If evidence is murky and unreliable in a particular case, if a fair trial is impossible in a particular case, that case should be dismissed for those reasons.
An arbitrary countdown to getting-away-with-it, for any and all crimes, is absolutely perverse.
How do you distinguish between “sexual abuse” and “rape”, and what is the significance of that distinction?
Very true. I know a guy who got in trouble when he started running his mouth about an old crime, expecting the statue of limitations to save him. He found out that Canada does not have one when he ended up getting arrested.
As for the case in the OP … 15 months seems light to me.
i don’t mean to put words in the OP’s mouth, but, legally, sexual abuse can involve a multitude of unwanted (non-consensual) sexual aggression (inappropriate touching, lewd comments, etc). Rape can be a sexual assault, but not all sexual assaults are rape. If I’m remembering my Criminal Law class correctly the majority of states require an extra determination of “penetration” to classify an act as rape.
Either way, it’s disgusting and it’s a tragedy that he can’t be charged for the crime (even if the sexual assault was unwanted fondling instead of rape). There’s definitely a debate to be had about the virtue of statutes of limitations.
On the question of whether or not the judge should have considered his actions when passing down his sentence…Well, judges notoriously have great authority in sentencing. It’s a trademark of the judicial system. Ideally, they’re supposed to be objective and neutral. Even though Hastert was never convicted or even charged for sexual assault, I don’t think it’s outside the judge’s scope to consider the facts, which are that Hastert was paying his victim off because he was, in fact, guilty. That seems perfectly in line with a judge’s authority on this issue. On a side note, one of the first cases I read for my Criminal Law class was about a judge sentencing a Korean woman to community service after the woman shot and killed a young black girl who trying to pay for orange juice (at least, I think that’s what it was). And this woman had been found guilty of voluntary manslaughter by a jury! My teacher used the case, in part, to show the degree of power judges have in the sentencing process.* Overall, given what other posters have stated about the maximum penalty being 5 years, I think the judge did show restraint.
*Congress withdrew some of the discretion judges are afforded by mandating maximum/minimum sentencing, but they still have a lot of leeway between those two cutoffs.
This varies by state, but I believe rape needs to include penetration.
If you touch my pee-pee, that sexual assault, but not rape. If you stick your pee-pee up my ass, or I stick mine in your mouth, that’s rape. Penetration is the distinguishing feature.
That’s how I distinguish the two. As I said above, it varies by state. We’d have to look at what the IL laws said during the times when the acts were committed.
As a aside, and not critically important to the OP, but a tidbit to mention: it has been reported that one of Hasterts victims is the brother of Tom Cross, one time leader of the Illinois GOP. Also reportedly, Hastert attempted to get Tom Cross to write a letter of sympathy on his (Hastert’s) behalf.
ETA: this link mentions the letter request:
In my state driving 81 mph is reckless driving and a crime. If someone gets a speeding ticket which usually in practice is just punished with a fine, is it OK if a judge throws him in jail for a year because he thinks he’s guilty of some other crime that he wasn’t charged or convicted for?
I’m not a criminal lawyer, but my understanding is that IL mainly differentiates between various degrees of sexual assault. I’m not aware of there being an IL crime of “rape” - other than statutory. But, like I said, I’m no expert.
So I wondered what was the point of your distinction. Similar to a semantic difficulty I have with many discussions of campus/date “rape.” Whether Hastert was jerking the boys off, fucking them in the ass, having them give him blowjobs, or just pulling up his recliner to watch them shower, all are pretty damned reprehensible behaviors for a teacher to do to minors. Even so, I’m not sure how relevant they are to sentencing for a different (tho related) offense.
Or, does it make a difference in the sentence, whether you just have a lead foot as opposed to speeding away from a bank robbery? (Or - maybe more relevant - speeding to pay hush money to someone who knew you had robbed a bank decades ago.) Sure, the bank robber should be punished for that offense - within the SoL, but personally I’m not sure the 2 should be punished differently for the speeding offense. (On edit - poor analogy, because many offenses are punished more severely if done during the commission of or in furtherance of some other offense. Hastert’s crime - shuffling money - was not in connection with any other crime.)
The only arguably offensive conduct Hastert did that was relevant to the crime he was convicted of, was entering into an agreement to pay hush money. Like many have said, maybe we could debate whether SoL are appropriate as they exist. But they DO exist.
Depends. Does the law allow a person convicted of reckless driving to get up to a year in jail? Is the evidence in the case that he was engaged in the reckless driving because he was on his way from some other heinous act, outside of the court’s jurisdiction? Then, yes, I think it is OK, insofar as it is an appropriate exercise of judicial discretion.
Federal sentencing guidelines.
In the federal system, there is an entire formalized process to determine the notional sentence.
The question under consideration here should be, “What sentencing result do the guidelines mandate, and what factors justify the departure from those guidelines?” We do not typically say, “Ah, the maximum sentence is five years and he got only six months, so he has no room to complain.”
Guideline § 2S1.3(b)(3) sets the appropriate range as 0-6 months.
FWIW, it’s appropriate to consider uncharged other acts in aggravation when the charged crime was in furtherance of concealing the uncharged acts – as, here, it was.
As far as uncharged acts go, does the SoL factor in? In my ignorance, I’d imagine that was along the lines of hampering prosecution. But here, there was no potential prosecution to hamper.
Aside, I never am terribly proud as an attorney or gov’t employee when I seen sentencing debates in which factors are added and subtracted in a manner which would have stumped me in a math class.
Cite? Huh? Why did you need to mention that the woman was Korean? Why is the race so important? Hmmm? :dubious: I don’t believe a store clerk shot someone trying to buy something. :dubious:
You should post the title of this racist textbook.
The US Attorney didn’t want to include the aggravating factor of Obstructing (lying to the FBI) that the Probation department thought should be used. I bet the Judge thought it appropriate and that made the range higher.
Since then, allegations have included oral sex. From NBCNews (but easy to find elsewhere):
Disagree, especially when there is overwhelming evidence, in some cases the crime is so old that newer techniques such as DNA amplification were not available, and cold case reviews have secured many convictions.
In other cases we have child rape, sometimes decades old, but credible evidence has led to convictions.
Last of all, we had the Hillsborough inquiry, an incident where 96 soccer fans died as a result of police gross negligence, and after 27 years and lots of failed, and corrupted investigations and ‘inquiries’ we find the coroner’s court has returned verdicts of unlawful killing, and has upheld each and every allegation made against the South Yorkshire police force.
What this in turn means is that unlawful killing has to be investigated afresh, despite this being not murder and 27 years ago. Additionally we now expect to see the previous investigative cover ups examined with a view to possible prosecution of those trying to fix the evidence, illegal wire taps, illegal interception of mail, warrantless searches etc.
The vast majority of all this does not relate to murder, but are we suggesting that corrupt police officers should not be investigated for their behaviour over a period of 27 years?
I think not
IAN the poster who originally mentioned this case, but I think it’s a familiar reference to a famous actual case and not a made-up example in a “textbook”.
I stole a pack of gum when I was five or six (my mom would not buy it for me so I just put it in my pocket and walked out). Since I just admitted that here should I be prosecuted even though several decades have passed since then?
And if you suggest being so young changes it imagine I was 18 when I did that instead (there is still several decades between present me and my 18 year-old self).
I don’t know about this logic. If someone were the victim of sexual abuse/rape, I suspect their memory would not become murky over time WRT the abuse. Just the opposite.
If this is the reason for SoL for this particular offense, it should be changed… immdiately.
Just pursuing the wikipedia article on SoL, it appears that it is not uncommon for western countries to not have SoLs on the books.