He was 18 and she was five weeks shy of 15, when a three-year age difference
would have made the act legal. The girl confided in a counselor, who reported
Shettles. He was convicted of a misdemeanor and given three years' probation,
community service, a $1,600 fine and his name on a registry of sex offenders
for life.
"He couldn't even find an apartment," says his mother, Ann Shettles, of
Beaverton, Ore. His college teachers were notified, she says. Now 21, he's a
dishwasher at a pancake house with plans to return to college.
"People judge me," Matthew Shettles says. "Some have called me a rapist." He
testified to the Oregon Legislature this year in favor of a change in state
law.
Lawmakers passed the bill, ending registration for teens convicted of sex with
someone underage if the younger person is at least 13 and the two are less than
five years apart. Six other states eased punishment this year for teens
convicted of consensual sex.
"We're trying to get pedophiles, not teens in a consensual relationship," says
Oklahoma state Rep. Gus Blackwell, a Republican who wrote a law classifying
offenders by severity and punishing them accordingly.
Officials who say punishment has gone too far cite the case of Genarlow Wilson,
who is serving a 10-year sentence in Georgia for receiving oral sex at a party
from a 15-year-old girl when he was 17.
"We're reliving the crucible," says New Hampshire state Rep. Lee Hammond, a
Democrat. Once on a public registry, he says, a teen's future can change
dramatically. "You can hang up a lot of careers."
"There's been a sea change in attitudes about juvenile sex offending," says
David Finkelhor of the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children
Research Center. He says schools and therapists take even lesser incidents,
such as touching, more seriously.
"We treat them all as if they need to be on public registries and in
treatment," says Mark Chaffin of the Center on Child Abuse and Neglect at the
University of Oklahoma. He says less than 10% of juvenile sex offenders exhibit
behavior that could become pedophilia. He says about 10% commit another crime,
and treatment can lower that to 5%.
Chaffin says about 30 states make juveniles register, but not all post names
and addresses on websites.
That could change with a new federal law, the Adam Walsh Act, which states must
implement by 2009. It requires states to put on public registries anyone 14 or
older who has sex with someone 12 or younger.
Laura Rogers, head of the Department of Justice office that will implement the
law, says it focuses on kids committing serious sex crimes, not "playing
doctor."
John Walsh, host of America's Most Wanted, lobbied for the bill named for his
son, who was killed at age 6. "We tried so hard to make this just for serious
sex offenders," he says.
Some state officials say teens, even in consensual sex cases, deserve what they
get.
State Sen. Eric Johnson, a Republican in Georgia, disagrees with colleagues who
say Genarlow Wilson was unfairly punished. "There's no evidence anyone is in
jail because two young lovers got overheated in the back seat of a car," he
says.
A case in New Hampshire has also stirred debate this year. Laurie Peterson
urged the Legislature to pass a bill that would prosecute fewer teens for
consensual sex. It passed the House but died in the Senate.
Her husband, Michael, 30, was convicted in 1996 of having sex at a wild party
with a 15-year-old when he was 19. He received a suspended sentence but has to
register.
"His behavior was disgusting," Laurie Peterson acknowledges, but she says he is
not a sexual predator and should not have to register for the rest of his life.
She notes that, by law, he cannot coach their three kids' teams or chaperone
school trips, and as a carpenter he is not allowed to work at sites near
children. "You can't tell me my neighbor's property values didn't plummet when
we moved in," she says. "It hurts the whole community."
In Oregon, Matthew Shettles has had to register whenever he moved, got a new
job or made other life changes. In January, when the new state law takes
effect, that will end. "I'm happy," he says. "I just wish January would come
quickly."
USA Today
