Lately on the news and in blogs I’ve been seeing a lot of crime and punishment talk that can be split into three categories:
(1) People who commit crimes and get a sentence that is too lenient for the crime .
(2) People who commit crimes and get a harsher sentence then someone else who committed a similar crime would.
(3) People CREATING rules against activity that no normal person would forbid.
(1) The biggest debates on this topic is revolve around children. Just last week I heard on the O’Reilly Factor about a judge in Hillsborough, FL who released a CONVICTED sex offender to remain free on bail while he appeals his conviction. That process could take months or even years. While the judge is TECHNICALLY with in his discretion, he has completely ignored the pleas of the prosecutors and the public at large. Richard M. Chotiner was convicted of sexual molesting a 23 year old man who functions at the mental level of a 10-year old boy. Aside from the victim, there are countless other potential victims in close vicinity of the offender’s house.The full story was printed in the St. Petersburg Times.
One of O’Reilly’s pet projects has been the promoting of “The Jessica Lundsford Act” more commonly known as “Jessica’s Law” The law is named after Jessica Lunsford, a young Florida girl who was raped and murdered in February 2005 by John Couey, a previously convicted sex offender. Public outrage over this case spurred Florida officials to introduce this legislation. Among the key provisions of the law are a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years in prison and lifetime electronic monitoring of adults convicted of lewd or lascivious acts against a victim less than 12 years old. In Florida, sexual battery or rape of a child less than twelve years old is punishable only by life imprisonment with no chance of parole.
Bill says it best on his WEBSITE:
“If you've been watching The Factor, you know we are engaged in a battle to protect young children from sexual predators. Many states don't protect children from sexual predators and allow these criminals back on the street to commit these crimes again. There have been despicable cases all across America in which girls and boys have been raped, abused, and even murdered - often by serial sex offenders who had been released by authorities after serving short prison sentences.
Here are just a few of the more egregious examples:
- In Rhode Island, 18-year-old Josh Maciorski was convicted of having sex with a 13-year-old girl, but sentenced to probation. Two years later he molested a 14-year-old girl and served just one year. Then, when he got out, Maciorski raped a 16-year-old girl. His sentence after this third strike - an unbelievable three years in prison.
- In Missouri, 19-year old Darrell Jackson pleaded guilty to repeatedly sexually abusing a little girl, beginning when she was just eight. But when Jackson came up for sentencing, a soft judge gave him four months in prison and five years probation.
- In Minnesota, Joseph Duncan stood in front of a judge, accused of molesting a young boy. Despite the fact that Duncan had previously served 16 years for raping another young boy at gunpoint, the judge released him on just $15,000 bail. Duncan promptly skipped bail and headed for Idaho, where he allegedly kidnapped, raped, and killed a 9-year old boy, molested his sister, and killed their family.”
Need I say more?
(2) Everybody has heard about the Manson murders. Everyone knows how members of the family murdered the eight month pregnant actress Sharon Tate and her house guests, then killed the LaBiancas the next night. It has been argued that the primary reason that the culprits are still in prison is because Sharon Tate was a celebrity. The case was high profile, much like the Scott Peterson case. It seems that for every Tate or Peterson case where the offenders are condemned to death twice as many get off with 10 – 15 years or less.(Manson and his crew had their death penalties commuted to life when CA repealed the death penalty and it was not reinstated when CA reinstated the death penalty)
But is this really the case? I’m thinking not so much. Sure, there are a small percentage of judges or juries who convict based on who the victim is rather then the weight of the evidence that proves the defendant really did it. Most of the time it’s combination of other factors that go into sentencing, such as motive, the amount of evidence gathered and plea bargaining. Then of course it depends on whether or not the judge wants to make an example of you or use the case to make a political statement.
Here’s some food for thought… Scott Peterson was charged with the death of his unborn son because it was deemed that the baby would have viable outside of the womb. Peterson isn’t the only one to be convicted of the murder of unborn children. So why is Dr. George Tiller “the baby killer” only being charged with 19 misdemeanors for committing late term abortions. For $5000, any woman can walk into Tiller’s clinic and he will murder the baby citing “mental anguish” on the part of the mother. Even worse then that is partial birth abortion. Why is it ok for those murders to walk free while the Scott Peterson’s of the world are in the slammer for life or on death row? Is it because it’s at the mother’s request? Then why did Susan Smith and Andrea Yates go to jail for murdering THEIR children? After all, they were murdering THEIR children.
The point isn’t that Scott Peterson or the murdering mothers should be free. What they did was reprehensible. Why is it ok for some babies to be murdered and never see justice while others do? Not only are these children viable outside the womb, in the case of partial birth abortion, they’re already half way out! Why would you kill a child that way?
(3) I was watching Fox News a couple of days ago and saw the most ridiculous story I’ve seen in a while. I don’t know WHAT is wrong with some of the people in Connecticut but they’re blooming idiots. Apparently there is a least one school in Connecticut that has banned any students from touching another student. Period. This means no good morning hugs, no high fives, no holding hands, none of that light punching that guys often do (especially athletes), NOTHING. Why you ask? Because apparently THREE boys reported being kicked in the crotch. They didn’t ever say WHY they were kicked in the crotch. It’s been my experience that if a boy gets kicked in the crotch it’s either by accident (because he’s horsing around with someone) or self defense (because he’s bothering some girl). There could be someone mean enough to just do it for funnsies, but…
So the schools solution is to try to change human nature rather then deal with each individual case and punish the perp, be it the racker or the rackee. So here we have an example of yet another ridiculous law created by the powers that be because they’re too damn lazy to deal with a small problem and somehow think a blanket ban is going to eliminate all their problems. One boy showed up to school with his arms duct taped to his sides in protest. Good for him!
So while the world isn’t perfect, the system works pretty well. Especially when liberals and the ACLU aren’t interfering on behalf of criminals instead of taking up for American citizens and the VICTIMS of the crimes. The founding fathers knew what they were doing. As usual. We need to remember that. If we haven’t already, (there are after all still some responsible parents out there) we need to teach out kids that if you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and the country at large needs to start making sure that the Paris Hiltons and Lindsay Lohens of the world are not above the law and will get punished just as harshly as the fool down the street would.
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