Life Sentence Possible for Adultery in Michigan
Via Raw Story, the Detroit Free Press has this unsettling report:
Michigan's second-highest court says that anyone involved in an extramarital fling can be prosecuted for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony punishable by up to life in prison.
"We cannot help but question whether the Legislature actually intended the result we reach here today," Judge William Murphy wrote in November for a unanimous Court of Appeals panel, "but we are curtailed by the language of the statute from reaching any other conclusion."
How is this possible?
"Technically," he added, "any time a person engages in sexual penetration in an adulterous relationship, he or she is guilty of CSC I," the most serious sexual assault charge in Michigan's criminal code.
The fact that Michigan prosecutors don't expect to charge every cheating John and Mary doesn't make the law any less threatening. What about a case where they want to bust someone for a serious crime but don't have the evidence. What's to prevent prosecutors from charging adultery instead?
The Michigan legislature needs to repeal this law.
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