Teacher-Sex Outcome Sparks Outrage
Analyst: Debra Lafave Getting No Jail Time Is 'Jaw-Dropping'
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Play CBS Video Video Teacher Sex Case Dropped Following a report by Mark Strassmann, legal analyst Wendy Murphy discusses what the future holds for former teacher Debra LaFave after charges of having sex with a student were dropped.
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Video Student's Mom: 'I'm Appalled' CBS News RAW: A middle-school student's mom says she is appalled by the rejection of a plea deal for a teacher who was charged with having sex with her son. She doesn't want to be identified.
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Video Lafave: Bipolar Was To Blame CBS News RAW: Former teacher Debra Lafave, who was accused of having sex with a 14-year-old student, said her mental condition - she is bipolar -had a lot to do with her actions.
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Debra Lafave speaks to reporters after prosecutors announced that they are dropping charges against her. (CBS)
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CBS News legal analyst Wendy Murphy on The Early Show Wednesday (CBS/The Early Show)
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Debra Lafave, accused of having sex with a 14-year-old middle school student, listens during a hearing before Circuit Court Judge Hale Stancil in Ocala, Fla., earlier this month. (AP Photo/St. Petersburg Times)
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Interactive Sexual Assault Facts and statistics on sexual assault and rape, with victim resources.
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"Remember," Murphy points out, "she admitted her guilt in another county. They could have used that evidence against her (in Marion County). There were phone calls between the two. Very suggestive phone calls. There was a witness, another boy saw them in an intimate moment in the car.
"So, I think it's possible they could have gone forward without him, but frankly, he was a witness for the government. This is not a private lawsuit. That boy should have been forced to testify. We don't let 15-year-old and 14-year-old people who witness bank robberies and gang violence decide not to testify, because you lead to this exact unjust result."
Murphy also targeted Lafave's claim she is bipolar.
"I think it would have been a defense she would have been allowed to put on. But I don't think it would have stuck. I don't think a single juror with a brain would have bought it."
"She wasn't bipolar before she was caught raping a student," Murphy continued, sarcastically. "This was an illness that happened to pop up, coincidentally, when she needed to have some kind of defense to a case that was otherwise defenseless. A lot of people have bipolar disorder and other mental illness. They don't rape kids. So, it's not only not a legitimate defense in this case, I think it's insulting to the whole concept of mental illness and it's unfair.
"What are we going to think now? All people with bipolar are going to be predators and hunting down our children to have sex? It's an outrage that she dared use it both in a PR (public relations) sense and in a court of law."
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