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Post by HMARK Center on May 6, 2014 9:13:37 GMT -5
So what's your opinion on this sentence Kuni? www.youtube.com/watch?v=qileP4bAzekWell they are flaunting their money by having a cash register at the front of their stores like that. Let's not forget, the Slushie machine is a total whore, sitting there churning like that. Serious note, I've seen this before, and I was in the court room. I was with the Sheriff's office at the time, and was going to be giving testimony in an upcoming trial, and the case before us was a guy being sentenced for three rapes. The judge said, in open court, that the rapist had had a traumatic childhood and hard life, and so sentenced him to probation. For THREE violent felonies. I had to get up and go outside, because screaming, "Are you f***ing high you inept son of a bitch?" (my exact words when I got outside) would have landed me in jail and cost me my job. Ugh. I mean, I understand and actually appreciate when there are attempts to take into consideration the backgrounds of criminals, and attempts to rehabilitate them; simple punishment does very little to deter future crime, and rehabilitation is usually more productive. But it seems like (anecdotal, I realize) the only time you hear about these light sentences is when rape is the crime in question, because a judge or whomever can point to the victim as somehow bringing it on his/herself. Plus, a judge should know better when it comes to the meaning behind certain sentences; a sentence can be seen as an indication of a society's views on certain crimes, and how that society reacts to them. When rape leads to probation, it reinforces the idea that it's "not a big deal", which is the kind of thing that enables or emboldens those who might commit rape. |
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Post by angryfan on May 6, 2014 13:25:05 GMT -5
I know that no two cases are the same, and that no two people are. I deal with people every day who are having criminal competency tested, and I see rape cases less frequently than I do burglary. In the past I've worked with convicted sex offenders (and the judges who sentence them) and saw every excuse one could imagine.
What I've noticed is that while there's a difference between "We were dating, I turned 18, it was consensual" and "Me want sex, me take sex", many judges and juries still have trouble with that distinction. I can't rationalize why they do, I just know that they do.
I don't even know if I'd call it a rape culture as I would a very disjointed view of sex. If a female teacher can have sex with a middle schooler and be seen as somehow equally victimized by it, then that's a skewed view. It's also a totally different level from some sociopath for whom rape is about power and control as much as it is sex.
The cases may all require different handling, but this case (while they were both students) isn't about consent, it's about "I didn't feel like stopping". That equates force and either a lack of impulse control or some overt narcissism. The light sentence and judge justifying the act and blaming the victim serves only one thing. It can (and I've seen it many times) plant a seed in the rapists' mind that he is justified in his action, and that he has legal permission to act similarly again.
Point blank, if he gets popped for going to far and raping a woman after a night of drinking, this judge's words and decision WILL be the centerpiece of his defense. Not maybe, not could be, it's an absolute.
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