Justice

Writing the Statutory Rape post reminded me of a cop tale. Way back in the '80's I was policing in Natchitoches Parish and heard this story directly from the mouth of an assistant District Attorney as I leaned in his doorway. I'm going to use the town name of Natchez, to protect the ignorant. There is a Natchez, LA and a Natchez, MS, and this story never happened in either of them. The actual town had a post office, a gas station, a bar, and a motel. It didn't have much else. Back to the story. Leaning in the DA's doorway, I heard this story from a country-boy DA:

"Last night I got called down to the jail. It seems this sailor was getting off one boat in Virginia and had orders to another boat in San Diego. His home is in Texas, so he got on a bus to see America. Turns out, a bus ride across America was more than he bargained for, and when the bus got to Natchez, he saw the bar and decided to get off the damned bus.

"So we have this sailor, just off the bus in Natchez and in the bar, where he proceeds to get sloppy drunk. The locals start sobering him up and he happens to talk to this little gal that was there in the bar. Well, she never met a real sailor-man before, and before you know it, the both of them had checked into the motel, where the sailor and little gal got under the sheets and were doing the wild thang. Someone at the bar called the gals daddy and told him what was going on.

"Next thing we know, Daddy is at the motel threatening to kill the sailor, and the police get called and Daddy produces a birth certificate that proves, without a doubt that the little gal is only fourteen. The police arrest the sailor and haul him off to jail.

"Sometime during all this, I get a phone call at home, so I go down to the jail to look at the evidence. Sure enough, Daddy is down at the jail giving his statement, and the sailor is getting booked, and I take a look at all the evidence, and call a halt to the whole proceedings.

"Now, Dad wants this sailor prosecuted for screwing his daughter, but I'm asking Daddy what his fourteen year old daughter was doing in a bar, and did he want to go to jail for child neglect? Then I ask the police why they didn't arrest the bar owner for letting the child in the bar, then arrest the motel owner for renting the room to an underage child, and then I asked everyone in hearing how the hell the sailor was supposed to know that a gal he picked up in a bar in Louisiana was just fourteen years old? Yeah, sailor-man screwed the little gal, no doubt about it, but dammit, people, how was he supposed to know?

"So anyway, I get the sailor out of jail and put him in my truck and drive him to the bus station. I tell him if he ever comes through Natchez again, to give me a call and I'll go to the bar with him and point out the jail-bait."

I walked down the hall wondering if that DA had ever known Janet, from the story before.