Student-Teacher Sex Case Examined; Latest in the Missing Mexican Students Case
BANFIELD: 14-year-olds can't boat, they can't drive, but according to the attorney for Los Angeles School District, they can be mature enough to consent to sex with an adult even if that adult is their teacher. A middle school math teacher named Elkis Hermida, was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to three years in state prison for having sex with his student, both on campus and off campus. The student then sued the Los Angeles Unified School District, claiming that it was negligence that it didn't do enough to protect but a jury ruled against her in civil court. And now, she's appealing that lawsuit. The District, in its defense, is now using her sexual history as evidence and says that she was a willing participant. Let me remind you, she's 14 and the District is using her sexual history. And there is one humdinger of a quote that's being used in this defense, I want you to listen to a Keith Wyatt, the L.A. Unified trial attorney, told the radio station, KPCC.</s>KEITH WYATT, ATTORNEY: Children make decisions all the time, all right? Making their decision in whether or not to cross the street when traffic is coming, that takes a certain level of maturity, all right? And that's a much more dangerous decision than deciding, "Hey, I want to have sex with my teacher."</s>BANFIELD: Gulp. Wyatt has since apologized for those comments. In fact, issued a written apology saying that, "Upon reflection, I realized how insensitive the comments I made to KPCC radio station. How insensitive were, and I'm truly sorry to this young woman and her family. My statements were ill-thought out and poorly articulated and by no means reflect the opinions of the School District or its leadership." Well, that's all fine but they're still fighting this case folks. For that legal view, I want to bring back criminal defense attorney, Midwin Charles, a CNN legal analyst Paul Callan. OK. So, let me get this straight, guys, you get a criminal case in which the guy goes away for three years. It's determined that, no apparently you can't consent if your 14 to having sex with your teacher and he's guilty and he goes away. He gets into the civil arena and all of the sudden, California law gets crazy and suggests that you can. Paul, walk me through it.</s>PAUL CALLAN, CNN ANALYST: Well, number one, it's why people don't like lawyers, I think because -- and here's the deal with this lawyer. The lawyer looks at the case and he comes up with a technical argument which will allow him to win the case, all right. And the argument is the legislature messed up when they passed the criminal law, they didn't -- the wording wasn't right and it sort of created an argument that there's no law on the issue of consent with respect to a minor in a civil case for money damages. So, the lawyer uses that argument because he can win the case even though from a moral standpoint, it's wrong. And he's client, the Los Angeles Unified School District, should have said to him don't use that argument.</s>BANFIELD: Don't do this. It's not the right thing.</s>CALLAN: But of course there's one part of the back story we don't know, how much money was she suing for? Was it a colossal, extremely high, greedy number and they had to fight?</s>BANFIELD: A bankrupting number.</s>CALLAN: Or was it a reasonable number? So, I'd like to know the whole story before I judge the lawyer too harshly.</s>CHARLES: I don't know if you can discern between greedy of reasonable. This is a 14-year-old girl that had a sexual relationship with a teacher in a school district, and her parents are suing the school district holding them or wanting to hold them civilly liable. And I think Paul is correct that this is a technicality but this is a horrendous, horrendous road for the school district to go down because what they are saying in...</s>BANFIELD: It's all good, it's OK.</s>CHARLES: Well -- right it's a school district.</s>BANFIELD: For kids.</s>CHARLES: So, there are other children and, you know, weird, they're basically telling the children and their parents that this is what they think of their children.</s>BANFIELD: I want to be clear, the school district was cleared of any wrong doing in the criminal, OK? And this is an appeal on the civil case, they beat this rout (ph). But they're using her sexual history. I've always been of a conviction that rape shield laws stop you from doing that. Are we in the same problem with this civil arena?</s>CALLAN: And rape shields laws only file to criminal cases. They don't use it....</s>BANFIELD: So, the civil Arena is no holds barred, all systems go and just have that.</s>CALLAN: And the rape shield law just so people know is that you can't use a woman's sexual history against her in a rape case unless it involves you relationship with the guy who you've accused of rape. But -- yes.</s>BANFIELD: But this is as simple as, you're not in Kansas anymore. You're in a civil Arena.</s>CHARLES: Right.</s>CALLAN: But, you know, just getting back to the issue though of, you know, and as Midiwn says, it's, you know, it's a terrible situation here but let's say they were asking for $50 million in compensation, well the school district might have been put in a position where they say we can't pay you that much. May be we'd pay a million or $500, 000, a reasonable number, so they get forced to go to trial. I don't know that that happened but I've seen enough cases to know it's usually a fight about the money that causes this embarrassment of court.</s>BANFIELD: Well, speaking of embarrassment, (inaudible), you know, in the media arena and who knows that will drive them behind close doors into settlement conference on this one because this is just an abomination if we think about that.</s>CHARLES: Particularly when you think of age of consent when it comes to sex and when -- as a society, we've already decided that a 14-year- old can't buy alcohol, can't buy cigarettes, can't enter into a contract. So...</s>BANFIELD: Neither can a 16, 17, or 18-year old, you know.</s>CHARLES: Right. So, this sort of notion that a 14-year-old can consent to sex applies against to what we as a society has deemed appropriate and legal.</s>BANFIELD: It's crazy. Midwin and Paul, thank you very much.</s>CALLAN: You're welcome.</s>BANFIELD: A new twist in the disappearance of 43 students in Mexico. It's weird, but a former mayor has now been charged with homicide. We're going to get an update on the investigations and exactly why would a mayor and his wife be involved in any of this from the get go.