Montana judge defends 30-day sentence for rape

[CountDeMoney]

Say, is it possible to torment agirl without engaging in 'slut shaming'?

Yes.  Yes it is.

[Neil]

Say, is it possible to torment agirl without engaging in 'slut shaming'?

Yes.  Yes it is.

Has you use of Hot Wheels track and anal sex ever driven a girl to self-harm?

[CountDeMoney]

Has you use of Hot Wheels track and anal sex ever driven a girl to self-harm?

Not if you can deliver on the promise to hurt them more than they can hurt themselves.  It's about the selflessness of giving, you know.

[Neil]

Alright Meri.  It's good to know that you're not completely crazy.  Still, I don't think I agree with you that this guy deserved to be tortured for years.  A month of torture should be enough.

[garbon]

He sounds like a dreadful individual. If I were a relative I wouldn't let my kids near him.

[Ideologue]

A bit more on what happened. He had never been prosecuted. In an agreement, they held off for three years while he was in the treatment center. They wouldn't have charged him at all had he completed the program.

I'm not sure I understand the thinking behind that.

And it seems that Ide was correct. Slut shaming was definitely an issue, if her mother is to be believed on that.

Well, if you assume the worst about human nature, it's often true.

When I was in high school, there was a girl I knew who was having an affair with one of the teachers.  It was pretty common knowledge (it did lead to the collapse of his marriage, although I don't believe administration was ever apprised).  Afaik, no one ever gave her serious shit and she remained in the popular clique.  It's a tremendous shame about the contrary results here.

That quoted bit notes an "assault."  Blanket term, bad journalism again, or actual assault/battery?

[merithyn]

That quoted bit notes an "assault."  Blanket term, bad journalism again, or actual assault/battery?

assault legal definition of assault.
legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/assault‎
Assault. At Common Law, an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact.

[Ideologue]

Consent obviates an assault, but in any event I am not going to have a legalistic discussion over whether the fact that a 14 year old cannot consent to sexual contact makes the attempt of such contact an "assault" under the common law definition.

[merithyn]

Consent obviates an assault, but in any event I am not going to have a legalistic discussion over whether the fact that a 14 year old cannot consent to sexual contact makes the attempt of such contact an "assault" under the common law definition.

Go with "blanket term".

[Maximus]

Who cares about common law definition. It's assault under any real definition.

[Ideologue]

Fair enough.

Oh, and I should've said that except for the student-teacher relationship aspect, there was nothing criminal about the student-teacher affair I mentioned, as she was 16 when the affair began.  He was a basically alright dude.  In those cases, if I were king, I'd legislate only the loss of that job and a permanent bar to teaching in school.

I'd also order a decimation of everyone who could be proven to have made fun of a rape victim, stat or forcible alike.

Who cares about common law definition. It's assault under any real definition.

Under the everyday and the legal definition, an assault is unwanted.  That's why it's extremely poor verging on yellow journalism to describe a wanted touch as an assault, if that's what it was, because it conjures in the mind violence.  A more accurate word (in denotation and connotation) could have been chosen, but the author was either lazy and using it as a blanket term, scared of backdraft if he was "soft" on a sex offender, or indeed wanted to manipulate his audience's emotional response for his own gain...

...unless it was force or threat of force which was used during the encounter (threat of authority probably still would not move it into the ambit of an assault, although I would argue it's actually worse).  But if that is the case, that's chopping the lede up and burying it in three different counties, because that's an extremely important detail.  So either way you slice it it's still bad journalism.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Assault and statutory rape are different crimes.

Interestingly the original deal this guy received was from the prosecutor, in which case the judge deserves minimal blame for it. Prosecutors are given significant leeway to negotiate plea agreements, and while the judge ultimately has to sign off on them, they tend to defer to the agreement the prosecutor has made because otherwise it makes the whole criminal justice system more laborious in terms of processing cases.

Given the prosecutor agreed to the deferred prosecution, that to me actually makes the judge's actions more reasonable. I can see him saying, "well, you already agreed to this deferred prosecution scheme with him, and the stuff he did to get kicked out of treatment really isn't that egregious...if it was okay for him to receive a deferred prosecution before I don't see that it's in the interests of justice to change that to a 15 year prison sentence just because he committed minor rule breaking while in the treatment program."

There's also the fact the prosecution noted that because of the victim's suicide the trial would be much more difficult, what that means is "difficult to get a conviction." We also give prosecutor leeway to decide when a case is difficult to win and they have the latitude to cut deals.

I also think the suicide is mostly irrelevant. The only person who spoke in court that the relationship lead to the suicide was the mother, whose testimony an impartial judge would be unlikely to give much credence. Teenagers, aside from the elderly, have the highest suicide rate of any age group. It's impossible to know without detailed medical records or a suicide note what drove a teenager to kill themselves. What meri is doing when she creates narratives where it is "obvious" or whatever that the relationship lead to the suicide are just idle speculation and supposition, and really shouldn't be the way an impartial arbiter of the law looks at things.

[garbon]

I also think the suicide is mostly irrelevant. The only person who spoke in court that the relationship lead to the suicide was the mother, whose testimony an impartial judge would be unlikely to give much credence. Teenagers, aside from the elderly, have the highest suicide rate of any age group. It's impossible to know without detailed medical records or a suicide note what drove a teenager to kill themselves. What meri is doing when she creates narratives where it is "obvious" or whatever that the relationship lead to the suicide are just idle speculation and supposition, and really shouldn't be the way an impartial arbiter of the law looks at things.

On a serious note, her supposed sleeping around could actually be a sign of her depression.

[frunk]

I think what gets me about these discussions is the intentional confusion of terminology.  The reason this is such a serious issue is that it is fundamentally an unequal relationship.  Whether there was threat of authority or not, the person in power holds a position that requires that they not abuse it.  He did and should be punished, but I don't think it should be conflated with rape or other physical assault (unless it was shown that this occurred).  It's a serious issue, but it isn't the same thing and we muddle both by using the same term.  I don't think he's a serious risk to accost women on the street, he's a risk if you give him positions of authority over women.  It's not that it's a lesser crime (I could see arguments for more severe punishment), it's that it's different.

[garbon]

I think what gets me about these discussions is the intentional confusion of terminology.  The reason this is such a serious issue is that it is fundamentally an unequal relationship.  Whether there was threat of authority or not, the person in power holds a position that requires that they not abuse it.  He did and should be punished, but I don't think it should be conflated with rape or other physical assault (unless it was shown that this occurred).  It's a serious issue, but it isn't the same thing and we muddle both by using the same term.  I don't think he's a serious risk to accost women on the street, he's a risk if you give him positions of authority over women.  It's not that it's a lesser crime (I could see arguments for more severe punishment), it's that it's different.

Except that we've said children of the age that this girl was, cannot consent. I think then you have to call that rape.