14 yr old rape bait

[Devils Advocate]

Link to the Stink

Quote:The 14-year-old girl who was raped during a botched sting operation in a middle school bathroom in north Alabama five years ago can sue the Madison County school board in federal court for deliberate indifference to the educational opportunities of young girls.

"These are highly unique and extreme facts that will hopefully never again be repeated," wrote the appeals judges in a lengthy, complicated ruling on exactly who is liable for sending an eighth-grade girl to catch a serial sexual harasser in the act.

A teachers aide hatched the sting operation to catch the boy in the act. But teachers arrived too late. Medical records show the girl was anally raped. She withdrew from Sparkman Middle and the boy returned after a stint at the alternative school.

The resulting lawsuit against the board was thrown out by the lower court, and brought back to life today by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

"This is a unique case because the administrators effectively participated in (the boy's) sexual harassment by setting (Jane) Doe up in a rape-bait scheme involving (the boy) in order to 'catch him in the act,'" found the appeals court.

Today's ruling parsed two separate appeals and at least six different claims that had been argued before the court in Atlanta on May 19.  

In the end, the court held the girl can continue to sue the Madison County school board, principal Ronnie Blair, former assistant principal Jeanne Dunaway and the former teacher's aide June Simpson in federal court.

The court did clear one assistant principal, Teresa Terrell. "Unlike Assistant Principal Dunaway and Teacher's Aide Simpson, there is no evidence Terrell acquiesced to or ratified the plan to use Doe as rape bait," wrote the court.

As for the board itself and the claims under the federal Title IX, the court writes that a jury could find unreasonable and even "patently odious" acts in regard to school policy, including the shredding of student discipline records, the assigning of disciplined students to unmonitored janitorial duty, the policy of having to catch students in the act of sexual harassment, and the lack of policy changes after this incident.

The Court notes that "the Board's knowledge of (the boy's) sexual harassment, its catch in the act policy, its orchestration of a sting operation using Doe as bait for (the boy's) sexual activities, and its failure to help Doe in any way was patently odious."

"A jury could find that despite these policies' glaring inadequacies...Blair did virtually nothing in response."
The Court cites poorly kept electronic records that prevented the board from tracking a serial offender. The Court, in particular, finds problematic the handling of the situation after the rape, from not changing the record-keeping practices to allowing the boy to return to school to not keeping records of the investigation.

"In addition, the Board made only one policy change: it discontinued a one-day sexual harassment training workshop for administrators at the Madison County Administrator Academy," reads the ruling. "Although Principal Blair believes the Board did not need to change any policies because 'we did as good a job I think as you could do under the circumstances,' a reasonable jury could disagree."

But the court rejected the more broad constitutional claims against the school board, claims involving the Equal Protection Clause, "which confers a federal constitutional right to be free from sex."

The court reasoned: "The Board could not have foreseen a rape-bait scheme that required an eighth-grade student to voluntarily subject herself to sexual harassment as a 'known or obvious consequence' of the 'catch in the act' policy or its training policies."

[What witnesses say happened, in their own words]

However, the appeals court took a different position on those same claims in regard to the individual employees. The ruling reversed the lower court and allowed constitutional claims to proceed against Blair and Dunaway, in part, the court held "because 'every objectively reasonable government official facing the circumstances' would know this irresponsible plan violated the Equal Protection Clause."

Blair did not know about the sting beforehand. But the Court writes: "The evidence shows Blair crafted and implemented Sparkman's sexual harassment and recordkeeping policies. A jury could find that despite these policies' glaring inadequacies that were exposed by (the boy's) rape of Doe, Blair did virtually nothing in response."

The ruling also addressed various claims under state law. The district judge, while throwing out all federal claims, had allowed negligence and wantoness claims to proceed against Dunaway and Simpson.

Dunaway had appealed this part of the ruling, arguing she had immunity as an agent of the state. The girl also appealed, arguing she should be able to sue Blair under state claims.

The appeals court today largely upheld those rulings. The court found that Blair did not act in self-interest and retains qualified immunity as a state agent.

But the court held that Dunaway cannot claim immunity from state claims because she "exceeded her authority by ratifying the rape-bait scheme rather than reporting CJC's sexual harassment to Principal Blair in accordance with the Policy Manual..."

But the court also touches on a key disagreement of fact, as it recounts the botched sting.

