“There is a “sexual offender” probation which makes life very difficult for those who get it.”
Registered sex offender status is different from probation. This offender will have both when he gets out of jail. Probation is a finite period of heightened scrutiny and accountability. Someone who commits another crime or violates the terms while on probation may trigger severe, swift, and automatic punishment. For example, he may have to submit to drug testing, and if the test comes back dirty, then he has to go back to jail without having to be convicted of a new offense.
The legislatures also have to consider the cost of mandatory minimums, and any bill to change the sentences has to pass the budget committee too. It is hard to get those by the budget committee.
Of course prosecutors ‘recommended that the three-sport athlete be found guilty.’ Recommended is really the wrong word. Prosecutors prosecute, and that’s what they are asking the jury/judge to do, find the accused guilty. The District Attorney’s office is ‘recommending’ a two year sentence. That doesn’t seem right either, more likely that the DA’s office charged him with crimes that would result in that sentence, or offered a plea deal that would result in that sentence. In the Stanford and CU cases, it was the sentencing report/probation departments recommending the lighter sentences, which is their specialty. The DA’s office charges what they think can be proved, not what they think is fair or just.
This is a case of a deferred judgment. The judge made this decision after hearing evidence or after a plea. It is not at all unusual to have a deferred judgment. If that happens, then it doesn’t appear on the permanent record, except that it often does. The defendant will always have to explain it.
"Becker’s attorney, Thomas Rooke, told multiple news outlets that his client would be attending college. His probation was set up so he could serve it in Ohio, where he planned to attended the University of Dayton.
But on Monday, the school took to Twitter to say that Becker would not be going to the school this year. The university was responding to several angry Twitter users who asked them about why they were letting a rapist into the college."
“having a victim say the accused doesn’t deserve jail time”
We’ve talked a lot about giving victims a voice when they want a tougher sentence. What about when they want to see a lighter one? It presents the same issues, but people may feel differently about it.
There are fewer confrontation/due process issues when a victim doesn’t state anything adversarial. I’m still of the opinion that those issues should come out at trial though (presumably at sentencing), if only so the prosecution also has a chance to question on that topic.
True plus the sentencing broohah by internet trolls is amusing. An NFL cheerleader got every other weekend work-release detention for having oral sex with a teenage boy last year and very little troll chatter. It’s only media juicy if it fits the narrative de jour. No outcry about how the judge should be tossed because after all she pled guilty to rape, no media outrage about one person taking advantage of another, no trolls exclaiming that she should be in jail for twenty years,…nothing but mild curiosity and moderate reporting. Women, for the most part, get a “pass” in the public’s mind as sexual aggressors. We know zip nada zilch about this case because of the plea…in my mind it barely warrants discussion.