The one place I fault the judge was her suggestion that she wished Nassar would be raped in prison. It’s bad enough when people here say that, but it certainly shouldn’t be coming from a judge at sentencing.
The rest of her diatribe was fine.
Wait, what?
In her statement, she included this unfortunate part:
Nah, I thought Judge Aquilina was great. Did she ham it up a little? Sure she did, but emotions were high after the closing statements. I laughed and clapped at the way she theatrically tossed away Nassar’s letter, after she read some of his choice remarks. A perfect way to say, “Fuck you, guy.”
I get that a judge should remain robotic and professional, but this trial was brutal and unprecedented. Let her have a little personality and attitude.
My reaction swings the other way: because of the weightiness of this issue I felt her theatrics were a bit of a distraction.
I disagree. I like my judges to be passionate about justice.
Yes, I agree. I understand both sides of this (somewhat petty) argument, and she gets a pass from me. I kinda wish she’d held a megaphone to (either of) his perverted ear(s) while she said it all.
I think they are supposed to impartial.
It’s pretty clear she had a bias against him. Does her behavior make it easier for him to get approval for an appeal?
He pled guilty. There is nothing to appeal.
It’s not like this is the first such incident. Just that (almost) no one complains when it is a man, or when the defendant is non-white. Just read a string (on twitter, with attribution) of dozens of similar or worse statements by judges. They just weren’t high profile, and in the vast majority of cases the defendant was (presumably) poor and/or non-white.
Keep in mind, this was not a judge presiding over a jury trial (her comments would have been totally inappropriate in that arena). Nassar had pleaded guilty, and this was a sentencing hearing. It was the judge’s responsibility to determine the punishment, and Michigan law encourages victim statements to be taken into account. If her bias comes from his actions and the victim statements rather than some external factor, then it’s working the way it’s supposed to.
At my employer (a private university), administrative policy has made it almost impossible to do any sort of STEM outreach to high-school kids, or to invite them to any campus learning events unless escorted by parents. Faculty go through sexual assault awareness training and have criminal background checks performed, but even so we have completely given up on even attempting any STEM outreach with anyone under the age of 18. Too much hassle, too much paperwork, too much paranoia.
My colleagues and I just shake our heads, because (a) Jerry Sandusky would have passed our background check and training with flying colors, and (b) the only reason he got away with it so long is because the Penn State administration looked the other way and protected him. And now the story repeats with Nassar and MSU. The truly despicable characters in both stories are not just the perps, but the university administrators who knew about it for years and did nothing.
They are supposed to be impartial while trying a case. They are also human beings and thus they have opinions. As long as their opinions don’t interfere with their job duties so what?
It’s like doctors who have asshole or evil patients. Good doctors might have opinions about the people they treat, but they don’t let those opinions interfere with the delivery of medicine.
An opinion is like an asshole, and good proctologists have plenty. But they always find a way to push past them to do their job.
I’m not convinced that impartial need always be dispassionate.
Hear, hear! Well said.
I agree.
More fallout at Michigan State: MSU AD steps down.
I don’t get “impartial” on this one.
He plead guilty. He admitted the crimes. He’d already been convicted of others. There’s no “presumed innocent” here. He did it, he admitted it, then he made stupid excuses for not wanting to hear about it from his victims.
What is there to be impartial about? He sexually abused a lot of people for a very long time and admitted his guilt. This is precisely the time when the righteous anger of the state needs to come down on his head. Not a time for dispassionately issuing a sentence without comment or moral judgement.
It’s because of this:
Gymnastics victims’ champion or avenger? Nassar judge Rosemarie Aquilina stirs controversy
Don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with letting ALL the victims make statements in court. I would be OK if she sentenced the asshole to 200 years.
But I ask the legal scholars here: Can her over-the-top animosity be grounds for Nassar to challenge the sentence?
Is the sentence out of line with the crimes admitted to by the defendant? If not, then how can they argue that the sentence isn’t fair because the Judge was glad to hand it down?