A recent news item about a convicted polygamist:
http://us.cnn.com/2007/US/law/11/20/jeffs.sentence.ap/index.html?iref=24hours
My question is, how exactly do you have a crime for which an appropriate punishment could be five years or it could be life in prison? That’s a pretty huge spread.
Potentially spending the rest of one’s life in prison for raping a child? There are I daresay some on this board who would say the guy is getting off light.
Utah Criminal code:
Gives the judge leeway for instances where a drunk frat boy has sex with a passed out drunk girl, which is still rape, and a forcible rape of a stranger. In the first case the law prohibits a slap on the wrist but allows for an appropriate life sentence in the latter case.
Is the crime “Rape” as defined in Utah Criminal Code always non-consensual, i.e., forcible, coerced, or performed on someone temporarily incapable of consenting (like the drunken girl in askeptic’s example)? If it were cases of a young adult and a willing, enthusiastic minor under the legal age of consent, I can see why setting a very low minimum would be more than acceptable. I have issues with a 14-year-old girl and a 19-year-old having sex, but not to the extent of feeling the 19-year-old needs to be locked up for decades or life.
Polygamy itself exists on different scales, too. There’s a difference between one dude who dupes two adult women into thinking he’s only marrying them, and a cult leader who brings girls up to believe that they’ll only go to heaven if they all become his wives when they’re 16.
Note: I had already posted the following on another forum regarding this case.
Since I’m against the death penalty, I’d say two life sentences for assisting in or encouraging the rape of a minor is justice. You also have to remember that Utah has a Sentencing Commission. From that link, there is this important bit of information (bolding mine):
That tells me the crimes of which Jeffs was convicted were not capital but rather first degree felonies. The judge gave him the sentence determined by the law: 5-to-life. That means that the first grab at the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole is in three years (I guess that’s owing to either “good time” or “time already served”). At that time, the Board can decide that the prisoner never be permitted parole and thus it may very well turn into two consecutive life sentences.
From here:
From the link (which I added {the link, not the title} in that quote), you get this information:
In other words, the judge cannot, by law, sentence someone convicted of a first degree felony to life. He must issue a sentence of 5-to-life. The Board will decide, in three years’ time, what Jeffs’ actual sentence will be regarding the Utah convictions.
Also in the works are an Arizona trial and a Federal trial for Jeffs.
So he won’t get a parole hearing every 2 to 5 years or so like Manson? In 2010, the board will either say, “Your sentence is over, go home” or “Sorry pal, but you get life with no parole” or some sentence in between?
The Board can decide that he will have another parole hearing in a certain number of years, to be determined by the board, they can decide that he’s good for parole now, or they can fall over themselves laughing at his first appearance and say, “You must be joking! Release you? NEVER! You’re doing the whole life sentence.”
Of course, they’ll put it in much more polite language than that but wouldn’t it be cool if they could say it the way I just wrote it?
So in other words, he’s been sentenced to (two) life terms, with the provision that he must serve a minimum of five years before even the possibility of parole is considered. That makes a lot more sense.