In January of 2010, teacher's aide Simpson told Blair about a rumor involving the same boy having sex in the school bathroom with another girl. Blair had investigated but said he lacked proof. Simpson said Blair told her he needed to catch students in the act. The boy was then accused of touching another girl's thigh on Jan. 13 and Blair placed the boy on janitorial duty.

The boy then began to proposition the girl for sex and had continued to do so until she complained to Simpson. On Jan. 22, Simpson suggested the sting.

From today's ruling: "Simpson said 'do you want to get (the boy)' in trouble and Doe said 'yes.' Simpson said, 'Do you want to—you have to go meet him so that we could set him up and get him caught because he's been doing this for a while.' Doe responded that she 'didn't want to go,' and walked to the locker room. Doe and her friend then sat in the locker room a few minutes and conversed. A few minutes later, Doe approached Simpson again and 'told her I would do it.' Simpson asked if Doe was 'sure,' and Doe said yes."

She took the girl to the assistant principal's office. Dunaway was on the phone with her husband.

Here they disagree. Simpson says she told Dunaway the plan and that Dunaway showed her pictures of floor tile on her cell phone. Dunaway says that Simpson did not speak to her, but stood in her office with her back to Dunaway while Dunaway was busy.

The girl withdrew from Sparkman Middle on March 26, two months after the sting, and moved to North Carolina. She is an adult now and the court allowed her to drop her father's name from the suit and proceed as Jane Doe.

Simpson no longer works for the system. She did not send an attorney to speak for her during the hearing in May before the appeals court. Dunaway became an elementary school principal and has since been moved to the central office.

The ruling notes: "The medical records from the examination were consistent with anal rape...For reasons undisclosed by the record, the Madison County District Attorney's Office never filed charges against (the boy)."

[Benton]

Poorly written article makes some things hard to follow, like what was that about a floor tile?

But wow, if true that's pretty horrible. How can someone think to use someone else's kid without getting their consent? And then the district promote those people involved?


EDIT: (From CNN)

Administrators at an Alabama middle school showed "deliberate indifference" to allegations that a teacher's aide persuaded a girl to act as bait to catch an accused sexual predator, a federal court of appeals decided Wednesday.

According to the girl, who asked CNN to call her "Jaden," a fellow student sodomized her in a school bathroom. She was 14 at the time.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals said Sparkman Middle School administrators Ronnie Blair, Teresa Terrell and Jeanne Dunaway knew that Jaden's alleged attacker had a "history of sexual and violent misconduct" and failed to "adequately supervise" him.

Their negligence, according to the 75-page decision that reverses a 2013 district court's ruling, puts Madison County Schools in violation of Title IX.

Title IX is a federal law aimed at ending sexual discrimination in education. In part, it dictates how schools that receive federal funds must respond to claims of sexual harassment.

The ruling is the latest step in an ongoing legal battle that started in 2010, when Jaden's father filed a lawsuit against Madison County Schools and its officials.

Propositioned in the hallway

According to court records, a 16-year-old student approached Jaden in the hallway on January 22, 2010, and asked her to meet him in a bathroom for sex.

It was not the first time the boy had propositioned her, said Jaden, who was enrolled in the school's special education program.

Usually, she ignored him, but on that day Jaden told a teacher's aide, June Ann Simpson. According to the lawsuit, Simpson knew of other girls whom the boy had tried to lure into a bathroom for sex. Simpson told the school's principal, Blair, about the allegations.

According to a 2012 deposition, Blair told Simpson the boy would have to be proven guilty to be punished. In response, Simpson crafted a plan to prove the allegations, using Jaden as bait.

The idea was to have the girl agree to meet the boy in a bathroom. Simpson would watch surveillance video, and teachers would intervene before anything happened.

Attorneys for the school board claim that administrators took claims of the student's alleged harassment seriously, putting him into "In School Suspension" for 20 days before the incident with Jaden and that they knew nothing about Simpson's alleged plan.

Jaden and Simpson claim they went to the office of vice principal Jeanne Dunaway, and when Simpson told Dunaway about the plan, she said, Dunaway did not respond. During a deposition, Dunaway denied the conversation happened.

Jaden then left Dunaway's office and found the boy in the hallway to tell him they could "do it," Jaden told CNN.

Simpson stayed behind to watch surveillance monitors, hoping to catch the two walking into the bathroom. She never saw them.

According to Jaden's written statement after the incident, the boy made a last-minute change to go into a different bathroom.

