[This Article Of Mine Below Is A Customized Re-post From My Steemit Channel.]
If you read my previous Hive-Blog article titled “Idaho Wisely Rejects Underage Marriage Bill,” you will probably remember a true story I described therein about a 15-year-old girl who got locked up on contempt-of-court charges back in 1986 in Connecticut inasmuch as she refused to testify against her 28-year-old boyfriend in a frivolous and malicious statutory-rape trial. Eventually, the public at large protested the action, and the judge felt obligated to release the girl from lock-up; and he threw out all the criminal charges against her 28-year-old boyfriend.
Conventional wisdom holds that the criminal justice system does not have the right to treat someone as both a victim and a criminal at the same time. At the end of the day, the prosecutor and the judge assigned to the above-described matter couldn’t have cared less about the above-described young girl, and the criminal justice system was only looking to have its cake and eat it too. The sad reality of it all is that the American criminal justice system continues to engage in this same double standard to this very day.
In the 1990s, according to an article in Marie Claire magazine, a Nikki Prescott fell into similar circumstances as the above-described 15-year-old girl; and after she told the police that she was not going to incriminate her 19-year-old boyfriend, Frank Rodriguez, they threatened that they would arrest her and lock her up if she refused to answer their questions. Hmmm. I would think that such actions on the part of the police would constitute duress, but, hey, the men in blue have been getting away with a whole myriad of injustices throughout the decades here in the land of milk and honey. To make a long story short, Nikki Prescott and her current husband, Frank Rodriguez, both had to endure the indignities of Mr. Rodriguez needlessly being on the sex-offender registry for over 15 years until a new law allowed for him to seek to get his information removed from it finally. The article does not report whether or not he was successful at doing so, but, in my humble opinion, he and his wife should never have been put through that situation in the first place.
A. Do Not Trust The American Press Or The American Media
The other day I was surfing around on the Internet, and I stumbled across an article about a 49-year-old schoolteacher named Stacey Dean Rambold who had a forbidden sexual relationship with a 14-year-old female student named Cherice Morales in Montana back in 2008. The author of that article is Timothy Geigner, and I have to complain that he did not act responsibly in piecing together that same article. Like so many other irresponsible journalists in the American press and the media, Mr. Geigner misrepresented the story as one about a forcible rape against a young student and he went so far as to blame Mr. Rambold for the young girl’s eventual suicide based upon misinformation therein. He made the judge in that matter, Judge G. Todd Baugh, look like a corrupt public official merely for only having Mr. Rambold serve 30 days behind bars for his confrontation with the law, when there was really more to this story than what met the eye. Other American journalists have mirrored Mr. Geigner’s professional misconduct in this same manner.
Now, before I proceed with my Hive-Blog article here, let me clarify a couple of points. In no way do I ever encourage a 49-year-old schoolteacher to have a sizzling affair with his 14-year-old female student. I strongly believe that a schoolteacher should set appropriate boundaries between himself and his students. However, I did find certain characteristics about this particular situation that brought to mind a situation involving a schoolteacher of mine back in high school. His name was Mr. Greer, and I described that same situation in my Hive-Blog article titled “American Legislators Are Now Putting Age Limits On Legalizing Love.” In other words, Mr. Rambold may not be the next Tony Danza, but he is not the next Jesse Temmendequas either despite what any self-proclaimed child advocate or self-appointed pedo-expert may have to say about him.
Furthermore, I realize that Montana has acquired a reputation for irregularities in decisions that judges hand down from the bench. For example, not too long ago two 17-year-old boys were accused of forcibly raping a 15-year-old girl in that state jurisdiction. The judge in that matter ultimately acquitted them based upon his determination that the young girl had consented to the sexual encounter. However, that judge made a very serious error in his decision, because the statutory age of consent in Montana was 16 years old at the time and there was no Romeo-and-Juliet provision in that same law that would have allowed the defendants to use consent as a defense by virtue of the fact that they were close to the young girl in age difference. Anyhow, unlike the two underage boys, the scenario involving Mr. Rambold did not involve any force or coercion.
Putting it sarcastically, the comments section to Mr. Geigner’s article was a real joy to read. One of the people who commented therein complained that Mr. Rambold was old enough to be the late Cherice Morales’s grandfather. Duhhhh! I’ve never met a 49-year-old man who had a 14-year-old granddaughter. I’m not claiming that they do not exist, but they are not very common. I’ve known men of 49 years of age to have teenage kids, but most men that age I’ve known have small children under 11 years old. Therefore, I have to ask from what parallel universe is that self-styled commenter. It did not really support his argument against the clandestine relationship.
It’s interesting how self-proclaimed child advocates and self-appointed pedo-experts will argue that age is not just a number and that such an assertion should never be entertained. However, at the same time, they insist that a violation of the statutory age of consent should be treated as one cold mathematical equation with no exceptions under any circumstances. This same upside down school of thought of theirs causes more harm than good to our society in ways that I will point out further on herein. It shows you how hypocritical and destructive these individuals are. Then again, they are well aware of how fearful our society is about the status quo ever being disturbed for any reason.
