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 attain consentual provoke was non a violation of the Fourteenth A custodydment . The opinion , pen by Justice William Rehnquist , argued that the effort of the rural area of atomic number 20 to protect women base on their different physiology . The case became not alone a question of the Equal Protection cla spend of the Fourteenth Amendment , yet also an indictment of the Equal Rights Amendment . In the end , the Supreme Court ruling made it watch glass clear that in the eyes of the jurisprudence , men and women were not equal and may have been the deathblow to the ERAThe case come to on a then 17 year archaic boy epithetd Michael . Michael met a juvenility woman a t the sight stop and last the two had sex . According to rise taken at the preliminary trial , Michael met a two-year-old 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 bring in the first judgment of conviction she utter no , Sharon hold to have sex with Michael . stock-still , Michael was charged with statutory rape on the grounds that nether California equity , the young woman , who 16 at the time , could not de jure consent . The law said that statutory rape is an figure out of sexual inter frame ended with a female not the wife of the perpetrator , where the female is beneath the age of 18 years The statute indeed makes men alone criminally liable for the interpret 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 , save also be held criminally liable if his partner was! virtually the same age .

Opponents to the law and Michael s defense attorneys argued that California had ratify the Equal Rights Amendment guaranteeing women the same rights as men and legally establishing that sex should not be an stretch forth in matters of rights . They argued that the law fructify forth different standards for the pick out and rights of men and women and thus violated the California state typography and the federal constitution . Prior to trial , petitioner want to set aside the information on both(prenominal) state and federal intact grounds , asserting that 261 .5 unlaw sufficient y discriminated on the basis of gender (Rehnquist 1981The range 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 quest on behalf of the state of California , effectively argued against equal rights . The cardinal legal experts forming the majority opinion and the concurring justice persistent 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: BestEssayCheap.com

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