http://www.kmbc.com/article/teacher-...d-out/16798353
A former Alabama teacher imprisoned for sleeping with two of her students is appealing her conviction, claiming state mandates infringe upon her constitutional right to have consensual sex with anyone over the age of 16.
According to Tuscaloosa News, Charli Jones Parker, 31, pleaded guilty to having contact with students younger than 19. She is currently serving a three-year prison sentence.
The same month Parker pleaded guilty, a Morgan County Circuit Judge ruled that the law prohibiting sex between a school employee and student was unconstitutional.
Parker's attorney argues that this violates the equal protection clause because it treats school employees differently than other professions, criminalizing "private consensual sexual relationships."
The age of consent in Alabama is 16.
“Alabama law does not make it a crime for members of other occupations to have consensual sex with 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds, even when there is a position of trust or authority,” said Parker’s appellate attorney, Virginia Buck.
Buck raised a hypothetical scenario in which a 21-year-old janitor working for a Tuscaloosa school system went on spring break and had sex with an 18-year-old senior from a district high school.
Under that law, she said, he would be guilty of a Class B felony. However, she argues that a 65-year-old "doctor, minister, therapist, or attorney" is not subject to the same criminal liability.
“School employees have been unfairly singled out and are being sent to prison for something that, at most, might cost people their job or their license in any other profession,” she said. “Certainly, anyone who has sexual contact with someone without their consent, or who is under the age of consent, should be criminally punished. But to send someone to prison for a consensual sexual relationship with someone over the age of consent solely because they are a school employee treats school employees differently than everyone else.”
AL.com reports Parker was arrested in March 2016, days before her husband was arrested on the same charges.
She was indicted on 13 counts of a school employee having sex with a student under the age of 19