An Anne Arundel County official joined advocates for children in urging the General Assembly yesterday to ban marriage under the age of 16, calling the current statute permitting such unions "a shotgun law for pregnant adolescents."
Robert P. Duckworth, clerk of the county Circuit Court, noted the well-publicized marriage of a pregnant 13-year-old girl and the baby's 29-year-old father last August in Annapolis. The case of Tina Lynn Akers and Phillip Wayne Compton Jr. received international attention, bringing calls for legislation to ban such marriages.
"A 30-year-old marrying an 11-year-old after impregnating her is a child molester, and it shouldn't be given a legal sanction by the state," said Ellen Mugmon, chairman of the legislative committee of the Governor's Office for Children, Youth and Families.
Duckworth, who said Maryland court clerks are legally required to officiate at such marriages, noted a string of cases in which pregnant girls as young as 11 married adults. He asked the House Judiciary Committee to help relieve court clerks of the "repugnant" duty of officiating at such weddings.
"I feel despair when I have to look across the podium and see a teen bride and an adult male," Duckworth told the panel. He suggested that the bill become known as "Austin's Law" after the 5-month-old child of the Akers-Compton marriage, who died Feb. 19 in Virginia of undetermined causes.
Proponents of the bill said Maryland's marriage law conflicts with the spirit of its statutory rape laws. The current statute makes consensual sex with a child younger than 14 a felony for someone four or more years older. Sex with a child younger than 16 is a misdemeanor for someone four years older but under 21. For those older than 21, sex with a 14- or 15-year-old is a felony.
Under current law, a child under 16 can marry with consent of a parent or guardian and a certificate from a physician attesting that the bride is pregnant. The bill would ban such marriages.
"When you rob the cradle, you should know you'll get a brand-new crib -- that is, jail," said Del. David G. Boschert, Anne Arundel County Republican, who is sponsoring the bill.
The bill also would tighten the requirements for marriages at 16 and 17, which can take place without parental consent if the woman is pregnant. The legislation eliminates the pregnancy requirement but requires parental consent.
Duckworth said that as recently as two weeks ago, his office married a 15-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy. But he and other witnesses said their main concern was to prevent marriages in which adult men evade criminal prosecution by marrying the young teen-age girls they make pregnant.
The bill received a skeptical reception from some legislators.
Del. Dana L. Dembrow pressed Boschert on whether it's really better for a teen-age mother to remain unmarried, saying: "There will be more abortions as a result of the passage of this legislation."
Dembrow, a Montgomery County Democrat, said the proper response is for Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee to prosecute Compton, who has not been charged in the case.
"The law already provides for a penalty," Dembrow said. "We don't need to change the law so people have to have children out of wedlock."
Pub Date: 3/17/99