Jail For Teacher In Sex Case

Deal Gets Pamela Turner 9 Months; Male Student Involved Was 13

(CBS/AP)  Turner's attorney, Peter Strianse of Nashville, said afterward that the lengthy prison sentence she could have faced if convicted by a jury made the plea agreement her best option. The charges were punishable by up to 100 years in prison.

"It's an agreement that she can live with. It's an agreement that gives her, I think, some real control over her future," Strianse said to reporters, including Manning.

After she finishes her time in the Warren County jail, she will be on supervised probation for the rest of an eight-year suspended sentence. The judge also ordered Turner to surrender her teaching certificate and said she would be registered as a child sex offender.

The sentence prohibits her from profiting from the case and does not allow interviews.

The mother of the teenager in the case previously described Turner as a family friend and said she hoped there would not be a trial. District Attorney Dale Potter said Thursday that was part of the reason for the plea agreement.

Potter has said Turner lived at the boy's house "for a brief period of time when she was moving from residence to residence."

He said in court that, ideally, the penalty should be stiffer but, "The victim's family ... their interest was, if we could settle this without going to trial, that's what they preferred. And we feel like this is an acceptable settlement."

So does the family, Potter told Tracy Smith on The Early Show Friday.

Part of the agreement forbids Turner from having any contact with the boy or his family, Manning adds.

Potter told Smith that Turner never admitted to anyone on the prosecution side that she'd done anything wrong.

Asked if the no contest plea amounts to an admission of guilt, Potter responded, "It depends on how you look at it. In our view, a no contest plea is the same thing as a guilty plea. From a defense perspective, sometimes they say that's not an admission, it's just that the state could have convinced a jury to convict her."

Potter says the provision keeping Turner from making money off the case was important, since "especially considering that the victim would never get anything out of this case."