7th grade boys charged with sexual harasment?

McMINNVILLE -- In a victory for the Yamhill County district attorney's office, a judge ruled Monday that prosecutors were neither selective nor vindictive when they filed sex abuse charges against two seventh-grade boys who admitted swatting girls on the buttocks and touching two on the breast.

Circuit Judge John L. Collins sided with prosecutors, deciding not to dismiss harassment charges against Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison, both 13. But defense lawyers moved to challenge the case on other grounds.

See link - http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian...

Question - What are your thoughts ?

I feel like this a symptom of several other issues and maybe I just don't know enough about the case, but where were the teachers? I mean c'mon, we all remember crap happening in school and wondering are the teacher's blind?

This sounds like a gross overreaction which I'm not shocked, coming from Oregon (I live there too). From what I know, all the kids were running around playing "grab-***." Don't see a problem that can't be fixed with a quick "Shut up and sit down and keep your hands to yourself" from a teacher.

Did they hold someone down and grope them? This is just stupid. I can't believe they even considered making those boys register as sex offenders! Yep, God bless Oregon. So glad I wasn't born here.

I can only say that people of this country US often overreacting to many issues.
It is natural for 13 year olds to be curious about sexuality development. But you dear people turn natural development into rape, sexism.
Of course hitting forceful touching is forbidden. Report It

I find it disturbing that the names of the minors were in the papers - and here. They should never have been printed. Report It

7th grade boys know exactly what they're doing. Lock them up.

not surprised, its the new game to play, bully anyone anywhere anytime to the extreme, sad

The parents should be the ones to punish and not the law.

This creates more problems than solutions.

We have to many silly laws on all levels.

Ohhh if that was my son...... Let me stop right there before someone calls CPS on me. I think maybe a public spanking is in order. Invite the girls they have harassed and the whole town too and let them witness the public humiliation. Maybe they would think twice about doing it to other people. If I was one of those girls though I think I would have broken their noses.

I agree that this is an issue the parents should be taking care of. Possibly even the principle of the school

Why do we have to get courts of law involved every time something happens we don't like. I suppose it's to be expected with the sue happy society we live in today'

I wonder how long it'll take for a lawyer to file a lawsuit?

In our American society this is considered assault.
Both the 13 year old children and their parents should be held accountable ...to the fullest extent of the law!

I live in Portland, it's a big story here. On one hand the school and prosecutors overreacted. On the other hand treating the boys as poor little picked on victim's is spoiling them. You can tell how much the parents would have handled it (not) by their reaction to the way the boys were disciplined. There is a lot more to this story than was reported. They were slapping the girls butts and touching their breasts in the school hallways. This is inappropriate behavior at any age, any place. The prosecutor tried to plea bargain and the parents wanted to take it to court.

although i disagree with the punishment the idea is correct the actions of the 7th grade boys does fall under sexual harassment how ever i would contest with the fact that the simple term of harassment is continual unwanted contact wile sexual harassment is continually harassing some one in a sexual way in order for it to be harassment ( ans sexual harassment ) the actions of "swatting girls on the buttocks and touching two on the breast " imply that each act was on different girls and not continued acts on one girl if this is so the crime and punishment would be school bound and might in tail suspension detention community service restitution and possibly expulsion not criminal charges

I'm delighted! Tort law has imported liability to parents for the wrongs of our kids for a long time, (see Parent Responsibility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_re... on the assumption, one supposes, that if parents pay, we'll instruct offspring accordingly. For a lot of different reasons, we're not instructing offspring properly so, to protect girls from harm, the law will undertake the job. And there is NOTHING like a courtroom to instill fear - maybe enough to stop this nonsense.

As a matter of record, I find I am providing links to the Stalking Information website http://www.ncvc.org/src/Main.aspx 3-4 times per Answers session, which troubles me enormously. It tells me this is a growing problem.

Ultimately, as the protection of girls and women outweighs the risk involved in charging these young villains, bring it on! Take 'em down!

I could understand criminal charges if these were teenagers or adults. The kids should be sternly disciplined, but this should be considered a civil matter at most and there's no reason the parents and the school shouldn't be able to take care of the matter. I can see the parents of the girls being allowed to sue the school for being negligent, since this happened on several occasions and they apparently did little to stop it, but bringing in the cops?? Aside from the fact that its just plain excessive to arrest some 7 year olds for this, the school is also still going to be perfectly free to continue letting their internal disciplinary problems go on. Why are they expecting the cops and the criminal courts to do their jobs for them?