The comments section to Mr. Geigner’s article was replete with arguments over whether or not “statutory rape” was an actual form of rape or merely a legal construct. Here is my response to those same arguments. Forcible rape is a violent act of sexual brutality against an individual, whereas “statutory rape” is merely a legal construct that is created in accordance to the societal norms of a given culture. How do I know? Allow me to show you how inconsistently and unfairly statutory-rape laws work in our nation with a single example.
An online legal forum revealed that if a minor below the statutory age of consent here in our nation forcibly rapes an adult, that adult can be charged with statutory rape despite that the violent sexual act was perpetrated against their will. Therein it states:
When an adult is raped by a juvenile, the offense of statutory rape imposes criminal liability on the adult for the same intercourse by which the adult is a victim of rape. In this way, the offense of statutory rape criminalizes being raped; it criminalizes being the victim of rape. It criminalizes the failure to prevent or resist being raped by a juvenile. And neither defenses specific to statutory rape nor defenses of general application satisfactorily preclude liability.
Most intelligent and reasonable people would at least question the integrity and the fairness of the statutory-rape laws in our nation after reading the above quote. The above-described online legal forum even included a description from this one 20-something-year-old woman of an ordeal that she experienced that made her a convicted sex offender, even though the 14-year-old boy with whom she was accused of having sexual intercourse was the one who victimized her. In any event, at the end of the day, “statutory rape” is nothing more than a legal construct, because it allows for law-enforcement officials to engage in despotic conduct in the manner described above.
After reading Mr. Geigner’s above-described article and plowing through all of the intellectually bankrupt rhetoric and pedophile-panic propaganda from self-proclaimed child advocates and self-appointed pedo-experts in the article’s comments section, I came across this one comment from a gentleman going by the username of BillingsGuy who accurately described what really happened between 2008 and 2013 regarding the situation with Mr. Rambold. Therein BillingsGuy stated:
Ok so I need to fill people in on some info about this. I'm from Billings, where this story takes place.
First of all people, he did NOT rape the girl. He was convicted of *statutory* rape, and while I don't personally condone what he did, you need to understand this was not a matter of sexual assault.
Second, the girl did not kill herself because of the relationship. The Prosecution had a weak case and put her under enormous pressure to take the stand and testify. Even though she was not named, everyone at her school knew who she was and she was subjected to a lot of ridicule. Because the other kids knew d--- well she was nailing her teacher.
The last point people are missing is this was not the initial sentencing. He was sentenced some time ago, and while I personally think he got off easy, there was no outcry at that time. This sentencing was because he violated the terms of his plea bargain, and the public outrage is because people have short memories and the local media has made sure to only use the word "rape", as opposed to a more accurate phrase such as "sex with a minor".
Now just for the record, I personally think the judge should have thrown the book at him for not complying with his initial sentence. And this isn't the first time this guy has run his mouth off and made an idiot out of himself. But people are really making a lot more out of it than they should. As far as I'm concerned, the only one who victimized the girl was the Prosecuting attorney.
Billings is a pretty small town, barely over 100k in population, and local politics runs through this story in ways which are not obvious to people who aren't from here.
In a nutshell, the mainstream press and the mainstream media here in our nation misreported the story and gave it their own Puritanical slant to depict Mr. Rambold inaccurately as a violent and dangerous serial child rapist, when, in fact, he did not forcibly rape the late Cherice Morales and she was beyond her pre-pubescent childhood years. The news clip in the YouTube video below is a sample of some of the irresponsible sensationalism that the press and the media here in our nation injected into this story in misreporting it throughout the world.
CNN Interviews Auliea Hanlon, Who Is The Late Cherice Morales’s Mother
One only has to take one look at Auliea Hanson, the mother of the late Cherice Morales, in that news clip and it is not difficult to see that she was not in a right state of mind to be delivering such an interview with the press or the media. She had recently lost her teenage daughter to suicide. The female news reporter asked her leading questions rather than allowing for her to say what she wanted to say on her own accord. Moreover, the interview was conducted before six o’clock in the morning where Ms. Hanlon was, which likely made it more difficult on her to articulate her thoughts and feelings into words than it should have been inasmuch as she did not look completely awake. The protests and the demonstrations that ensued against Judge G. Todd Baugh shortly thereafter were a result of the irresponsible and inaccurate journalism by news reporters of major news agencies who covered these events back in 2013 and before then.
In that comments section of that same YouTube video, a legion of mostly self-proclaimed child advocates and self-appointed pedo-experts came out of the woodwork to have a love fest with one another and voice all their lame and cliché arguments on why they believed that Mr. Rambold was such a monster. Then again, these people were not looking for the truth but rather misinformation that they could share knee-jerk reactions on, and the press and the media here in our nation knew it and gave them exactly what they wanted. Luckily, there were a few people here and there in that same comments section who were actually able to see the light.
These predatory journalists mention nothing in their writings and in their on-camera interviews about the fact that the criminal justice system there in Montana terrorized the late Cherice Morales into participating in their witch hunt against Mr. Rambold despite that she did not want him to go to prison and she was even in love with him and vice versa. In that sense, they all dishonored the late Ms. Morales’s memory and they misused her mother to bolster their own ratings and profits.
