There’s been a lot of debate as to whether Casey Aldridge, who is thought to be 19, can be brought up on statutory rape charges for getting his 16 year-old maybe-ex girlfriend, Jamie Lynn Spears, pregnant. I found three articles on this subject today and they predictably vary widely in their assessment of the possibility of prosecution for Casey. It depends how old he really is, with some reports saying he’s just 18, and where the baby was conceived, with Louisiana having tougher statutory rape laws. It seems that it’s not likely that he’ll be charged, but since this is such a high profile case there may be pressure from authorities.

Statutory rape laws have the potential for abuse when applied to consensual sex among teens, most notably in the recent case of a Georgia teen whose harsh sentence was eventually overturned. Genarlow Wilson spent two years in jail out of a mandatory ten year sentence for having consensual oral sex with a 15 year old girl at a party when he was just 17. The law was changed after widespread public pressure and he was finally freed this October.

So while a sexual relationship between a 19 year-old boy and a 16 year-old girl is technically illegal, it was consensual and there’s a fine line in these type of cases.

Here are the different legal and personal opinions in the news on this case today.

The Daily Mail: Casey could get up to 10 years in jail

The boyfriend of Jamie Lynn Spears could face statutory rape charges after getting Britney Spears’ sister pregnant at 16, it has been revealed.

And Casey Aldridge, 19, could face up to 10 years if convicted, possibly with hard labour.

Fox News reports that if the baby was conceived in Spears’ home state of Louisiana, the act could technically be considered “felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile.”

Louisiana law defines this unlawful carnal knowledge as “sexual intercourse with consent between someone age 19 or older and someone between age 12 and 17.”

In Louisiana a person can only legally consent to sex at age 17. If aged 15 or 16, the other person involved must be no more than two years older for the act to be considered legal.

But Aldridge wouldn’t fare much better if the “carnal” act happened in California, where Spears lives while on the set of her Nickelodeon TV show Zoey 101.

The Californian Penal Code states that any person who engages in an act of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor under 18 who is not more than three year younger than the perpetrator, is guilty of a misdemeanour and faces up to one year in a county jail.

But Californian criminal defence attorney Jim Hammer says: “If Aldridge is actually more than three years older he could be up for a felony, which carries a maximum three years in prison.”

US Weekly: It’s possible he could be charged, but Lousiana authorities aren’t looking into it

Jamie Lynn Spears’ pregnancy, at age 16, has raised legal questions because of Casey Aldridge’s age.

Aldridge is believed to be 18 or 19.

There is still no word on where the sexual intercourse took place.

However, if it happened in Spears’ home state of Louisiana, and if Aldridge was 19 at the time, he could be charged with what the state calls “felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile,” which is defined as “sexual intercourse with consent between someone age 19 or older and someone between age 12 and 17.”

If he was under 19, then he might be charged with a misdemeanor. Laws vary from state-to-state.

A spokeswoman for the local sheriff’s department in Kentwood, Louisiana, told Baton Rouge’s WAFB-TV that no complaint has been filed in the case and “no criminal investigation is currently underway.”

CNN: It’s not likely he’ll be charged and statutory rape charges should not be applied to consensual sex between teens

Spears, the star of Nickelodeon’s “Zoey 101,” told OK! Magazine that she’s pregnant and that the father is her 18-year-old boyfriend.

There has been no public talk of criminal prosecution in the case. Consensual sex between the two may well have been legal, depending on where and when it took place.

But critics of the nation’s statutory rape laws say that laws that are ignored in some cases can be used to put other teens in prison and land them on sex-offender registries.

“You have a disturbing disparity in how these laws are enforced,” said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University. “I have no problem at all with nailing adults who sleep with children, but I have a problem with the prosecution of teenagers in consensual relationships.

“What this case should focus the nation on is having a more evenhanded approach to these cases…”

B.J. Bernstein, [Genarlow] Wilson’s attorney, argued throughout his case that Wilson was imprisoned for an act that, while perhaps morally questionable, probably is going on among teens everywhere.

“If you prosecuted, even with misdemeanors, all those cases, you’d clog up the justice system with kids having sex,” she said. “It’s a social issue — and it may be something that parents don’t want to happen or wish wouldn’t happen at that age — but it shouldn’t be a crime.”

