Teacher Accused of Statutory Rape and Other Offenses

[victoriana]

Originally Posted by crosscaravan

I'm going to play the Devil's advocate here, and say that while I do agree with you, I also think that may be the point she's trying to make, though. They requested it even though it's not legal for them to have it. From a legal standpoint, the kids aren't responsible - she should have known better than to actually listen to the kids, for goodness' sake. She's the adult in that situation. But assuming all these charges are true, she may not have considered giving them the alcohol if they hadn't asked.

Like you said, legally they can't be held even partially responsible for requesting it, because she should have known better than to say "lol, that's fine, what kind do you want?" Morally, it's even worse - but from a non-legal standpoint, the fact that the kids asked for something that they knew was illegal could show that they knew that what they were doing was wrong, but they chose to do it anyway.

I mean, think what you may of the cognitive abilities of minors, but I'm still pretty sure most middle school kids know that alcohol is a no-no.

I 100% agree with you. If these minors did indeed ask the teacher for alcohol and she provided it, I would say that legally, the kids can't be held responsible but morally, they should be. They know that it's wrong for them to have alcohol. The teacher should have known better than to give it to them, but the kids should have known better than to ask.