Tampa Criminal Lawyer Blog
16 year old Steubenville, Ohio students and football players Ma’Lik Richmond and Trent Mays will be tried as juveniles next month for the rape of a 16 year old girl who passed out due to what is thought to be administration of a date rape drug at a house party last August. It is alleged that Richmond and Mays were part of a group of high school boys who gang raped the unwilling victim. This case has taken social media and the Internet by storm partly due to the posting of a video depicting a recent Steubenville High School graduate making jokes about the victim and the interaction of the “Rape Crew” with her as she lay unconscious. Adding to the interest of a Nation is the idea that Steubenville is a town, much like the fictional town of West Canaan, Texas in the movie Varsity Blues, where high school football rules. There is the notion that in Steubenville winning high school football games is such a priority that their own local prosecutors and Judges shouldn’t be trusted to try Richmond and Mays’ case. For these reasons the town of Steubenville is on a quest to debunk these ideas and show that these actions won’t be tolerated. In spite of all the back and forth, justice must be served and that must be done via a fair trial system.
Under Florida law I believe Richmond and Mays, because they are 16, would be charged as adults pursuant to a State Attorney’s discretionary Information under Florida Statute 985.557(1)(b). In charging a juvenile as an adult the State Attorney, upon a conviction, gives the Court jurisdiction to sentence a 16 year old juvenile to an adult sentence. As it stands this opinion runs contrary to the election in Ohio to try them as juveniles. I won’t speculate as to the reasoning behind the Ohio Prosecutor’s decision to leave these young men in the juvenile system. I, like the rest of us, only have access to what I read online and in the newspapers.
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