This guy bought a child, falsely “adopted” it, began raping it at age 2, brought it around the world for others to rape it. He and his friends made copious videos. He was just sentenced.
U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker said the man sentenced Friday deserved a harsher punishment, but she didn’t want to subject jurors to such disturbing evidence.
“This is not a case that lends itself to easy understanding,” Barker said during the hearing.
I’m almost speechless. How on Earth is this permissible?
Good thing she didn’t preside at the Nuremberg Trials.
Judges typically accept pleas, though usually without comment. I don’t see how this is controversial. It’s not like he got off light; 40 years is still a long time.
You seem to be assuming that “jury sensitivity” is the reason why the judge accepted the plea deal. There is no reason to assume that, aside from sensationalistic headline writing. The judge accepted the plea deal and then made a comment about jury sensitivity.
A baby or young child may correctly be addressed as ‘it’ in English until gender is determined. (For the conversation.)
As in the classic phrase “It’s a boy”. Now that you have stated the child’s gender, he’ll have a masculine pronoun.
I suspect that the argument could be made that it would be next to impossible for a jury to render an objective and emotionally detached verdict upon being shown such videos, rather than simply deciding “HANGING’S TOO GOOD FOR HIM” right off the bat.
I’m sure it seemed like a good idea at the time - saying she was looking out for the jury, I mean - but I can almost guarantee that wasn’t the real reason. 90%+ of all criminal cases are plea bargains. They have to be, or the system would grind to a halt. Or we’d need 10 times as many judges, and juries, and courthouses, etc. Anyway, the question is why should she try this case, instead of some other one?
Given that there are plenty of cases where the prosecutors and the defendant have not reached an agreement, and that will have to be tried, and that they have reached an agreement in this case, and both sides are saying they don’t want a trial, forcing them to have a trial they don’t want seems like a poor use of limited judicial resources.
In addition, if he lives long enough to serve the full sentence, odds are close to 100% the government would continue to hold him under civil commitment statutes by tagging him as a “sexually dangerous person.”
Long story short, this plea deal ensures that this guy will never leave prison.
Yes, but gender was already determined in the article. Hence Guin asking the baby to be referred to as a “him.”
And I’ve never heard “it” used for a baby or toddler outside that particular phrasing, myself. And that phrasing is only used right at birth. Afterwards, the phrasing “he’s a boy” or “she’s a girl” seems to be preferred.
I’d always assumed such usage is as correct as using “he” for indeterminate gender–an old rule that people don’t really follow anymore.
I don’t like referring to a human being by it’s gender: the child has a name.
Why is everybody being a tool about calling a baby “it”? Boy, girl, they’re nouns. Nouns can be called “it”. If we want to get personal, let’s send it/him/her a gift. Otherwise, let’s not be so quick to imply that we are trying to depersonalize a human being. Being obnoxious about the whole thing cannot help the child. It only adds to your own feelings of self-importance.
What if a juror decides that they won’t look at pictures or videos introduced into evidence, relying on spoken descriptions from the prosecutor? Will the juror be allowed to do this or will he/she be subject to punishment, even if they made clear their objections to viewing such material before they were selected?