IS THIS BULLSHIT OR APPROPRIATE?

[HairOfTheDog]

I read somewhere that the judge was a major factor? That the girl, and her mother, both testified in favour of the boy; that he was totally deceived and that the girl lied and they felt he should not be punished?

The judge then gave a ruling of something like 'kids are to eager to get online, find casual partners and have sex without a second thought kids these days! kind of speech and literally fucked his life?

I hope they win too, and I hope there are ramifications for the judge if that is correct.

Thanks crash -- I checked out some older coverage of the case and the judge does appear to have invoked his personal distaste for the "hook-up culture" as justification for the harsh punishment. He has the discretion to do so, but I think his decision in this case was wrong.

Snip:
Zachery Anderson said he met a girl in the "over 18" section of the Hot or Not website. They started talking, she told him she was 17 and they arranged a date.

He picked her up at her Niles home on Dec. 19. It wasn't until detectives came knocking on his door in January that he would learn the girl was just 14 at the time they couple had consensual sex.

"I didn't listen to that gut feeling," Anderson told NewsCenter16 in a phone interview from the Berrien County jail.

Anderson was ordered to spend 90 days in jail, serve five years on probation and spend 25 years on Michigan's sex offender registry at his April sentencing. The sentence came as a shock to Anderson and his legal team, who believed that the teen qualified for a Michigan law that would allow for a more lenient sentence for first-time offenders.

The Holmes Youthful Trainee Act (HYTA), MCL Section 762.11, applies to individuals between the ages of 17 and 21 with clean records. It would have allowed Anderson to serve a "youthful trainee probationary term," in many cases without requiring that individual to register as a sex offender.

Even the girl and the girl's mother, who NewsCenter16 has chosen not to name, pleaded with the court not to punish Anderson. "I'm very sorry and I hope you'll consider just dropping the case," the girl's mother said at an April 13 hearing.

Berrien County District Court Judge Dennis Wiley decided against the lenient sentence.
"You went online... Trolling for women to meet and have sex with," Judge Wiley told Anderson in court. "That seems to be part of the culture now. Meet, hookup, have sex, sayonara. " Wiley went on to say the teen was lucky the county prosecutor gave him the deal that he did.

But Anderson's family emphatically disagrees. "He ignored the mother of the girl, he ignored the girl, he ignored Zach's parents, he ignored our attorney," said Zach's father, Lester Anderson. "HYTA is in place for things like this."

Anderson, a computer science major on scholarship at Ivy Tech Community College in Elkhart, has been ordered not to possess a computer or any device capable of accessing the internet. He'll have to give up his major and will likely lose his scholarship.

He's also not allowed to live in his parent's home, live near schools or parks, or have any interaction with persons under the age of 17.

Anderson's family says the punishment does not fit the crime. "I understand that there's a time when this is necessary, but this is not the case at all," Lester Anderson said "For a guy to go on a date with a girl whom he thinks is the age of consent , a 17-year-old, to now be labeled as a violent sex offender?"

The family is planning an appeal, in part due to incorrect information provided in the initial pre-sentencing report. "That's the only thing I have hope for is the appeal," Zach Anderson said. "Because if the appeal doesn't go through, then pretty much I don't know what I'm going to do with my future and my career."

Anderson's family said they are telling their son's story in the hopes that other families will not have to endure the same pain they have had to go through. "You never think for a second that something like this is going to enter your family's life based on a judge's lack of common sense, decency or compassion on a young man who made an innocent mistake," said Zach's mother, Amanda Anderson. "And he didn't even realize that he had. He had been deceived by a girl."

http://www.wndu.com/home/headlines/Elkha...62801.html
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I don't think Zach is as innocent as his parents claim; he admitted he had a "gut feeling" in regards to the girl's age.

Still, IMO, he should have been given the lighter punishment under the youthful first-offender option that his attorney was pushing. I agree with the parents that the punishment does not fit the crime.

I think the family will win the appeal.