B. Americans Have Lost Faith In Our Criminal Justice System
Taking everything herein into account, it can be no mystery that Black Lives Matter is likely not the only group of individuals who are seeking to defund the police across our nation. Because our nation locks up more people than any other nation in the world for even some of the stupidest reasons, it can be no surprise that this day would eventually come that we all would be faced with the possibility that the masses would turn against the criminal justice system and attempt to shut it down as much as they could do so.
In these turbulent times in wake of both the brutal murder of George Floyd and the COVID-19 epidemic throughout the world, human-rights activists have been placing an enormous amount of pressure on elected officials to empty out all the jails and prisons across our nation and send every convict to live with their own families under house arrest inasmuch as they run a much greater risk of contracting the coronavirus behind bars than they do in their own residences outside of the penal system. Correction officers and jail guards are currently afraid to go to work every day inasmuch as they run a much greater risk of contracting the coronavirus than individuals in any other profession, and their superiors have been feeling the pressure to contact elected officials to ask them to shut down all of their facilities and send everyone in them home. African Americans and other minorities are outraged over ongoing cases of police brutality throughout our country ever since and even before the George Floyd tragedy, and now they are seeking to defund the police here in the land of milk and honey.
Considering how oppressive and manipulative law-enforcement officials have become in enforcing the statutory-age-of-consent laws in state jurisdictions throughout our nation and considering how out of control sex-offender registries have become, somehow I do not believe that Black Lives Matter activists and other human-rights organizations are going to have a very difficult time finding others outside their own political circles who will back up their efforts to defund the police and shut down each and every penal facility throughout the United States of America. Regardless of their skin color, ethnicity and socioeconomic status, many Americans are simply fed up with the way our criminal justice system has been mismanaged through the years and many of those same Americans are eager to bring about changes in it.
How do I personally feel about defunding the police and shutting down all of our penal facilities throughout the nation? I do not believe that it would be a good idea, but, at the same time, I can understand how our nation has gotten itself to this point. People here in our nation have been wrongfully convicted and incarcerated for situations that could have otherwise been handled much more fairly and reasonably by families that were involved in them rather than involving the police like some of the situations that I have described herein. American police officers and prosecutors have stepped out of line in their roles as law-enforcement officials and, more often than not, they are never disciplined for it. Sometimes they are even promoted for their professional misconduct. Therefore, how can everyday civilians not become outraged about their transgressions?
Defunding the police and shutting down our penal facilities throughout the nation would not be a good idea, because it could cause our nation to become another South Africa and irreparable harm would ensue in all aspects of American life. I was happy when the apartheid system ended in South Africa back in the 1990s. However, what particularly bothers me about that same country nowadays is the fact that there are sections of it where the police department closes at 6:00 P.M. and does not open until 9:00 A.M. the next day. This overnight closedown of police departments in different parts of that nation give violent and dangerous criminals endless opportunities to victimize innocent people. Americans ultimately would not want this same kind of scary environment to take over our lives here in our nation.
Also, we must remember that if penal facilities throughout our nation are shut down and police departments all over the United States of America get defunded, anarchy is going to ensue everywhere throughout the nation. Once we get to that point in time, our president may go as far as declaring martial law throughout the country; and national guardsmen and guardswomen will be given the ultimate right to use deadly force on anyone who is out on the streets after the sun goes down. It has happened in both South Africa and Venezuela. It could happen here.
Emptying out all the jails and prisons here in our nation and sending inmates to live with their families under house arrest would not be financially feasible for the most part either. Human-rights activists are deluded into believing that convicts all come from upper middle class families. However, many of these convicts are from underprivileged backgrounds and actually have grown to depend on the penal system for their room and board.
Going to live with their families under house arrest may not be an option for many of these convicts, because either their families won’t take them in or their families cannot afford to take them in. Moreover, in cases in which convicts may be serving time for crimes against their family members, it may not be doable for their families to take them in under their roof inasmuch as they could be putting themselves into danger. Such a notion would be much easier said than done.
C. My Conclusion To This Topic
We all need to find a way to put safeguards into place so that law-enforcement officials do their job and do not abuse their power against harmless civilians. Educating ourselves about our laws and seeking ways to improve them in a way that is fair to everyone is one way to do so. We also need to stop having a blind faith in unprofessional and irresponsible journalists every time a sex scandal involving a teenage minor breaks in the news.
There are so many things that society does not know about their statutory-age-of-consent laws in our nation and how frivolous and malicious statutory-rape cases can harm even the most decent of individuals; and we need to stop approaching these matters with knee-jerk reactions and a mob mentality, because we are taking ourselves that many steps closer to becoming another South Africa. Our nation has already become an oppressive police state because of the way our criminal justice system has become self-serving in the ways that I described previously herein. Let’s not allow for our nation to deteriorate any further than it has. Let’s all do the right thing and speak up against the shortcomings in our criminal justice system.
This Article Is Copyright-Protected.