Five Men in Same Family Charged with Child Sex Crimes

In what can only be described as a bizarre occurrence, five men in the same family in Missouri were recently arrested and charged with a litany of sexual crimes against children. Some of the charges were especially heinous and include forcible sodomy, rape of a child less than twelve, and use of a child in a sexual performance. The men are also accused of bestiality and forcing an eleven year-old to have an abortion. While there are a plethora of legal issues presented by sexual crimes against children, this article will focus on a single aspect of such behavior: the role of age in enhancing criminal offenses.

Tennessee’s equivalent to the charge of rape of a child less than twelve is found in T.C.A. section 39-13-522, Tennessee’s rape of a child statute. This statute holds that a person commits rape of a child when they unlawfully sexually penetrate a child who is between the ages of three and thirteen. This offense is a Class A felony which is normally punishable by fifteen to sixty years of imprisonment. However, the child rape statute provides that in no case shall anyone convicted of this offense be sentenced to less than twenty-five years, effectively making it a twenty-five to sixty year sentence. Contrast this with the offenses of rape and aggravated sexual battery (Class B felonies) and even second-degree murder (a Class A felony with no mandatory twenty-five year minimum) and one can see that Tennessee has a public policy of considering sexual offenses especially heinous when the victim is younger than thirteen.

How Tennessee arrived at the age of thirteen is basically a legislative decision. If one believes that rape of a child is more offensive to society than other forms of rape, as Tennessee obviously does, then one has to draw the line somewhere. Regardless, recognizing the defenseless nature of a child of tender years and the likelihood of severe emotional distress that would result from the commission of a sex crime against a young child, Tennessee has effectively decided that to commit such a crime is more offensive to the public than any crime punished by the standard felony classification matrix. In fact, rape of a child carries a stiffer penalty than almost any other crime in the Tennessee code, with one notable exception being first degree murder. There is thus a clear public policy in Tennessee that age itself can constitute an aggravating factor. In Tennessee law, age can be the deciding factor in whether an offender is charged with rape, punishable by a minimum of eight years in prison, or rape of a child, punishable by a minimum of twenty-five years.