So it seems that unless someone wants to make an example of Casey, nothing will happen in this case. Authorities deny that they’re even looking into it, and while the relationship may seem creepy and inappropriate to some, it doesn’t mean the older party should spend time behind bars. He does seem too old to be in a relationship with such a young girl. We’ll have to see if they’re still together and if he ever speaks out about Jamie Lynn’s pregnancy. It’s just a sad case and will hopefully serve the purpose of helping parents realize that they need to speak to their children about these issues before it’s too late.

There has been a lot of speculation that Jamie Lynn Spears is further along in her pregnancy than the 12 weeks she admits to in the OK! article. Sources say there’s a photo shoot with OK! for Jamie and the baby scheduled for spring, which would make her at least four or five months pregnant, not three.

The Huffington Post has some quotes from the OK! article, and Jamie Lynn talks a little about her pregnancy symptoms. She says she doesn’t have much nausea now, but that she’s also not ravenously hungry and doesn’t have much of an appetite:

She says she has overcome morning sickness, has yet to experience weird cravings and does not show. “I definitely had sickness, but it’s getting better. It was at its worst a few weeks ago… I haven’t really got much of an appetite right now. I mean, I eat, but I’m not going crazy or anything.”

[Quotes from OK! Magazine found on The Huffington Post]

US Weekly has an interview with Jamie Lynn from three months ago in which she’s nonchalant when asked about her future. She was asked if she would be married with kids in ten years and she said “Whatever happens, happens, I guess. You can’t really say what is going to happen.” Does this indicate that she had a similar attitude toward birth control? She was either pregnant or just about to get pregnant at that point.

There’s a lot of heated debate over this subject and that’s understandable as this is a very young woman on a show aimed at tweens. Some commentors chastised me for assuming she didn’t use birth control, as no birth control is 100% effective. It doesn’t seem like a huge logical leap to reach the conclusion that there wasn’t birth control involved, especially considering the earlier story that she had a pregnancy scare, but maybe she used a condom and it failed. That’s happened to me, although thankfully I didn’t get pregnant until I wanted to.

Many people are pointing a well-aimed finger at Lynne Spears, Jamie Lynn’s mom, and asking if she ever had a birth control discussion with either of her fertile daughters. The Huffington Post has a great editorial questioning how Lynn could so quickly sell her daughter’s pregnancy story, and wondering how she so fundamentally failed in advising either one of her daughters.

Some quotes from the OK! article may show that Lynne either had no idea that her daughter was sexually active or was in denial about it. She calls Jamie Lynn her “baby” and says she was home on time for curfew. It has not yet been confirmed that Jamie Lynn was living with Casey, although People reports that he “was a fixture at the condo where Jamie Lynn stayed with her mother, Lynne, while filming the Nickelodeon series Zoey 101.” Doesn’t that sound like he was living with Jamie Lynn and her mom? And if that’s the case, what does it matter if she’s home on time if she’s having sex with her boyfriend when she’s there?

As for Lynne Spears, Jamie Lynn and Britney’s mom, she was shocked. “I didn’t believe it because Jamie Lynn’s always been so conscientious. She’s never late for her curfew. I was in shock. I mean, this is my 16-year-old baby.”

And don’t ask ask if Jamie Lynn and Casey should get married. “We’re not going there. We’re focusing on the baby. We’ve got so much to focus on right now.”

[Quotes from OK! Magazine found on The Huffington Post]

Meanwhile there’s a story that K-Fed heard about Jamie Lynn’s pregnancy before Britney did, because he has a close relationship with Lynne Spears and she confided in him on Monday before the news broke. As for how Britney is coping, she’s said to be driving around aimlessly, shopping, and going to whatever high end hotel will have her after she was barred from other establishments. It all sounds pretty average for Britney.

Our story yesterday that Jamie Lynn and her boyfriend Casey Aldridge have broken up seems likely to be true. Life & Style reports that they’ve had a rocky relationship and are currently apart:

A day after news broke that the 16-year-old is expecting, a Spears family insider tells Life & Style that she and Casey Aldridge, the father of her baby, are not seeing each other!

“Jamie Lynn and Casey are NOT together. They’ve broken up numerous times, but he was her first and she kept taking him back,” says the insider.

“They’re not dating now. He’s really got nothing to offer this baby. He’s a kid himself. They have no plans to get married.”

“At this point, Jamie Lynn has asked her mom — and not Casey — to be in the delivery room with her.”

[From Life and Style]

There will soon be a new addition to one of the most high profile celebrity families in the world. A very young woman is going to be a mother, but many of you have pointed out that this isn’t your average teen pregnancy as there will be no financial struggle for Jamie Lynn and all the help that money can buy. There could be plenty of confusion, lost opportunity, and personal soul searching for this girl as she matures and experiences the gravity of the situation. Let’s hope that she’s able to cope well and care for her baby, and that she turns out to be a better mother than Lynn or her sister. That bar is set pretty low.

