Opinion

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September 9, 2012

No justice

The Daily Citizen

Five months ago Dalton State College police charged Adam Kendall Chastain with sodomy. In August a Whitfield County grand jury refused to indict Chastain after someone figured out that the alleged “offense” he supposedly committed isn’t a crime in Georgia.

This spring a woman accused Chastain of sexually assaulting her on campus. But officials said she soon stopped cooperating with police. Still, Dalton State College police charged Chastain with sodomy based on his claim that he had engaged in consensual oral sex with the woman.

Dalton State College police apparently did not realize that consensual oral sex between adults has been legal in Georgia for 14 years, since the Georgia Supreme Court tossed out that provision of the state’s sodomy law. Neither, apparently, did a magistrate court, where a judge signed off on the arrest warrant.

Dalton State Police Chief Billy Gee doesn’t appear to believe that he and his department made any mistake. Gee told a reporter last week that the case progressed through the system the way it should have.

“The DA did his job, and we did our job,” he said.

That is true only if their jobs don’t involve knowing what the law is.

Chastain has a previous conviction in 2003 for statutory rape. But even a convicted felon deserves to be treated with professionalism by law enforcement, the courts and the state university system. Chastain did not receive such treatment.

Officials there may not realize it yet, but this is a black eye for the Dalton State College police and magistrate court. They owe Chastain an apology, and they owe students and city and county residents an explanation of how this happened and what they plan to do to make sure that nothing like this happens again.

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