Court Rejects Challenge To Teacher-Student Sex Law

— The Arkansas Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a lower court’s ruling the state’s law criminalizing sex between a teacher and a student younger than 21 is constitutional.

Davlid Waldon Paschal, a 36-year-old former Elkins teacher, is accused of having sex with an 18-year-old high school student and then offering her thousands of dollars to drop the charges.

He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of second-degree sexual assault and one count of attempting to bribe a witness. The case is scheduled for trial March 1.

Paschal’s attorney, Casey Copeland, argued last month the law unfairly criminalizes private acts between consenting adults. The teen was not a student of Paschal’s at the time of alleged incidents, nor did any sex acts take place at school, Copeland argued.

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