unconstitutional that same month. The state appealed the judge’s ruling, but the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has not yet issued a decision in the case.
Parker’s attorney contends the statute violates the equal protection clause because it treats school employees differently than other occupations and criminalizes what her attorney called private consensual sexual relationships.
As written, the law prohibits sexual relationships between any school employee and any student, regardless of the school system they attend, who is under 19.
“Alabama law does not make it a crime for members of other occupations to have consensual sex with 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds, even when there is a position of trust or authority,” said Parker’s appellate attorney, Virginia Buck of Northport.
In the brief filed Tuesday, Buck noted a hypothetical scenario, saying a 21-year-old janitor working for a Tuscaloosa school system might go to Gulf Shores for spring break and have sex with an 18-year-old senior from Daphne High School. Under the law, she said, he would be guilty of a Class B felony.
“But a 65-year-old doctor, minister, therapist, or attorney is not subject to criminal liability in Alabama for having consensual sex with a 16-year-old over whom he has authority or with whom he holds a position of trust,” she said. She noted that the statute didn’t apply to private school employees until 2016.
“School employees have been unfairly singled out and are being sent to prison for something that, at most, might cost people their job or their license in any other profession,” she said. “Certainly, anyone who has sexual contact with someone without their consent, or who is under the age of consent, should be criminally punished. But to send someone to prison for a consensual sexual relationship with someone over the age of consent solely because they are a school employee treats school employees differently than everyone else.”
Parker and her husband, both Pickens Academy teachers at the time, were arrested in March 2016. Charli Parker was accused of having sexual contact with a 16-year-old male student 13 times between October 2014 and a few days before her arrest. She was charged with engaging in sex with another 16-year-old student at his home the following June, for encounters that allegedly occurred before the incidents involving the other victim.
Her husband, James “Jamie” Franklin Parker III, 33, was accused of having sexual contact with a former female student six times between December 2014 and May 2015. He pleaded guilty, and has a sentencing date set for June.
She taught elementary computer classes, physical education and was the head coach for the girls’ basketball team. Her husband taught math, was the boys’ head basketball coach and the student government association sponsor.
https://i.imgur.com/rQw4e7B.jpg
A former Pickens Academy teacher who was involved in relationships with two students is appealing her conviction, saying the law that prohibits sex with students is unconstitutional.
Charli Jones Parker, 31, pleaded guilty in August to having sexual contact with students younger than 19. She is serving a three-year sentence at Tutwiler Prison and is expected to be released Sept. 10, 2020.
A Morgan County Circuit Court judge ruled the law prohibiting sex between a school employee and student unconstitutional that same month. The state appealed the judge’s ruling, but the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has not yet issued a decision in the case.
Parker’s attorney contends the statute violates the equal protection clause because it treats school employees differently than other occupations and criminalizes what her attorney called private consensual sexual relationships.
As written, the law prohibits sexual relationships between any school employee and any student, regardless of the school system they attend, who is under 19.
“Alabama law does not make it a crime for members of other occupations to have consensual sex with 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds, even when there is a position of trust or authority,” said Parker’s appellate attorney, Virginia Buck of Northport.
In the brief filed Tuesday, Buck noted a hypothetical scenario, saying a 21-year-old janitor working for a Tuscaloosa school system might go to Gulf Shores for spring break and have sex with an 18-year-old senior from Daphne High School. Under the law, she said, he would be guilty of a Class B felony.
“But a 65-year-old doctor, minister, therapist, or attorney is not subject to criminal liability in Alabama for having consensual sex with a 16-year-old over whom he has authority or with whom he holds a position of trust,” she said. She noted that the statute didn’t apply to private school employees until 2016.
“School employees have been unfairly singled out and are being sent to prison for something that, at most, might cost people their job or their license in any other profession,” she said. “Certainly, anyone who has sexual contact with someone without their consent, or who is under the age of consent, should be criminally punished. But to send someone to prison for a consensual sexual relationship with someone over the age of consent solely because they are a school employee treats school employees differently than everyone else.”
Parker and her husband, both Pickens Academy teachers at the time, were arrested in March 2016. Charli Parker was accused of having sexual contact with a 16-year-old male student 13 times between October 2014 and a few days before her arrest. She was charged with engaging in sex with another 16-year-old student at his home the following June, for encounters that allegedly occurred before the incidents involving the other victim.
Her husband, James “Jamie” Franklin Parker III, 33, was accused of having sexual contact with a former female student six times between December 2014 and May 2015. He pleaded guilty, and has a sentencing date set for June.
She taught elementary computer classes, physical education and was the head coach for the girls’ basketball team. Her husband taught math, was the boys’ head basketball coach and the student government association sponsor.