It's not clear what took them so long to respond, but there was good news the other day when an Atlanta lawmaker announced his intention to pre-file a bill to close a loophole in Georgia's sexual assault law.
The local significance of this loophole is that it's the one through which former Harlem High School coach Melissa Chase escaped a conviction for having sex with a 16-year-old student.
Democratic State Rep. Kevin Levitas says he wants to clarify the law to "correct, once and for all, any misinterpretation of the intent of the General Assembly regarding Georgia's sexual assault law."
Georgia's Supreme Court this summer was asked to interpret the lawmakers' "intent" when considering Chase's appeal of her 10-year sentence. What the justices found instead was a reason to set her free.
This started two years earlier when the Legislature, ever hopeful of looking Tough On Crime, reworked the law regarding sex with people in custody - guards with inmates, mental-hospital workers with patients, teachers with students.
The law specifically said that consent of the person in custody could not be considered as a defense for all of the categories - except in the section of the law regarding educators. There it was silent.
Chase's attorneys successfully argued that because the victim in the case was 16, the state's age of consent; and, because the law was silent on consent as a defense for teachers; and, because the victim in the case acknowledged agreeing to the single encounter, that Chase should have been able to raise consent as a defense in her trial.
The Supreme Court agreed. Lawmakers who otherwise demand strict interpretation of the law didn't like it in this case, and now Levitas hopes to close the loophole by making it clear consent is not a defense when a school teacher has sex with a student who agrees to it and is older than age 16.
But this is hardly over yet. Next year is an election year, and you can bet Georgia lawmakers will try their best to score points by piling on to this law, perhaps creating even more loopholes through which either predators will escape or innocent people will be ensnared.
The best-laid plans of demagogues often go astray.
Leave snakes alone
It irritates me perhaps more than it should, but I was livid the other day when I heard about the staffers at Augusta's Westside High School who found a foot-long snake in a classroom, took it outside and killed it.
It made matters only slightly worse that they first determined it was non-poisonous before hacking it to death.
I completely understand snake phobia. We could even claim it's biblical, going all the way back to the Garden of Eden and the unfortunate encounter there. And, naturally, no small amount of hysteria will greet a snake's unexpected visit to a classroom.
But good grief; a foot-long, non-poisonous snake is considered such a menace to society that the he-man maintenance worker wielding a shovel felt compelled to chop it to bits?
Sometimes I really wonder how we ever survived the pioneering days. What sissies.
Art After Dark
It's time this Saturday for the Columbia County Artist Guild's Art After Dark program, a showcase of area artists and a fundraiser for the Guild.
The event this year has moved to Church of the Holy Comforter on Furys Ferry Road. (It's Episcopal, so yes, there will be wine available.)
This venue change is a great move. In recent years Art After Dark was held at the library and the performing arts center. Food and beverages aren't allowed in the PAC, so guests had to choose between hanging on to their glass of wine or checking out the performances.
Moving to Holy Comforter will allow everything - mingling, performances, the art auctions - to take place in the same room.
It starts at 6 p.m., and admission is free.
Barry L. Paschal is publisher of The Columbia County News-Times. E-mail barry.paschal@newstimesonline.com.
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