Sex Offenders
Sex Offenders Minimum Sentences
by Bill Bolton, 2006-03-19
Currently our society is undecided as to
what to do with sex offenders.
In my opinion, mandatory minimum sentences
are needed, but what happens with
such laws is that lawmakers want to increase
the minimums up to the level of murder.
With such long sentences, a
sex offender's starting actions can put the
offender in jail for life -- and so the
offender has no choice but to switch to
killing the victim to cover his tracks.
Based on my cursory reading,
two recent cases contrast
this difference:
1) A Killing Case -- This is the Jessica case [1]
in Florida where the offender's act started with kidnapping
which is a life sentence in Florida.
Then a rape pursued which led
to a second life sentence. At this stage,
nothing else matters for the offender, especially
the life of the victim, which he killed.
2) A Survival Case -- This is the case in
South Carolina [2] where two seventeen year old
girls were raped but escaped from
an underground room.
However, there is more to the story. The
offender in 1991 was convicted of raping
a 12-year-old and was released in 2000,
a span of 9 years.
We might assume that the South Carolina's
sentence time of 9 years is possibly
reasonable based on the fact that
nobody was murdered.
In the killing case, we do not know how many
other victims died in other rapes.
In the survival case, we know that
three victims survived, and from all
indications no one died.
Several other aspects should be noted:
A first aspect is that
trumped-up charges or exaggerations
can create incorrect sentences.
Witnesses and victims can be
unsure, due to emotions, of
what happened but be
coaxed into providing not-so-accurate
testimonies [5] and a jury can easily
be persuaded because of the general
hatred of sex offenders.
With such, an innocent person may be
sentenced for 50 years for a sentence
that does not even match the crime.
A second aspect is that
many recently created laws from
several states have so restricted
where sex offenders can live, sex
offenders actually do not have any place
to live. [3].
This could push sex offenders into
an underworld leading to drug
trafficking or worse.
A third aspect is the cost of
imprisoning an individual, let us
say 50 years as Georgia
legislature is proposing.
Such costs need to be paid for via
an escrow account by our current society,
not by our children.
This escrow account might make our legislators
whistle a different tune.
A fourth aspect is what
Ohio Judge John Connor implied when saying
" ... I don't know that prison would
have helped, except for revenge, ... ".[4]
Possibly meaning, if a man's got
the urge, he's got the urge --
and controlling it is the issue.
Controlling it requires experts and
from my non-expert position
maybe homosexuality should be made
acceptable and maybe we should
consider castration since capital
punishment is legal.
No matter what, let us not turn a sex
offender into a murderer --
for all of our sakes.
Bill Bolton
ref:
[1]`Carlie Brucia's killer, Joseph P. Smith to Die'CNN, 2006-03-15
Child's killer sentenced to die
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/03/15/taped.abduction/
[2]`Captured S.C. sex offender denied bail'AP, 2006-03-17
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11875550/
[3]`Witnesses discuss sex offender bill' AP, Doug Gross, 2006-03-18
http://www.mdjonline.com/articles/2006/03/18/268/10213310.txt
[4]`The most dangerous states for U.S. children' Bill O'Reilly, 2006-03-18, MDJ
http://www.mdjonline.com/articles/2006/03/18/94/10213303.txt
[5] `Georgia HB 1256: Eyewitness Identification Accuracy Enhancement Act' by activist Sara J. Totonchi, Southern Center for Human Rights, stotonchi@schr.org, bill starts with:
"Eyewitness error is the leading cause of mistaken convictions, and cases of mistaken convictions due to eyewitness ... "
---
