Are you saying that the potential danger for the convicted LEO going into jail would convince a judge not to send him there? ....Again, if there was a conviction of child molestation, then certain MINIMUM sentencing has to be followed, which are dictated by law (state law I believe). I am not aware of any state that does not have some jail time as an absolute minimum for the charges discussed here.
Matthias... Turns out it was the jury who decided the probated sentence against the recommendations of the District Attourney (see link, another ACLU site I know, but the June 17th 2001 SA Express News article it references can be found on the newspaper archives at
www.mysa.com ).
http://home.austin.rr.com/apdhallofshame/Blotter%207-01.htm Without looking it up, I dunno what the minimum sentence for indecency with a child is in Texas, probation apparently, and yes, I believe the jury can consider all factors when deciding a sentence.
What you have is a person with some poor judgement who happens to be an LEO, not the other way around.
Huh? A pretty nonsensical statement I think you would agree.
What we had here was a person whose powers of judgement did not preclude him from committing indecency with a child entrusted with a Peace Officer's shield for a period of nineteen years prior to the offense. I believe many reasonable folks would find that fact alarming.
Judging from a lot of responses in this thread, people are upset that not every last LEO in this country is a saint who never does wrong.
This also sounds like a reasonable response to me, prob'ly a lot of Cops feel the same way. The thing is, a Law Enforcement Officer going bad is an order of magnitude worse than just any Joe Blow on the street going bad, for a number of reasons.
What we see here is just a prominent and visible sign of the overall decay of our society.
Maybe, but that statement seems to presuppose the "good old days" were ALWAYS all that "good". Without intending to harp on a PC rant, a number of my elderly Hispanic neighbors might offer a different opinion. Even aside from race issues, police corruption is nothing new.
Agreed that overall America DOES seem to be going to Heck in a handbasket . I also think that our police today are subject to a greater degree of legal and political scrutiny than ever before, which is probably a good thing for all of us. The same technology that threatens to invade our privacy can also gather information about them. GPS units in squad cars can record exacting minutae on an Officer's every move, and the routine videotaping of traffic stops can also serve to indict the police.
An average citizen like myself can nowadays turn on his home computer and find an unprecendented amount of specific information relating to police conduct from all over the nation, a thing that would have been all but impossible before the internet.
What would you do to improve the situation?
Probably I would start with a close to zero tolerance policy on Cops letting other Cops slide on offences that would earn a regular citizen a citation or arrest, including the de-facto and apparently nearly ubiquitous "violate traffic laws free" policy prevalent in many areas.
Secondly I would like to see sentences subsequent to convictions imposed that were consistently comparable to or more severe than those which would be imposed on a regular non-LEO citizen for a similar offense.
I can think of a number of cases where various LEO's caught in felonies walked after a light or probated sentence. Being an LEO involves a near-sacred trust, perhaps there should be penalties imposed specifically in recognition of the breaking of that trust.
That being said, I don't claim to know all the answers any more than does the next guy.
Birdwatcher
