I have little to add to the coverage about former Brea-Olinda High School math teacher Michelle Johnson pleading guilty to “three felony counts of oral copulation of a minor and two felony counts of unlawful sexual intercourse” — but what I do have to add, you won’t find elsewhere.
First, this is a pretty substantial plea bargain in terms of jail time — from a potential maximum of eight years (according to the Weekly) to ¾ of a year. Presuming that she’s really guilty and not just avoiding a huge gamble with her life — something that people have complained about feeling they have had to do with the DA’s office — that seems pretty fair: enough jail time to provide punishment and deterrence, but protracting her isolation from society isn’t so important.
Limiting her obligation to list herself on the sex offender registry to solely the five years on which he will be on probation post-release may bother some, but I think that after five years of successfully “abstaining” from sex with underage boys we’ll be able to presume that she’s not enough of a public threat to have to undergo the pain and humiliation of being a registered sex offender for the rest of her life.
(There are too many people on the sex offender registry who don’t pose serious threats as it is — and the presence of such people makes the registry less useful. A winnowed down list might have allowed police to identify the serial murderers of prostitutes in central county more quickly.)
So, credit where it’s due to both the Brea Police and to the OC District Attorney’s office. While some criticism of my early position on the case (from anonymous commenters, naturally, that being the Orange County custom) has already begun, I am entirely comfortable with my having wanted to reserve judgment until a full investigation had been completed. I believe in letting the system work — and I’m proud of that belief.
As District Attorney, I would want my investigators to work hard to assess the situation and prove the facts in such a case — without thinking that the DA’s office had an interest in anything other than accurate results. I have no bias towards charging people and obtaining plea bargains versus not charging them except for one: I want the results of such efforts to be as honest and accurate as humanly possible. Convictions are “better” for a District Attorney than letting cases go, when it comes to public perception of the office — and I don’t care about that. So long as the DA’s office is getting convictions of the people who deserve it, and ensuring their appropriate punishments, I’m satisfied. Regarding convictions, it’s “quality over quantity,” always!
One other thing sort of interested me too, though — and it’s found in our own (hidden from you) site statistics.
The LA Times story linked to above came out at 6:51 p.m., well after the sentencing hearing. KTLA Channel 5’s coverage seems to have preceded it only slightly. Every other report seems to have come after that; most of them, like the OC Weekly‘s, appeared today. (Nothing wrong with that; they still beat us to it!)
What struck me is how quickly people began looking at our primary story on Johnson — “Disturbing Reactions to Michelle Johnson’s Arrest for Sex with a Student” — and how quickly they stopped. In fact, it was all quick enough to make me doubt that many of the views took place before the initial KTLA broadcast.
Here’s a peek behind our scenes at our “analytics” for that article over the past month:
No, our site stats don’t normally come with a background image of Michelle Johnson’s face; I added that.
The baseline for a big story like this — our #1 story of 2013, after all — is about what you see here: 2-3 hits per day almost a year later. (Some of them are people searching for information on the topic; others are looking for something to spam.) Yesterday, well before 6:51, I noticed that people were starting to read the Michelle Johnson story again. (This happens sometimes, for example, when an article of ours gets republished somewhere.) It wasn’t a huge bump, but it was a bump — from 2 to 29. Today, that bumped up to 55 (as of an hour before publishing this, when I made this chart); in the intervening hour, it has climbed to 57.
I don’t know what time the hits on that story (which we weren’t promoting at all) came, but my sense was that about half of them preceded 4:00. The plea deal was not announced in advance; and 7 p.m. is pretty late in the day for people to start looking for an old story. Nor is OJB the first site to which I’d expect people to look for information — and, if it was, I’d expect a lot more than 55 hits today, when the story finally became more broadly known.
So, I guess what I’m wondering is: who was reading this OJB article before the news of the plea bargain reached the public — and why? Most likely, we’ll never know — but someone who had the news in advance thought it was worth a look or 12 before the news hit the public. I hope that they enjoyed the article!
“A winnowed down list might have allowed police to identify the serial murderers of prostitutes in central county more quickly”
Well, with all the departments awash in funds from forfeitures, Homeland “Security”, etc, do legal prohibitions exist for (statewide, regional, local dept) generation of a sortable version of the (presumed database) list, classified by situation?? Otherwise, such a tweak should make quick work of a targeted sort, if the right questions are established, Right? Could a private enterprise supply an inexpensive sort utility for the (presumably public?) data file? Or perhaps someone could get graduate-degree credit as a project? Can any IT gurus out there elaborate?
