Despite my outrage at Letourneau (see below), I’m not sure that the judge’s order that she not contact the boy she had sex with — now a 21-year-old man, Vili Fualaau — is valid. Courts generally do have broad powers to restrict the associational rights (and also free speech rights) of people who are released on probation, even though such restrictions also correspondingly restrict the rights of those with whom they’d want to associate.
But the theory in such cases is generally that the restrictions are needed to keep the probationer from relapsing into a life of crime: If the person was convicted for being a gang member, he can be barred from hanging out with his ex-gang-members; if he was convicted for being involved in some politically motivated crimes, he can be barred from other members of the militant wing of the movement. The government generally can’t impose such restrictions on law-abiding adults, but it can impose them on people who are still under the supervision of the criminal justice system, so long as the restrictions pass a quite deferential test of reasonableness.
Here, though, it is legally impossible for Letourneau to relapse into her old crimes with the man, because he’s now well past the age of consent. I suppose the court might be reasoning that she still has some psychological hold over the young man, or that being with him is emotionally bad for her or for him; but that seems to go more into the territory of pure matters of the adult heart, which are generally outside the government’s competence. Usually the government shouldn’t try to protect adults from heartbreak or emotionally harmful relationships. The woman does seem rather emotionally off-kilter, and it may not be good for the young man to see her, but that does seem to be much more of a call for him and her rather than for the judge.
Moreover, appellate courts do sometimes set aside such restrictions on probationers when the restrictions do seem to go beyond the government’s legitimate attempts to prevent repeat crimes; the judge has broad authority here, but not complete authority (and less authority than prison wardens do, since one major reason for action in the prison context, which is the need to maintain prison security, is absent when probationers are involved).
On the other hand, I’m working here based on just what I saw in the news story — perhaps the judge has a persuasive explanation for his order, possibly based on some specific evidence that he’s seen about either Letourneau or Fualaau. If any readers do have such information, I’d love to see it; please e-mail me both the URL of the news story and the relevant excerpt.
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