Comments on: Judge for a day (updated)

By: The criminal justice paradox in Connecticut | a public defender

The criminal justice paradox in Connecticut | a public defender — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:51:40 +0000

[...] receive jail time. Sexual assault in a consent case with no record (like my first judge for a day hypo)? You’re looking at 12-15 years. DUI accident, but no serious injury? 3-6 [...]

By: John

John — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 11:17:33 +0000

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…”)

By: SPO

SPO — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 02:12:23 +0000

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.

By: A Voice of Sanity

A Voice of Sanity — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 18:12:53 +0000

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”?

By: Miranda

Miranda — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:10:41 +0000

Yes, it is.

By: John

John — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:03:12 +0000

Ridiculous.

By: Gideon

Gideon — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:12:52 +0000

Okay. Here’s the real sentence:

15 years, execution suspended after 12 years and 10 years probation.

By: Alec

Alec — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:03:59 +0000

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.

By: SPO

SPO — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:10:43 +0000

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.

By: Gideon

Gideon — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:59:02 +0000

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?