HOUSTON – On a few streets in southwest Houston, children have been found working as prostitutes.
Led by the FBI, detectives from several agencies involved in the Innocence Lost Project have made several arrests, focusing on the pimps who put the young girls out on the streets.
Prostitution, as we all know, is illegal, so the juveniles found out working the streets have also been arrested and charged with crimes.
But one Houston lawyer, who represented a 13-year-old suspect, wondered how that could be.
"The whole point of the case was how is this child supposed to be viewed," attorney Ann Johnson said.
Johnson strongly felt her client couldn’t be charged, because at the age of 13, a person cannot legally consent to sex.
"Is she supposed to be viewed as an offender at the age of 13, or is she supposed to be viewed and recognized as a victim?" Johnson said.
She appealed her client’s case in July, and it went all the way to the Texas Supreme Court.
"I think many people looked at it as the easy way out. They thought the easy thing for us to do is go ahead and charge these girls and get them off the street and believe that was somehow going to solve the problem, but the fact of the matter is the people who are actually behind the girls, just taking her off the street, they will find two or three more just to take her place," attorney Mike Choyke, who helped Johnson with the appeal, said.
Prosecutors looked at it differently.
"Quite plainly, the juvenile justice code says that a juvenile may be charged with any crime that is in the penal code, and of course, the prostitution offense is in the penal code," Dan McCrory of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said.
Both sides made it clear that providing help for the child was paramount, but in the end, the court ruled that a 13-year-old could not be charged with prostitution.
"The ruling came out on a Friday morning, and we both called each other at the same time to say, ‘Did you see?’ We were both very excited," Johnson said.
It was a unique case that could eventually affect hundreds of children.
"So it sends a signal to the entire state that Texas is going to protect children," Johnson said.
And because of what happened here, other states are now discussing the issue of child prostitutes and the law.
Choyke said the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the law says that prosecutors should "be going after the people who actually put these kids out on the street."
The pimps.
