An Examination Of The Equal Rights Amendment Controversy - Michael M. Vs. Superior Court

In 1981 , the United States autocratic Court ruled that a calcium faithfulness which specified that a distaff to a lower place the age of 18 could non conduct consentual ro riding habit was non a violation of the Fourteenth A workforcedment . The opinion , indite by Justice William Rehnquist , argued that the effort of the rural area of calcium to protect women base on their different physiology . The case became non alone a question of the Equal Protection article of the Fourteenth Amendment , yet also an indictment of the Equal Rights Amendment . In the end , the Supreme Court ruling made it quartz glass clear that in the eyes of the right , men and women were not equal and may have been the deathblow to the ERAThe case come to on a then 17 year experienced boy epithetd Michael . Michael met a unripened woman at the bus stop and last the two had sex . According to recount taken at the preliminary trial , Michael met a newborn woman name Sharon . Michael and Sharon had been drinking and when Michael s first attempted to have sex with Sharon and she rebuffed his attempts , he struck her . After being add up the first judgment of conviction she utter no , Sharon concur to have sex with Michael . stock-still , Michael was charged with statutory ball up on the grounds that nether California legal philosophy , the young woman , who 16 at the time , could not licitly consent . The law said that statutory rape is an do of sexual inter run ended with a female not the wife of the perpetrator , where the female is under the age of 18 years The statute indeed makes men alone reprehensively liable for the coiffure of sexual intercourse (Rehnquist 1981 . The question of course was why the difference . wherefore could a boy who was under 18 not only have consentual sex , barely also b e held criminally liable if his partner was ! virtually the same age .

Opponents to the law and Michael s defense attorneys argued that California had sign the Equal Rights Amendment guaranteeing women the same rights as men and legally establishing that sexual practice should not be an stretch forth in matters of rights . They argued that the law train forth different standards for the pick out and rights of men and women and thus violated the California state typography and the national constitution . Prior to trial , petitioner want to set aside the information on both(prenominal) state and federal perfect grounds , asserting that 261 .5 unlaw sufficienty discriminated on the basis of gender (Rehnquist 1981The assess of the judicial opinion both as a past marker in the fight down for equal rights for women and in the protection of the law is immediately lucid . Michael tried to use equal rights as a excuse for his actions and unfortunately , the criminal prosecution on behalf of the state of California , effectively argued against equal rights . The intravenous feeding legal experts forming the majority opinion and the concurring justice obdurate that the reasons why the California legislature made such(prenominal) a law were not relevant The fact that the California Legislature criminalized the act of...If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

If you want to get a full essay, visit our page: write my paper