Here are pictures of Jamie Lynn throughout the years, thanks to PRPhotos. Header image is of Jamie Lynn and Britney at the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Premiere on 7/10/05. Dates of the photos below are noted with the larger images.

Everyone is noting that Jamie Lynn Spears recently said that she doesn’t have a boyfriend and that “I kind of just keep my options open. I have a bunch of friends that I always hang out with, a bunch of guy friends.” I was thinking this might be the standard response she gives to questions about having a serious relationship, but the thing is that this interview was published on Monday of this week when she was being asked about the future of her character on her television show, Zoey 101. She said she didn’t know if her character hooked up with her friend Chase on the show and she wouldn’t say if she would return for a fourth season at that point.

She told OK! Magazine that the father of her baby is her 19-year-old live-in boyfriend Casey Aldridge, but is she even still with Casey? She did claim to be single, and Allie is Wired notes that Casey’s supposed MySpace says “ME AND JAMIE ARE OVER….. :(”

It’s likely that this is a fake MySpace, as his age is incorrectly listed at 17, not 19, and it’s set to private so there are no more details, but even if this MySpace is fake, it could be true that they’re no longer together. The girl knew by the time she was interviewed on Monday for the AP that she was pregnant. Why would she say that she was single if she knew that she was expecting a baby and there was about to be a big story in OK! Magazine about it? It’s possible that the OK! story wasn’t set up by the time she had that earlier interview, but the timing makes it seem like she knew what she was doing by denying that she had a boyfriend. She could have said “Oh, I don’t talk much about that, but I’m in a relationship with someone.” We’ll have to see what she says in OK! when it comes out.

Meanwhile TMZ reports that Jamie Lynn received $1 million for her OK! interview, but that it was a joint deal for photos of the baby once it’s born. Her dad Jamie is said to have condemned his former wife, Jamie Lynn’s mom Lynne, for brokering a deal for the first exclusive pregnancy interview and said that he would never profit from his kids like that.

Jamie Lynn is also thought to be further along than the 12 weeks she claims to be. That might explain the questionable outfit she wore to the Teen Vogue party at the end of September.

Update: Thanks to reader Kolby for noting that season four of Zoey101 has already been shot and will not be affected by Jamie Lynn’s pregnancy.

Jamie Lynn Spears is shown at the Nancy Drew premiere on 6/9/07, thanks to PRPhotos.

It looks like the hope that Britney Spears’ poor example wouldn’t rub off on her little sister is dead. Jamie Lynn Spears, 16, star of Nickelodeon’s “Zoey 101” is pregnant, according to the kid’s network. It’s been commented that older sister Britney was too young for so much responsibility when she got pregnant with husband Kevin Federline at 23. Considering how Britney handled it at that ripe old age, one can only wonder (and worry) about Jaime Lynn.

“It was a shock for both of us, so unexpected,” she says. “I was in complete and total shock and so was he.” Spears is 12 weeks along and initially kept the news to herself when she learned of the pregnancy from an at-home test and subsequent doctor visit, she told the celebrity magazine, which hits stands in New York on Wednesday and the rest of the country by Friday.

“As soon as I found out for sure from the doctor, I took two weeks to myself where I didn’t tell anybody,” she says. “Only one of my friends knew because I needed to work out what I would do for myself before I let anyone’s opinion affect my decision. Then I told my parents and my friends. I was scared, but I had to do what was right for me.”

Spears broke the news to her mother, Lynne, just before Thanksgiving, the magazine says. “She was very upset because it wasn’t what she expected at all,” Spears says. “A week after, she had time to cope with it and became very supportive.”

[From the Associated Press]

Jamie Lynn told OK! that the father is her longtime boyfriend Casey Aldridge, even though she recently told the Associated Press that didn’t have a serious boyfriend, noting “I kind of just keep my options open. I have a bunch of friends that I always hang out with, a bunch of guy friends.”

I can’t say why, but somehow I have more faith in Jamie Lynn’s ability to raise a baby at 16 than I have in Britney’s ability to do it at 26. I don’ think either of them are rocket scientists, but Jamie Lynn somehow still seems to have it together more than Britney. I realize that’s kind of an ironic statement to make right now, but it’s still somehow seems true. Jamie Lynn seems very close with her mother and the rest of her family. Hopefully they’ll all be able to pull it together and make it work.