Based on this article, I’m starting to side with Bevin. It’s reminding me of the climate debate. That is, I would like to see some response to the so-called experts the say he’s wrong.
Whether or not this particular guy (Micah Schoettle) was railroaded in this case or not, what I find disturbing is the many other pardons. It seemed like a great big FU to the citizens of the state for not re-electing him.
Pardons are traditional at the end of a governor’s term – and most of the Republican’s more than 400 pardons were for drug offenses. But a number of the pardons were for particularly violent crimes, like a woman who gave birth in a flea market porta-potty and dumped her newborn into the toilet’s septic tank; a man who hired a hitman to murder his business partner in front of his family; a man convicted of beheading a woman and stuffing her body in a 55-gallon drum; a man convicted last year of raping a nine-year-old child; and a man convicted in a home invasion homicide whose brother hosted a fundraiser for the governor last year.
In that last case, Patrick Baker was pardoned just two years into his 19-year sentence for an incident in which he and several others impersonated law enforcement officers to gain entry to a home before shooting and killing a man inside. Two others imprisoned for the crime were not pardoned, despite prosecutors saying that Baker was the one who pulled the trigger.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/13/kentucky-matt-bevin-pardons-violent-offenders
As to the conviction of Micah Schoettle, I do find it concerning that it hinged in great part on a Daubert hearing, in which the Commonwealth presented evidence regarding the behavioral patterns of children who have been sexually abused. The hearing was the first of its kind in the Commonwealth and allowed testimony to be presented at trial regarding delayed disclosure in cases of child sexual abuse and absent any physical evidence or direct witness testimony.
The other witnesses called by the Commonwealth included school resource officer Kevin Schwartz to whom the victim had originally disclosed, the victim’s mother, and Detective Blake. The Commonwealth also called Dr. Kathi Makoroff from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and Dr. Stuart Bassman, who specializes in the psychology of sexual assault.
Prior to Bassman’s testimony, a Daubert hearing was conducted in which the Commonwealth presented evidence regarding the behavioral patterns of children who have been sexually abused. The hearing was the first of its kind in the Commonwealth and allowed testimony to be presented at trial regarding delayed disclosure in cases of child sexual abuse.
https://www.nkytribune.com/2018/08/kenton-county-man-gets-23-years-for-multiple-offenses-including-rape-sexual-assault-of-a-minor/
That sort of thing sounds perhaps bit too much to me like the McMartin Pre-school case were innocent people were wrongly imprisoned and tried on charges of child abuse and their livelihoods and lives completely ruined based solely on the psychological manipulation and coaching of the children, many if not most of whom later recanted.
But here’s also the important thing to consider - child molesters most often don’t molest in front of any witnesses and the whole “hymen not being broken” is not a plausible defense against sexual molestation or rape of children as rape and sodomy doesn’t necessitate it nor does sexual assault have to involve deep penial penetration. Boys don’t have hymens so is that to say they can’t be raped or sodomized? Good thing Jerry Sandusky didn’t use that as a defense.
IMO if Bevin wanted to defend his pardon of Schoettle, he would have been better to have brought up the Daubert hearing and questioned the psychologist testimony and the sometimes faulty “delayed disclosure” (repressed memories and such) rather than trying to play “doctor” and talk about the lack of broken hymens. To do so makes him sound, and perhaps rightly so, as an idiot.