Short story (more info here): man accused of molesting a girl and possessing child pornography is released on bail, tracks down the girl apparently intending to kidnap her, kidnapping fails, man kills girl and her mother, then kills self.
The sequence of events leading up to this seems to be:
Man is arrested and indicted.
Man is released on $250K bail
Man has case conference with prosecution who tells him that even with a plea deal he will spend 39 years behind bars.
Man somehow finds out location of girl (girl & mother moved 400 miles away to get away from him).
(Channeling Nancy Grace?) How did this man find out where this girl was? Did someone in the prosecutor’s office leak the information? Why would they do that?
Back to me: why did this man have to be let out on bail? Is it because he had no criminal record?
I guess the part that gets me the most is this case conference. Hey, I have an idea, let’s call this man into a meeting and tell him that his life is over as he knows it and he will spend the rest of his (probably short) life doing hard time as a child molestor. Then, let’s let him walk out of the meeting and do whatever he wants, while we go on about our business, because there isn’t any possible bad outcome. Maybe he’ll do everyone a favor and kill himself.
Is this the way things had to be done? Was the only weak point on the part of law enforcement the fact that he found out where she was?
Roddy
The guy is responsible for his own actions. He’s got a right to a reasonable bond, and $250K is significant. Plea negotiations are just that…negotiations. If he doesn’t like the deal he is offered, he can go to trial.
And finding someone that isn’t extremely careful about not being found isn’t difficult. There’s a new invention that’s really helpful with that sort of thing. You may have heard of it. I think it is called the internet.
Both the Federal system and many State systems provide that for serious violent crimes bail can be denied if, in the opinion of the court, the individual cannot be granted bail without being a danger to the community. 18 U.S.C. § 3142
I think that is a reasonable standard, but the provisions on basing bail decisions on the individual’s danger to the community did not come about prior to 1994. Prior to that time it was generally the case at both the Federal level and in most States that bail was a presumed right unless the person stood accused of a capital crime or there was evidence to suggest they were a flight risk. Without knowing the bail statutes in the State where this happened I can’t say whether or not the judge erred, but there does not appear to be a history of violence in the form of prior convictions and since he was just accused and not convicted of the molestation and various other crimes it might not be unreasonable he was granted bail.
It’s definitely true that he was the one who pulled the trigger and he is responsible for his actions, not the judge.
Bails should be denied as a rule for accused murderers and rapists. This is horrific. And even if they’ree released they should have a couple of cops following him around.
I don’t think the law in most jurisdictions would support denying bail (remembering that an accusation is not the same as a conviction) unless the state can show some evidence that there is at least some risk. Since the victim was no longer in the area and this was a first offense, there would probably have been a large burden of evidence required to deny bail.
And I don’t think most municipal budgets will stretch to having a couple of cops following around every accused killer or rapist who is out on bail.
Back to my OP: it just seems to me that the prosecutor in this case lit a time bomb and then let it walk out the door to do whatever he wanted. I just wonder if there wasn’t a better way to handle it.
Roddy
How do you think the prosecutor should have handled it? Refused to talk to the accused about a possible sentence range? As a general rule, prosecutors have to advise the accused of the jeopardy they’re facing, so the accused can determine how to conduct their defence.
What did Oakminster do? I see a microscopic amount of sarcasm in his comment about the internet, nothing to get up in arms about IMHO, and nothing at all that resembles a personal swipe.
But he wasn’t convicted, when the judge made that call, he was only accused.
If you’re erroneously accused of murder, or rape, would you expect, with no previous record, to be released on bail, or not? You could be months and months away from trial, better build a lot more jails, I guess.
Easy to say, after the fact, this is what should have been done.
First, he was charged with child molestation and possession of child pornography, not for murder and/or rape. (The attempted kidnapping and the murders came just before his suicide.) On the evidence available to the judge at the time he was indicted and arraigned, what grounds do you adduce for denying bail? And do you grasp the difference between “presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law” and “accused of horrific crimes in a newspaper/TV report which may not even be properly fact-checked”? There’s a reason we require a high standard of proof before depriving someone of his freedom; for a fairly recent example of why, google “Mike Nifong”.
So you agree that giving him bail was the right thing to do since he wasn’t accused or charged with murder or rape. Did you even read the details of the case? Before you expand your ‘no bail rule’ to those accused of child molestation, think about how many men (and women) going through a custody battle for their children end up accused of molestation. There are false accusations of rape too, but hey, let’s lock up everyone pending their trial. There is a presumption of innocence and a trial process to determine guilt, an accusation or a charge just isn’t good enough which is why bail exists.
Honestly, I don’t know. But I think if I were that prosecutor who had had that discussion, I would be having ugly second thoughts about what happened, and maybe trying to think of a better approach for the future.
Roddy
What connection, at all, does the prosecutor have to what happened? How can anyone, even in grief-induced delusion, attach any blame at all on him? I just don’t see it.