The Death Penalty Exists For People Like This

from post 2

No sally, you brought it up first

Man Gets 10 Years for Impregnating Stepdaughter

By Katherine Shaver
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 4, 2005; Page B05

A Montgomery County man was sentenced to 10 years in prison yesterday for impregnating his 14-year-old stepdaughter. The girl became pregnant after a judge allowed the man to move back into the girl's home following his release from jail for sexually abusing her when she was 9 and 10.

Sidney Ray Richardson, 53, of Germantown pleaded guilty in December to a third-degree sex offense. Montgomery prosecutors said he had sex with the girl while she was drunk and while he was on probation for sexually abusing her as a child.

Richardson's case gained public attention in 2002, when he went missing after his probation officer confronted him about taking a paternity test to see whether he had fathered his stepdaughter's baby girl. He was arrested in the District in June 2004 on a fugitive warrant.

Richardson lived with his wife and stepdaughter in 2001, after Montgomery Circuit Court Judge Durke G. Thompson allowed him to move home. Richardson's wife requested the move, but his therapist and probation officer did not support it, according to court records. About 10 months later, his stepdaughter gave birth, prosecutors said.

Before moving home, Richardson served 14 months of an 18-month jail sentence after pleading guilty in February 1998 to molesting his stepdaughter. Thompson began allowing Richardson to visit the girl's home in October 1999. The judge said that he did not believe Richardson would offend again and that the family was "suffering."

Thompson was later publicly reprimanded by a state judicial disciplinary commission for speaking about Richardson's case with a Post reporter. Thompson said he didn't realize the conversation would be published.

In ordering Richardson to serve 10 years in prison yesterday, Montgomery Circuit Court Judge Louise G. Scrivener imposed the maximum sentence, exceeding nonbinding state sentencing guidelines of two to five years. Prosecutors had argued that the case was especially "horrific" because Richardson's stepdaughter "has been exposed to the vilest of crimes perpetrated against a child."

Richardson's attorney, Deputy District Public Defender Brian D. Shefferman, had asked for a five-year sentence. Richardson said little at the 10-minute hearing but said he wanted to apologize.

Richardson could face more prison time Feb. 24, when Thompson is scheduled to sentence him for violating his probation in the first case by having sex with the girl again.

Assistant state's attorneys Kathy Knight and Donna Fenton said the stepdaughter, now 18, is raising her daughter. She told authorities she approached Richardson for sex after she had been drinking at a party.

Knight said the fact that the girl said the sex was consensual had no bearing on the case because she was under the age of consent.

"The sad fact is that when someone has been sexually abused as a child over a very long time, you sexualize the child," Knight said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62268-2005Feb3.html

Had they stuck a needle in his arm the first time, this second incident would never have happened.

-Kiamat Dusk

You can't get blood from a turnip, and that's what most of these folks are.

So getting them to pay is a nice idea, but not much more.

Well said. I agree with you on every point you made here.

On that last part, though, I have a caveat emptor for you to ponder. I currently work in a women's correctional facility (I'm a nurse in the medical dept.). I know that we have one inmate who is in prison because she caught someone molesting her 18 month old grandchild and she killed that person. Let me emphasize this....she went to prison for taking matters into her own hands . While I agree that I would want to kill the perpetrator with my bare hands, unfortunately, at least in Florida (a decidedly un liberal state), you would go to prison for doing that.

That woman is a hero and an example of how justice has been lost to law in this country. That woman has my utmost respect. Siobhan, please send her my regards and if there is anything she needs/wants-letters, cards, candy, books-anything at all, let me know and I'll get them out to her.

-Kiamat Dusk

Should anyone who disagrees with you be able to do anything?



Funny, didn't change me, and yet again I'll point out that it was my sister.


Well, that's two more than most conservatives.


So if someone commits a crime against someone you don't like they're a hero?

Someone kills you, Toni-they're a criminal.
Someone kills a child molestor-they're a hero.

But that's just my opinion.

-Kiamat Dusk

Someone kills you, Kiamat - they're a murderer.
Someone kills a child molestor - they're a murderer.

I have never said anything like that. But that judge had been arrested for 6 DUI's and had never been charged, therefore, he should not have even been in that courtroom. He should have been in jail.

Kendra will officially post my rebuttals from here on out. Great minds think alike!

I have removed the rather nasty personal attack from this thread and wanted to remind everyone, that while this is a very passionate topic for many people, aggressively offensive personal attacks are not permitted against other members of the Second Life community.

I would, but I'd lose my job. I understand the sentiment, though.

I'm pretty much with Neehai. There are three reasons that I don't favor the death penalty:

1. It's horribly inefficent and it costs more for a death penalty trial and to execute them than it does to keep them in prison for life without parole.

