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	Oh, That Double Standard Editorial Toledo Blade October 14, 2006 http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061014/OPINION02/610140332 Before imposing a sentence on an admitted sex offender, the judge wisely acknowledged an apparent double standard that applies to adult men and women guilty of having sex with a minor. But then, for some inexplicable reason, Lucas County Common Please Court Judge James Bates went ahead and held Dawn Fisher to a different standard than might have been applied to a male defendant. It makes no sense. The sentence for pleading no contest to unlawful sexual conduct with a minor could have been up to five years in prison. But the 33-year-old Fisher, of Swanton, walked away with a slap on the wrist. The mother of the 16-year-old boy who fathered a child with Fisher was stunned with the punishment. A woman more than twice her son's age, who had begun a sexual relationship with him when he was only 14, was sentenced to house arrest and probation. "She should have been put away," said the victim's mother. "He can't even grow up now. She gets away with everything." But Judge Bates, who conceded that a man convicted of having sex with a teenage girl would likely be sentenced to considerable jail time, adopted a far more lenient penalty for the woman, who had sex with and bore the child of her teenage victim. "I don't understand the distinction. But there is a distinction, apparently …" he said before sentencing Fisher to five years of community control and six months of electronic monitoring. The judge explained his decision in part because the accused had no criminal background and that probation might give her a chance to work through her problems under court supervision. The victim's mother scoffed at the explanation, saying it wouldn't make a difference for a man guilty of the same sexual offense with a teen. Former Scott High School teacher John "Mitch" Balonek might agree. He's serving three years in prison for having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old female student. But to be fair, there have been other local cases involving women accused of having sex with minors where the convicted parties have received prison terms. Yet Fisher, who has a 10-month-old daughter by her teenaged conquest, and who is now classified as a sexually oriented offender required to register annually with the sheriff's office for 10 years, is resuming life with her two other children. And the distraught mother of her young victim is left with a son she says is now obsessed with Fisher and running into trouble at school and with his peers. "I don't know how something like this could happen," said Judge Bates at the conclusion of the Fisher case. Neither do we.
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