To quote Liz DeRuchie:

The one thing I found very strange that I’ve never heard addressed, and should be, is why the boy’s mother went straight to police without discussing the matter with her son, and looking on his phone. I think the sentence and characterization of the participants was ludicrous but why would you put your son through a criminal investigation at the age of 16 or so….maybe that will be more damaging than the ill-conceived affair in the long run. Did his mom not talk to either her son or the teacher…Could this tragedy have been averted by early, adult intervention outside a criminal courtroom?

The answer is yes; This “tragedy” could have been “averted” without calling the police and destroying Abigail’s life and putting her son through the crucible and travail of a criminal investigation and prosecution.

Now if one’s daughter is brutally raped or one’s son is brutally assaulted by violent and dangerous criminals, whether they’re 15 or 25 or 35, parents have no choice but to call the police and subject their son or daughter to the ordeal of a criminal investigation and prosecution, including the ordeal of having them testify in court and endure the rigors of cross-examination by defense attorneys if the assailant pleads “not guilty.” In fact, they’re morally behooved to do so not only to ensure “justice” for their son or daughter but also to protect them and future victims by punishing and incarcerating violent and dangerous criminals. But such was not the case in this situation and in regard to such intrigues generally.

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that Abigail was and is lying about his raping and terrorizing her and that they were “madly n love” or, at least, engaged in a factually consensual and mutually gratifying relationship. Instead of calling the police, his mother and father could have confronted Abigail, at school or in her apartment, and told her what would happen, the hellish ordeal that she would suffer, if someone knew or suspected that she was having sex with a 15-year-old male student and called the police or told the principal, for example. Or that they would call the police if she didn’t end the affair and that her life would be destroyed. And they could have told their son that they’d call the police if he didn’t end the affair and that Abigail’s life would be destroyed if they did so. Or they could have talked to both of them together, describing at length and in graphic detail the fate she would suffer if they didn’t end the affair.

I’m sure this would have ended the intrigue, at least until he turned 16, and nobody would have been hurt, profoundly and permanently, if at all if they weren’t “madly” and “deeply” in love but simply enjoyed having sex together  -not only Abigail, by far most hellishly, and her family and friends, whose anguish is harrowing, but also the “victim” and his family. “More damaging” than the affair “in “the long run.” Any suffering and pain he endured and will endure in the short and “long run” -suffering and pain that is real as opposed to imagined and contrived and exaggerated- is not a result of his having had sex with Abigail but wholly a result of the insane and execrable laws of Michigan, the criminal justice system, and the media. local, state, and national, especially the coverage of the trial and sentencing.

And if she’s lying and they were “madly” or just “deeply” in love, they could have resumed their affair when he turned 16 if she was no longer his tutor, since the generic age of consent is 16 in Michigan, and his parents could have done nothing, legally, to end it. To repeat: if he had been 16 rather than 15, just a few months and weeks older, and she had not been his tutor, their affair would have been legal under Michigan law. But since he was 15, just a few months and weeks short of his 16th birthday, and she was his tutor, she was guilty of a felony with a maximum sentence of 25-years to life in prison and a mandatory minimum of 8-25 years and a life-sentence of public sex offender registration and electronic parole-monitoring with a ankle-tether/”bracelet” she can never remove.

To repeat once again; to call all his insane -particularly the arbitrary and irrational and hideously draconian laws- is an understatement. It’s beyond insanity.