That's not all that's changed. Today he likely wouldn't even have had the opportunity as he would have been in prison already:
On September 4, 1942, Frank La Salle was indicted in Camden County Criminal Court for the statutory rape of five girls between the ages of 12 and 14. He wasn’t arrested until February 2, 1943, though, and pleaded not guilty to the charges in court the following week. A little over a month later, on March 22, La Salle changed his plea to “non vult,” or no contest, and received a sentence of two and a half to five years in Trenton State Prison. Fourteen months later, on June 18, 1944, La Salle was paroled.
14 months in prison for the statutory rape of 5 12-14 year old girls by a 45-year old man. It's truly unbelievable how such an offence could be treated so lightly at the time.
I remember reading a longitudinal study that was conducted to see if people could accurately recall the beliefs of their younger self. Essentially, every few years, they'd ask the same group of people to rate their stance on certain issues, and then guess how their younger self would've rated.
Interestingly, what people rated of their younger self was actually much closer to their current self than the actual ratings conducted by their younger self.
Myself, I think I probably had a lot more trepidation about say, Gay Marriage back in the 90s than I do today. But I only believe that because I'm aware my current self might be creating bias to my perspective of what actually happened.
"But is Britain unusual in maintaining the age of consent at 16, and how does we compare to the rest of the world?
In Europe, countries who have the age of consent set at 16 include Cyprus, Finland, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland.
Spain did have one of the lowest ages of consent on the continent at just 13, but recently agreed to raise this to 16.
For Austria, Germany, Portugal and Italy it is 14, and in France, the Czech Republic, Denmark, and Greece it is 15.
In China, the age of consent is 14, in Iraq it is 18, while in Japan it is five years lower at 13.
The likes of Brazil, Peru, Paraguay, Ecuador and Colombia all have it set at 14.
I know this is the popular case to flog your morals over right now but the relationship to this story seems pretty threadbare. What connection do you see outside of the sex crime angle?
While that case is terrible, I think most people will find a difference between one incident of rape between two people in their 20s and the statutory rape of 5 adolescent girls by a 45-year-old man. To me at least, there seems to be very little comparison.
In brief, raping someone who is unconscious fits neatly into the 'Power-Reassurance' category of rapist. On the other hand the guy himself appears (although we'll see as he gets older) to be more of a 'Power-Assertive' type. In either case the major factor is the perception of the victim as vulnerable, which can come in the form of "drunk and unconscious", but just as often comes in the form of, "Elderly or disabled".
Rapists tend to be highly preferential in their modus, but across typologies the victim profiles are insanely varied... except that the rapist feels they can dominate/control them.
Out after 14 months wouldn't be unusual today. Assuming he didn't use any form of physical violence or threat thereof, some states take a very lax approach. Colorado's 2-6 years is not odd. This is one of those areas where the states differ greatly in both how they define and punish this crime. These are also very old laws, that some states have not officially revisited for generations.
Statutory rape can be both very easy and very difficult to prove. DNA/blood tests are powerful, but limited by time. Unless the guy was caught in the act and evidence collected relatively quickly, prosecution will rely on the girl's testimony. That's a tricky case. Given that prosecutors are loath to put such girls on the stand, it will plead out at a much reduced sentence. What is different today is the sex offender registry.
On September 4, 1942, Frank La Salle was indicted in Camden County Criminal Court for the statutory rape of five girls between the ages of 12 and 14. He wasn’t arrested until February 2, 1943, though, and pleaded not guilty to the charges in court the following week. A little over a month later, on March 22, La Salle changed his plea to “non vult,” or no contest, and received a sentence of two and a half to five years in Trenton State Prison. Fourteen months later, on June 18, 1944, La Salle was paroled.
14 months in prison for the statutory rape of 5 12-14 year old girls by a 45-year old man. It's truly unbelievable how such an offence could be treated so lightly at the time.