I heard this broadcast on KNX 1070 YESTERDAY on my way home from the airport. and I was told it was. widely talked about at BOHS today.
Regardless, it’s nice to see you are as meek and humble as ever.
Given that we don’t know when you came home from the airport — and we of course have no reason to check it — your statement means nothing. So far as I can tell, the news broke no earlier than about 5:30 p.m.
I’m sure that it was quite a topic of discussion at BOHS today. If we were the place to go for information, that would have suggested many more hits today than the few hours the news was out yesterday — unless those hits came before the news was out.
Nice as ever to enjoy your trenchant commentary, whoever you are.
Considering Trenchant is a synonym for Insightful, I’ll take that as a compliment.
But shouldn’t you be more contrite about your steadfast position? this shit only works if you are right. To paraphrase, you said; “My take….Bad things happen”. truer words have never been said. But when you are talking about child rape, I think a better stance might have been staked out. especially in a law and order land like the OC.
I am pretty sure the plea deal had been a topic of discussion on these pages and others as far back as Thanksgiving. But, given a a problem with a jury shortage and the shuffling of cases, I am reasonably certain that this weeks high profile cases at central court: Serial Killers, Carlos Bustamonte and the Kim Pham case, along with David Benavides divorce (OK that was a cheap but, paid for shot), it wouldn’t be abnormal for this to be talked about and overlooked in the course of a newsday, considering the lack of coverage. I know that the VOC left court early to cocktail with before the council meeting so they likely missed it.
Why does it matter who I am or Big Wine Box or Skalleywag anyway. She pled out. the DNA was on the desk so to speak. you picked the Bronco’s and they got their ass kicked. YOU WERE WRONG. That’s OK. Just don’t be a prick about it.
She fucked a kid (who she had pledged to protect). PLAIN AND SIMPLE. 270 is light.
“Picking the Broncos” is a prediction. Saying “we can’t yet judge the result, and the Seahawks deserve their day on the field” — that’s a metaphor for “in court” — is a statement about the need to following proper procedure before judging. And in the Super Bowl, that position was obviously right. What you may miss is that it would have been right even had the Broncos won.
To the 270, add the permanent destruction of her career (and maybe her earning capacity generally.) I’d say that the interests of deterrence have been served.
I’d say that the interests of deterrence have been served.
Perhaps. but not in a punitory sense.
Deterrence and punishment — as well as the other two main purposes of prison (and other sentences), isolation and rehabilitation — are all different things. I’m much more concerned about deterring others that punishing Johnson here. The loss of her career at a relatively young age is already a pretty profound punishment — although (before you chime in) not itself a sufficient one.
It should be noted that the California Penal Code has no special provision for those in a positions of authority or supervision in these cases. As such, anyone, who ever had any kind of sexual contact (kiss on the lips or sexual intercourse and everything in between) with a person under the age of 18, even if the actor themselves is a minor, is as guilty as the person in this article.
That is the law. Perhaps we should all look a little closer to home?
Mr. Diamond, as a lawyer and potential District Attorney, could please explain this to me?
How is it possible to require someone to register under PC 290 for a limited time period? To require it as part of probation would imply it is part of the punishment, when we all know 290 registration is not punitive. I understand that charges this defendant was convicted of do not require mandatory sex offender registration. But once someone is registered under the discretion of the court, this requirement is for life. The only way to terminate it through moving out of the United States, death, a governor’s pardon or, in some cases, a Certificate of Rehabilitation. Those are the ONLY ways off this list once you are on it. That is the law (PC 290)
Also, as a candidate for OCDA I read with interest this statement: “she’s not enough of a public threat to have to undergo the pain and humiliation of being a registered sex offender for the rest of her life.”
How do you reconcile this statement with the tens of thousands of individuals who are and will, until the day they die, forced to live with this “pain and humiliation” for the exact same thing this defendant did, or “less bad” – after decades of living completely offense free in the community.
“Pain and humiliation” sure sounds like shaming and punishment.We are all aware that the Sex Offender Registry exists solely for the purpose of protecting the public. Like from the one 82 year old guy I saw on the Megan’s Law web site with a conviction in 1954 and release date in 1956 (was that the Eisenhower administration? I cannot even think this far back) and no felony conviction since. I do not know about you but I feel safer knowing that this man is listed with photo, full address and surgical scars on a web site, that he cannot attend his great-great grandchild’s graduation and that he will be rolling in his wheelchair to the local PD once a year to update his personal information.
