San Jose man faces life sentence for attacking man suspected of molesting his stepdaughter

http://www.mercurynews.com ^ | 07/16/2011 | By Tracey Kaplan

[Maelstorm]

A San Jose man is facing a maximum of life in prison for something many fathers would be tempted to do -- badly beating a Thanksgiving weekend houseguest who molested his 8-year-old stepdaughter.

Surely the suspected molester, who has confessed to the sexual attack and even apologized to the child, is in worse trouble than the stepfather?

Actually, the stepfather is facing the possibility of spending more time behind bars -- perhaps his entire life.

The stiff penalty the stepfather faces for his allegedly violent reaction to what many would consider extreme provocation has lawyers debating whether he deserves leniency.

Nationwide, penalties for other fathers in high-profile cases who have beaten up -- or even killed -- men they believed molested their children range from 12 years in prison to mere probation.

The controversial Santa Clara County case follows a similar incident on the verge of trial here -- the revenge beating of a priest by a man who says the cleric molested him when he was a child.

Without condoning vigilantism, defense attorneys and some legal scholars contend the girl's stepfather deserves to be treated far more leniently -- especially because if he had killed the houseguest in a rage, the most he could get under California's perplexing sentencing scheme would be 11 years. The attack came after the 8-year-old woke up her mother at about 2 a.m., saying the family's friend had duct-taped her mouth and sexually abused her.

[Little Ray]

Not unless the prosecutor manages to stack the jury.
If I were on it, he’d walk...
The remaining issue is how impoverished is the guy going to be after paying his bail bondsman and lawyer.

[kiryandil]

It is my understanding that the molester broke the law, and was going to get punished, legally. That’s the way the system works.

You're talking about the California "legal" system, where serial rapist/murderers can videotape their crimes and still be alive 28 years later. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ng

The California "legal" system exists to milk money from the taxpayers, and to torture them if they happen to be victimized by criminals.

I can imagine the glee the prosecutor is taking in this case. It's a two-fer - he gets to put two more widgets in the tax-payer-dollar-peeling machine, AND he gets to teach the peasants who's boss.

There was NO guarantee of speed or justice from those vile little legal bureaucratic tyrants in the original case. As was pointed out, this is the same state where the mother had to off her son's rapist in court to get any justice.

If your state is Marxist, you're going to have a Marxist prison system. I imagine that in former Soviet Russia, the denizens of the legal machinery would have looked on California as a paradise, where they could live off the fat of the land after they retired from running their gulags and their kangaroo courts.

The prosecutor needs tarred and feathered. Justice delayed is justice denied.

[kiryandil]

Ok, please send me a list of which laws are deemed to be worthy to follow, and which aren’t?

The Laws wipe their @ss with the laws every day.

Ask Bill Clinton.

[kiryandil]

The Over-Criminalization of Social and Economic Conduct

Neither of you understand the legal system. The above article was published in 2003, and things have gotten worse since then.

Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent (September 1, 2009)

Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything Cato Institute (2004)

The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Law Enforcement Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice Paul Craig Roberts (2008)

The trouble with a lot of conservatives is that they don't understand how the Marxists are using their respect for the Law to build the kind of cage described in The Wild and Free Pigs of the Okefenokee Swamp

We live in a giant Kafkaesque Marxist prison state, boys. Get your minds right, because it could happen to you.

[little jeremiah]

Horrible. The molester should be killed, now, and the stepfather should be thanked.

[Elendur]

very educational links!

also interesting to note that Charles Ng wouldn’t have been around to torture and kill, if the US Marines had kept him in prison for even 3 years of his 14 year sentence.

Prisons should be made less “fun” and more of a deterent.
and felons should serve their full sentence as punishment.
instead of letting them out, to hurt more innocents.