Woman gets life sentence for 13 year old touching her breasts - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15113494

"Woman Receives Life Sentence for Forcing 13 year old Boy to touch her breasts (Actual Hearing)", studydude, April 23, 2010


This happened in the state of Nevada, USA. It is difficult to believe this could actually happen.
Basically, the Nevada legislature made a well intentioned, but poorly thought out law, and then the prosecution in Elko County is applying a literal interpretation of that law, even though the legislature would have never intended it to have such an outcome in these cases. Because of court procedure, the jury was never told what the sentence would be. The mandatory sentence was life in prison, but with eligibility to be released after 10 years. The judge seemed rather apathetic about this injustice and was just following the law.

As can be seen in the background, there was a long line of defendants waiting in the court room, and it seems like they were just trying to get the case out of the way so it would not take too long. Justice on a conveyor belt, that's what happens with an overburdened court system.

These types of horrible injustices are rare, but they do happen from time to time. A combination of poorly made laws can have unintended consequences, and who is there to stand up for justice?
The defendant was just a poor woman from a broken foster care system, no family, no friends, no one to care.


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Michelle Lyn Taylor, 34, was convicted under Nevada's "life-for-lewdness" law in November 2009 for drunkenly forcing a 13-year-old boy to touch her breast and demanding (unsuccessfully) that the boy engage in sex. Neither the judge, nor one of the original legislative sponsors of the lewdness law, felt the punishment fit the crime. Still, the existence of the mandatory minimum law forced the court to sentence Taylor to life in prison with possibility for parole in 10 years. Part of the reason the punishment was so harsh is probably because the sentencing guidelines were meant to punish men. The legislature apparently had not given much thought to situations where the perpetrator was a woman victimizing a boy. Furthermore, the legislature also appears to have assumed "lewd conduct" was synonymous with sexual intercourse. Thus, a woman allowing an underaged boy to touch her breasts was treated the same way as if a man had had sex with an underaged girl.

In the video, when you hear the public defense lawyer arguing that the sentence is unconstitutional, she is referring to the life term mandatory sentencing provision effectively giving sentencing power to the parole board. The defendant is eligible for, and probably will receive, parole before the end of the decade, but no guarantees. For example, suppose hypothetically the defendant does not have good behavior in prison. Then she could be in prison for 15 or 20 years, perhaps even longer. All just for her original crime plus just not having good behavior. Parole could be withheld for reasons rather trivial. It is not surprising why the defense lawyer was so outraged.

http://jonathanturley.org/2010/06/15/ne ... er-breast/
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Just a silly thought here but I wonder what would happen if a man made a little girl touch his breasts... :lol:
#15113515
Those who handed out the verdict together with those who invented such absurd and abusive laws should be summarily executed!

This is what modern totalitarianism looks like - it is the product of an insidious combination of democracy, paranoia and stupidity of the general population - all of them exploited by various actors from unscrupulous politicians to various political/ideological activists/groups.

It won't last for very long. There's far too much legislation -> too many restrictions, which only grow by the day, and the penalties/punishments are getting harsher and harsher. Far too many victimless or trivial deeds(as is this one) got criminalized and the punishments are crazily harsh.

A radical new paradigm is necessary when it comes to penal matters, one that only punishes malum in se kind of deeds when it comes to deeds that involve individuals against one another.

Objectivity and rigorous verifiability of
- physical harm
- financial/material losses
- physical deprivation of liberty
should be paramount in assessing whether a crime has taken place.

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