Would you suggest that he deserves this “pain and humiliation”? Not? As potential OCDA, what is your position on this, and do you have any plans on this topic? It almost sounds like it “(There are too many people on the sex offender registry who don’t pose serious threats as it is — and the presence of such people makes the registry less useful. A winnowed down list might have allowed police to identify the serial murderers of prostitutes in central county more quickly.)”
I have not yet filled out my absentee ballot 🙂
That detail caught my eye as well. My understanding has been the same as yours: that consignment to the sex offender registry is a lifetime “sentence” and the DA can’t abrogate it. But I would not be completely shocked to learn otherwise.
I don’t know how the DA’s office could legally agree to have the 290 requirement apply for only five years. It’s possible that the initial reporters on the story got this fact wrong (I haven’t seen the documents myself); it’s also possible that there’s been some new innovation in administration of the law of which I’m not yet aware. I have no current plans to implement such a policy if elected, but what I would do is talk to criminologists, psychologists, and District Attorneys in other jurisdictions to determine their best practices — and if it turned out that a time limitation of this sort was a best practice then I’d consider it. I would not make such a commitment prior to doing that research, however.
It’s also possible that this is what the DA’s Office said they would do — but that they can’t actually do it. I’d think that Michelle Johnson’s lawyers are probably good enough that they would ask themselves — and the DA’s representative — the same question. If they were assured that it could be done and entered the guilty plea on that basis, then I would think they’d have a solid argument to get the conviction vacated on that basis. (You don’t usually see cases where the government makes a promise that it can’t deliver in plea negotiations, but I seem to recall one back from my days as a federal clerk — and if I recall correctly we held the government to its promise.)
If the DA’s Office wrongly promised that they could time-limit the 290 registration — well, people make mistakes, although this one would be a whopper. The worse possibility is that an implicit part of the deal is that the government would make this “mistake” intentionally, thus allowing the defendant to get the sentence vacated at the end of probation. I do not want to believe that that is what happened here — but it does merit follow-up. I’m sort of busy, with an election in 12 days — but if you know anyone who works in this area who might be willing to follow up on the status of the law and the facts of this particular deal, I’d love to hear about it!
Wouldn’t it be simple enough to promise that the DA office would issue a Certificate of Rehabilitation, after all other stipulations of the contract were met? Of course that presupposes that they have the ability to issue it, which I don’t have any knowledge about.
Well given that logic we should expect Isidro Medrano Garcia, the Santa Ana kidnapper/boyfriend/husband to get an equally light sentence. I don’t think he’ll reoffend he’s got a family now.
I can’t help but notice how the whole “he was 17” thing went away as well as the “sexting”.
Maybe — if you equate consensual (even if illegal) sex with a 17-year-old (see, there you go!) with violent kidnapping. (I don’t; you might.)
The “sexting” was based on my info from BOHS at the time. And it was a plausible possibility until recently. It’s hard to take your contrary view too seriously; this is one case where your non-existence is a definite handicap to your credibility.
where were these teachers when I was in school
And that’s the sort of thing we don’t like to see here. You should talk to nameless about this.
I don’t condone that kind of talk. In fact MY position all along has been that a 17 year old boy lacks the emotional capacity to make serious decisions
Not to mention we are talking anout 2014 Brea, for all intents a purposes an upper middle class community a kid of victim #1’s background (remember there were MULTIPLE VICTIMS). This kid had nary a clue what he was into from a life standpoint.
The sophmoric comments about the molestation are a distraction from the conversation.
As for consensual. It can’t be. You are talking about a child. I can’t believe you don’t get this. I could argue the merits of reason about my earlier comment about the 15 year old girl. But I would sound like an asshole.
In the end I see this as a weak move on your part. You allow your personal associations with the school and perhaps the convicted to cloud your judgement.
In most of the U.S., a 17-year-old has already reached the age of consent. Is your argument, then, that most of the U.S. allows people who lack the emotional capacity to make serious decisions to decide to consent to sex?
By those same standards, do you think that 18- and 19-year-olds have the requisite “emotional capacity”? What do you think — some sort of switch gets thrown on one’s 18th birthday? I know 40-year-olds who probably couldn’t pass that test.
Here’s the truth: within a band of ages, the notion of “mature enough to be able to give consent to sex” is a legal fiction. Whether it’s 16, 17, 18, 19 — the variation within age groups is probably as large as the variance between them. But we have to draw a line — and it can’t be based on some objective assessment of an individual’s maturity — and so we draw the line based on age. That’s fine, but don’t pretend that the line is not at least SOMEWHAT arbitrary.