2. Our judicial and law enforcement system is so screwed up and tainted that I have no confidence that people are not railroaded into confessions and that we have not executed innocent people.

3. It's not been proven to be a real deterrent to crime, but mostly a salve for the victims of crime.

What is the goal? Avenging the victim? Removing the offender from society? To reform them? To punish them? In most cases, I don't think we know. In some cases, it can only be to remove them from society forever.

Now - if this person goes to trial, and they find him guilty based on solid evidence (video, dna), I have no problem with seeing him sit in old sparky or take a needle.

Since we do have the death penalty, I think this is one of those cases where I'd say, we may as well use it. Put this guy down like the sick animal that he is. If we did not have a death penalty, I'd probably cheer someone who gave him a shank in the shower while he was serving his sentence.

He raped an 18 month old child.

In my eyes, that is close enough to his giving that child a death sentence.

.

I don't. I think people who want to kill people are crazy.

See, in thw one thread where we agree you have to go and get all wacko on me.

It is not okay to support vigilante justice. Sure, in this case it sounds fine but what about the guy that stops to help a child who tripped on the curb and has a trigger happy mother?

We can't let people go around acting as judge and jury. That is just stupid.

The more I think about it, the more I believe that degree-of-certainty should be used as a mitigating factor in sentencing. If evidence is compelling, but not impossible to refute, that someone convicted of raping a child is guilty... I think encarceration for life (with appeals allowable, given discovery of exculpatory evidence) is appropriate. If the case is as cut-and-dried as the monster filming himself in the act... I stand by what I said. There is no reason to allow them to live.

I'm not a believer in 'murder'. I do not think that wanton killing will be the salvation of our society. But I do believe that with some individuals, executing them is a form of self-defense. We are not talking about the poor, downtrodden, huddled masses committing crimes of necessity. We are talking about sexual predators. That term is used for them very deliberately. They seek out the weak and the helpless and they harm them in a manner that is almost unimaginably horrible, with effects ranging from permanent emotional scarring to the death of the victim. And if they are not captured, they do it again and again. If they are released or escape from prison, they do it again and again. Killing or permanently imprisoning someone who is that dangerous to society at large is not an act of vengeance, it is an act of self-defense.

In response to what I believe to have been a misconstrued statement: I do not believe that the family of the victim should be permitted to take matters into their own hands. The motivation for them to wish to do so is understandable, but vigilante justice is far too often inaccurate. Lynch mobs take on something of a lunatic group mentality, and many innocent people have died because a group decided that the wheels of justice grind too slowly. My point was that the victim's families do deserve some form of redress, and frankly I believe (as do many) that the American legal system has a tendency to lose sight of the fact that crimes committed do not occur in a vacuum, and real actual people are really, actually harmed by the perpetrators. Being told that your child being raped merits a four-year sentence and perhaps a hefty fine... I'm sorry, that is a sign of a system that no longer cares about protecting the helpless, or seeking redress for even the most terrible of wrongs.

It is one thing to care for the rights of the accused, and to ensure that their trial is a just one. Believe me, I'm all for that. It is quite another thing to tell a child's mother that the man who raped her six-year-old daughter is going to face a lesser penalty than a petty larceny repeat-offender.

I think it makes just as much sense as the state killing people, personally.

Perhaps so. But I see it as a way to permanently remove someone from society. In some ways, I would find imprisonment to be "cruel and unusual punishment". I do not find the death penalty to be cruel and unusual.

People, people, if you want longer or stiffer sentences for child molesters, you have got to take it up with the lawmakers! There is no life terms or death sentences for child molesters at this time! Just because we all find it reprehensible and unforgivable, the one thing we can all agree on, doesn't mean it is a capital offense.

Unfortunately, in a number of states it's all too usual.
It may meet the constitutional hurdles, but it is a terrible, inhumane, and ill-informed policy

Funny, when we do the same things to dogs we call it humane and sensible.

We're not talking about death for persons who are facing a terminal illness. We're talking about murdering people for the crimes they committed - two entirely different things.

What, exactly, do you think happens to dogs that maul people?

Several people on this thread have expressed a sentiment that I believe can fairly be rephrased as 'Killing other human beings is never... ever... acceptable.' I am curious... is killing in self-defense acceptable? And no, I am not drawing the same parallel I was a bit ago (executing extremely dangerous offenders to protect society), I mean private-citizen-in-peril self-defense. Killing never being acceptable under any circumstances seems, to me, to have the same logical flaw as total pacifism... if not all parties involved subscribe to the same belief, then one party is at a truly tragic disadvantage.