Judge for a day (updated)
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Update: Answer in the comments
Here’s a fun little game. I give you a scenario, you tell me what the sentence should be.
Defendant is accused of sexually assaulting and kidnapping (as in restraining) his friend’s girlfriend. This is a classic he said/she said case. He says she consented, she says she did not. Both sides have credibility issues and there is no allegation of threat, force or violence. Absolutely no egregious facts. The defendant is acquitted of the kidnapping and convicted of the rape. The defendant has no criminal record, is in his late 20s - early 30s, is educated, held a steady job and is a family man. The maximum sentence allowable is 20 years and the minimum that must be imposed is 2 years.
What do you think is appropriate and why?
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If there’s no allegation of threat, force, or violence, how is it a sexual assault?
Pshaw. That’s not what I meant. There’s no violence or anything. She says she did not feel free to leave and he “forced” her to have sex. No injuries, no bruising, no violence.
So what’s your answer?
Is there a mandatory minimum?
Geebus man. You know the statute! It’s a Sex 1 (B felony - 2 year min/man). Now stop being difficult and tell me what you think it’s worth.
Pretrial offer was probably between 2-5, unless the case was in Waterbury, in which case it was 10. (Then 7 the first day of jury selection. 5 the second day when the State discovered their witness credibility problems when the inspector talked to her for the first time.)
If I’m an arse-covering, up for reappointment in X years, afraid of what the {insert name of his/her local paper here} or its reader forums will say about me judge…20/7/10. (Or 10 to serve, 10 Special Parole.) If not, 10/3/10. The guy’s life is over anyway, he’ll never successfully complete sex offender probation, never get a job, never find a decent place to live, and will end up serving the whole 10 a piece at a time. And be on the SOR for life.
John, I know a few sex offenders and usually it’s:
1. Usual 10 years mandatory probation and registration period. No residency restrictions in most of the Northeast, unlike what you see in Florida and down South.
2. Suspended sentence of 5-10 years, with 0-3 years to serve. The younger and more ameaneable to rehabilitation, the less time.
3. The guys who admit to their crime and acknowledge victimization are usually very successful at the treatment and with their probation. The guys who keep denying it, are the ones who violate it, and get the full suspended sentence reinstated. I always see a violation treated very seriously.
4. Many sex offenders are good at “hiding things” like their past crimes, so they can usually get a decent job and housing, as long as a thorough background check isn’t needed. As long as probation is not very tight around your neck (you are not a big risk), you often use a false ID to get housing and work, much like an illegal immigrant. Another key is I see sex offenders stay put the jurisdictions with lax probation and registry laws.
Mark in Jersey
Oh…D’oh… above I meant the younger the offender… the less time served.
Of course, if your victim is under 13, you are gonna’ get locked up for a good while even if you’re under 18…
Mark in Jersey
Mark,
There are residency restrictions in CT, they’re just not “official.” It’s left to the discretion of the probation officer. I’ve had quite a few clients who couldn’t live with their family because of a family member under age 18 in the house, or because the family home was too close to a school/day care center, etc.
As far as admission goes, the example given was a he said/she said trial - so I’m guessing the Defendant isn’t going to admit to a sex assault. The sex offender treatment people will give him a “sexual history” polygraph, which he’ll fail (so they can make more $$$ from the probationer…) and make him do the treatment, which he will fail because he doesn’t admit. (Unless he lies, which of course we can’t advise him to do.) FOr his first VOP, the court won’t want to slam him, and will still want him on probation, so he’ll do a little time, get out, and get right back on the merry-go-round.
Your fourth point is an excellent one, and shows just how ridiculous some of these registration and probation laws are! Instead of making “sex offenders” more visible, it’s sending more of them “underground.”
I might be tempted to toss the case if the credibility issues of the victim were that great. Don’t know if Ct. has a 13th juror rule . . . .
I am not insensitive to rape victims at all–I think rape is a heinous heinous crime. But in getting rid of some of the old rules (e.g., proof of resistance), we can really sweep up innocent people. As a juror, I would have a very very very difficult time convicting if, objectively speaking, the victim had credibility issues.
Well, assume he was convicted by a judge or a jury. No judgment of acquittal notwithstanding the verdict.
What’s your sentence as sentencing judge?
Probably the minimum. And I am not soft on rape. I would have zero problems with a death sentence for many rapes. I just know that consent issues can lead to wrongful convictions. And I don’t really like wrongful convictions.
Two years. Without any aggravating factors I don’t think anything else would be appropriate. There’s no evidence that he is a recidivist, there are many collateral consequences to conviction that will impact him for the rest of his life, and he has a family to support and he’s relatively young.
That was pretty easy. Of course, I would probably always impose such a sentence if the offense didn’t involve a minor, violence or threats of violence. I understand that rape is bad and worse than assault, but if the mandatory minimum is there for anything it is there for facts like this.
Okay. Here’s the real sentence:
15 years, execution suspended after 12 years and 10 years probation.
Ridiculous.
Yes, it is.
Nothing will stop the process of finding more and more reasons to lock more and more people up for more and more time and for more and more reasons, real or imagined.
Is the US mantra now, “Everyone .. but me”?
The judge must really have believed the woman. But when you have a lot of these types of cases, you are going to convict innocent people. I don’t know what the answer is, since it seems hard to require resistance or other objective proof from a societal standpoint. And requiring resistance can get women killed, see, e.g., Payne v. Tennessee (woman resisted and got killed). And then there’s the mess when drugs/alcohol are involved.
If we are going to prosecute sex crimes, innocents behind bars is a fact of life. That may sound harsh and insensitive, but it’s not meant to be that way–just an acknowledgment that we live in an imperfect world.
If I were the prosecutor in that case, I would lose a lot of sleep.
SPO,
Excellent points. And I would hope that prosecutors would lose sleep in a situation like that, but I’m afraid there are far too many who wouldn’t. “I didn’t convict him, the jury did,” would be the attitude of a lot of SA’s I’ve known. (Just like they’ve never lost a trial - “it’s the jury that found him NG…”)