Once there, Jaden says she tried to stall the boy, even telling him she'd changed her mind and didn't want to do it, hoping a teacher would rush in. The boy sodomized her, Jaden said.

June Ann Simpson resigned shortly after the incident and is not named as a defendant in the case. Blair and Teresa Terrell kept their jobs as principal and assistant principal at Sparkman. Dunaway was promoted and is now the principal at nearby Madison County Elementary School.

The alleged attacker was never charged.

2014: Teen used as bait in rape case: 'I was set up'

'Day in front of a jury'

In May, attorneys for Jaden appeared alongside representatives from the Department of Justice and the Women's Law Project. Both organizations, along with the National Women's Law Center, filed briefs last year on Jaden's behalf, asking for her case to be heard by a jury.

Jaden's attorney, Eric Artrip, said Wednesday's appeals court decision puts Jaden one step closer to that goal.

"Hopefully with this decision in place our client will, one day soon, have her day in front of a jury."

Mark Boardman, who represents Madison County Schools and the administrators named in the 2010 lawsuit, argued in May that, "the school administrators took appropriate action and complied completely with federal law as soon as they were notified of this unfortunate incident."

The appeals court disagreed, calling into question the board's record-keeping, which permitted school officials to shred students' disciplinary paper records at the end of each year, "impeding (their) ability to adequately respond to the suspect's pervasive sexual harassment allegations."

Boardman said that after the incident, officials allowed Jaden to return to class as normal, therefore not interfering with her ability to earn an education.

But the judges said the board failed "to acknowledge the rape" or "respond to (Jaden's) traumatic injury" with any sort of counseling or support. The school's "unreasonable response," paired with the suspect's return to Sparkman Middle School after a short stint at an alternative school, caused Jaden to withdraw from school, the court decided, impeding with her access to education.

The board's only policy change following the incident was its decision to "discontinue a one-day sexual harassment training workshop for administrators at the Madison County Administrator Academy," further demonstrating that they were deliberately indifferent.

Neither Boardman nor any Madison County School representative were available for comment on Wednesday's ruling.

According to Jaden's legal team, either party that is unhappy with the decision has 21 days to file a motion to have the case argued by the same three-judge panel or by all of the 11th Circuit judges. Either party could also appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

If neither of those petitions are filed, the case will be remanded back to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama to be tried before a jury.

With still a long road ahead, Artrip said his team is thankful for Wednesday's victory.

"We are very pleased with the 11th Circuit's decision that Title IX reaches the kind of behavior we saw on display in this case," he said. "We hope that this decision will serve to make women and girls safer in the educational setting."

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/13/us/alabama-school-rape-lawsuit/

[GodHatesBengals]

This is one of the most horrendous things I've heard in months. If this is true, this school system needs to pay, big time.

[Devils Advocate]

(08-14-2015, 03:18 PM)GodHatesBengals Wrote: This is one of the most horrendous things I've heard in months. If this is true, this school system needs to pay, big time.

Yeah. Hard to imagine something like this in this day and age ... actually maybe not. 

[Au165]

The administrators should be punished and the person who set it up should face criminal charges for child endangerment. I am not a fan however of major financial payouts from public institutions. I understand why people would say sue the school, but the reality is the only ones who suffer are the children still there and the tax payers neither of which had anything to do with the incident. I really would like to see civil liability in cases like this only rest on those involved rather than the larger entity.

[Beaker]

I agree the school officials should be criminally punished. But as for a large financial suit, the only ones who will suffer will be the families living in that school district since they are the ones who will end up making up for the depletion of the district's finances.

[Benton]

(08-14-2015, 04:19 PM)Au165 Wrote: The administrators should be punished and the person who set it up should face criminal charges for child endangerment. I am not a fan however of major financial payouts from public institutions. I understand why people would say sue the school, but the reality is the only ones who suffer are the children still there and the tax payers neither of which had anything to do with the incident. I really would like to see civil liability in cases like this only rest on those involved rather than the larger entity.

(08-14-2015, 04:33 PM)Beaker Wrote: I agree the school officials should be criminally punished. But as for a large financial suit, the only ones who will suffer will be the families living in that school district since they are the ones who will end up making up for the depletion of the district's finances.

As an institution, but shouldn't prevent the administrators from being held financially liable

[Au165]

(08-14-2015, 04:54 PM)Benton Wrote: As an institution, but shouldn't prevent the administrators from being held financially liable

Exactly, if they want to go after the administrators for civil liabilities beyond the criminal I am good with that.