What’s NOT arbitrary is the abuse of power. Legally, Ms. Johnson had “in loco parentis” powers over this boy — standing in place of his parents — and she admits to having abused them. As a moral matter, that bothers me much more. As a legal matter, it inclines me against prosecutorial discretion letting the criminal off unpunished.
However, despite the unfortunate lack of a “Romeo and Juliet” exception in California, prsecutorial discretion would be likely (from almost anyone, not just me) in the case of sexual activity between an mentally capable 18-year-old boy and his mentally capable 17-year-old girlfriend — when actual consent (the thing that you don’t believe exists), without duress, is present.
But, far from that declaring “open season” on 17-year-olds, that should leave 18-year-old high school students aware that they are walking in a mine field, because if what would look like real legal consent in an adult is absent in a 17-year-old, they could end up paying especially dearly for it.
My views about this have nothing to do with my being a BOHS parent; if anything, they’d probably move me in the opposite direction. But in judging its merits, I’m approaching this case the same as if it were taking in Oceanside, Oxnard, or Oakland.
Greg, how would you see this if the victim were a girl? I’ll take it a step further, your daughter? Do you ask your wife’s opinion? You write a lot of gobbilty goop here. Morality vs. legality stuff. The length of time she registers as a sex offender.
There has been too many teachers accused of having sex with kids these days (all ages) and humiliating them sexually (there are too many for me to list here)… but from I get… from your opinion, you see this “as no big deal.” because the boy is 17.
Please correct me if I’m wrong.
If I’m saying that I think that 270 days in jail is appropriate, I’m not saying that it’s “no big deal.”
There are two different issues here: (1) sexual activity (especially of someone more than 2-3 years older) with a 17-year-old minor and (2) the adult in that case being the minor’s high school teacher. The second, the violation of trust and authority, is of greater concern to me here. The age difference at hand mostly bolsters that — although if it were a 19-year old Teaching Assistant with a 17-year old college student, that would still bother me.
I was responding to a comment that said that those under 18 had no “agency” — no ability to grant consent to sexual activity at all — which is true in California but not true in most of the United States. That variation across states suggests that it is a somewhat arbitrary distinction — and district attorneys across the state and the country tend to treat it as such.
In law, we use the terms “malum prohibitum” (wrong because it is prohibited) and “malum in se” (wrong in itself). Rape itself — sexual penetration without consent from a person who has the capacity to give consent — is malum in se. Below a certain age, statutory rape is usually also considered malum in se. Above 15 or 16 — there’s no consensus there — it’s malum prohibitum. We need to draw a line somewhere, and we do, and those in our state are supposed to respect it. But we have no obligation to believe that a 17-year, 364-day old doesn’t really have the same mental and emotional capacity to decide to have sex as he or she will on the following day. That’s the prospect of a line-drawing exercise — and such exercises are exactly where prosecutorial discretion is most supposed to apply.
Technically, as a commenter noted, an 18-year-old engaged in sex with a 17-year-old is committing rape — and if they’re engaged in something sexual but less than penetration, it would likely be sexual assault. (Remember, I was responding to a comment that said that that person had NO agency, NO ability to offer consent, at all.)
Let me rephrase your question. If my youngest daughter affirmatively decides to have sex with an 18-year-old boyfriend when she is a 17-year-old senior in high school, I will very likely strongly dislike it — but I would not want to see the boy go to prison for three years. (Or whatever; I’m not now looking up the sentencing guidelines for rape.) And, if my youngest daughter affirmatively decides to have sex with a consenting 17-year-old boyfriend later in her senior year, when she is 18, I also don’t want to see HER going to jail for three years.
It is hard to hold those two attitudes with precisely equal strength — but, in the interest of equal application of justice, I do try.
Thank you for clarifying Greg. In my opinion, a teacher, teacher’s assistant, janitor, other employee should know better than a teenager. They are supposedly the adult and we (parents) put our trust in them to teach and care for them during school hours.
This teacher should have known full well that, what she was about to do would be considered a criminal offense. She needs to be held accountable for her actions, which it appears she is doing.
Along that line, teacher’s unions protect too many bad teachers and have been for a long time. I have some teacher friends who witness things that would make you cringe, and they agree if a teacher isn’t doing their job or doing something harmful to a child they need to be removed. But that doesn’t happen until it becomes public knowledge.
I have decided out of respect and discretion to abandon this.
I will say this a BAD subject for you to debate. This is not ANAHEIM where you have no vested interest. SHUT UP on this one. Trust me. I will too.