Last Updated on: 26th June 2015, 10:37 am
A couple of stories in a recent News of the Weird column caught my eye just now for all the wrong reasons.
A judge in California took the rare step of reducing a mandatory 25 year sentence in a child sex case involving a 3-year-old girl to 10 years because, to make a long story short, that wasn’t supposed to happen and it’s not like buddy here was purposefully trying to do violent harm to her in any sort of physical or mental way.
Rojano would normally be sentenced to a mandated 25 years to life term in prison, but Orange County Superior Court Judge M. Marc Kelly found that in this case that punishment would be unconstitutional.
Kelly agreed that under most circumstances the sentence would be appropriate.
“However, in looking at the facts of Mr. Rojano’s case, the manner in which this offense was committed is not typical of a predatory, violent brutal sodomy of a child case,” Kelly said. “Mr. Roiano did not seek out or stalk (the victim). He was playing video games and she wandered into the garage. He inexplicably became sexually aroused but did not appear to consciously intend to harm (the victim) when he sexually assaulted her.”
The defendant “almost immediately” stopped and “realized the wrongfulness of his act,” Kelly said.
“Although serious and despicable, this does not compare to a situation where a pedophilic child predator preys on an innocent child,” Kelly said. “There was no violence or callous disregard for (the victim’s) well-being.”
The judge also noted the defendant “has shown extreme remorse for his actions and has been willing to accept the consequences,” Kelly said. “Mr. Rojano was born into and raised in a dysfunctional familiar environment.”
Pointing to a doctor’s report, the judge said that while growing up the defendant suffered “a great deal of family disruption and abuse, making him an insecure, socially withdrawn, timid, and extremely immature young man with limited self-esteem.”
Oh, he lacks confidence and said he was sorry? Well then. Never mind. If America had a prison system that was worth a good fuck, a fella could get a lot of therapy for that kind of thing over 25 years.
It should also be pointed out that the good judge’s definition of “almost immediately stopped” includes taking the time to lock a door, covering her mouth so she couldn’t scream for help and getting her to fondle him instead when he realized mom was looking for her and he might not have much time. That’s like running 6 stop signs but only getting nailed for one of them because you drive a shitty car and the other 5 were oopsies. Your brakes work, but things happen, you know?
And then there’s this one out of Argentina, where a 6 year sentence for the molestation of a 6-year-old boy was cut basically in half because, to make a long story short, the kid had already been molested by dad so was previously harmed and besides, he was starting to act like a bit of a homo anyway so this here second molestation was probably a choice.
One of the judges, Horacio Piombo, defended the ruling in interviews on Monday, saying that before Mr. Tolosa molested the boy, the child had already suffered “the initiation by his father into the worst of worlds, leading him to depravation.” The judge said that as a result of that experience, the boy had showed “signs of a transvestite conduct, of conduct we had to take into account.”
You know how those 6-year-olds can be, always with their dropped Legos and gaying it up around old men.
Some days it’s really hard to have faith in humanity, especially when the problem is the part of humanity we’re supposed to be able to trust to get things like this right.