Posted on 06/26/2008 6:10:48 AM PDT by .cnI redruM
When William Shakespeare wrote his ironic verse about hanging the lawyers, he hadn’t met the likes of Rep. James Fagan (D-Mass). Had he heard what State Rep. Fagan had to say for himself regarding how he would defend people accused of raping children, The Bard would have considered hanging far too kind a way to end a malicious and hateful existence.
Fagan rose to debate a bill that would have imposed long mandatory sentences on anyone convicted of raping children in The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Fagan showed the world how Democrats are the party of compassion. He spoke out on how to fix whiney, little raped children but good below.
"I'm gonna rip them apart," Fagan said of young victims during his testimony on the bill. "I'm going to make sure that the rest of their life is ruined, that when they’re 8 years old, they throw up; when they’re 12 years old, they won’t sleep; when they’re 19 years old, they’ll have nightmares and they’ll never have a relationship with anybody.” - James Fagan (May 2008)
Republican House Minority Leader Bradley Jones found himself in the pleasant position of being able to serve both morality and political expediency at the same time. He showed too much restraint by only mildly condemning the disgusting comments with which Fagan had polluted the legislative chambers. He should have beaten Fagan with rhetorical shillelagh. His comments were at least in the right direction.
“I thought his comments were over the top and unnecessary,” Massachusetts House Minority Leader Bradley Jones told FOXNews.com on Wednesday.
“I appreciate that he’s a defense attorney, and felt he had a point to make, but I think it was unnecessary,” said Jones, who supported an original version of the bill. “It was excessive.”
Jessica Lunsford’s father, Mark, has known first hand what it was like to have something like this happen to his family. His daughter, Jessica, was raped and left buried in garbage at the tender, young age of nine. He asked the obvious question.
“Why doesn’t he figure out a way to defend that child and put these kind of people away instead of trying to figure ways for defense attorneys to get around Jessica’s Law?” Lunsford told the paper. “These are very serious crimes that nobody wants to take serious. What about the rights of these children?”
There is that question of billable hours….
In fairness to defense attorneys as professionals, rape charges based primarily on the sworn testimony of the victim, are among the most ethically challenging situations that a decent and honorable lawyer can encounter. A paying client is owed a rigorous defense. The attorney can’t let sympathy with the plaintiff stand in the way of doing the job.
However, there should be at least some sense of remorse. There should be a feeling that the entire encounter was a colossal shame and a travesty. I don’t get that sense of remorse from Good Old “Rip ‘em Apart” Fagan.
He sounds like a hyper-active adolescent blasting aliens on his PlayStation III. The man seems to charge himself off of ruining young lives. Judging from Representative Fagan’s words, the man could have defended Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy and actually rooted for his clients to walk.
Fagan could have gotten totally carried away in his rhetoric. People say over the top things or type themselves beyond the pale in political debates all the time. The proper thing to do it that instance is to apologize.
From the comments of Representative Bradley Jones, I get the sense people that Fagan’s fellow legislators were neither intimidated nor impressed. They know garbage when they hear it, and do not find it anything other than gross and disgusting.
Fagan didn’t win any friends. Not for himself; not for his party; not for the cause of more careful sentencing guidelines. A performance like the one he put on in the Massachusetts will not exactly make the jury feel lenient towards his clients. I can only imagine what he would say on the floor if Massachusetts started debate on the law Bobby Jindal recently signed in Louisiana; that called for the chemical castration of child rapists.
+1
With a little further digging on this worthless excuse for a human being, I found that he had six sons. One of his sons died in February. However, he does have three grandchildren who live in Taunton, MA: Kaylie, Colton and Rylie Fagan. Seems that two of these are girls. I wonder what his opinion of those sick child rapists would be if one of his granddaughters were the victim? Or would that change his tune?
Seems to me the left always knows what is better for everyone else, but it is not applicable to them, after all, they are so much better than the rest of us “unwashed masses.”
I would propose an alternative to the mandatory jail sentence that Fagan finds so reprehensible—give the convicted offender 5 minutes alone with the vicitim’s family! Might take care of the problem, right?
EVERYONE!!!!!HERE IS HIS CONTACT INFO, CALL HIM, SEND HIM EMAILS TELLING HIM WHAT A CREEP HE HIS! CONTACT HIS ASSOCIATIONS ALSO TO GET HIM DUMPED. LETS GIVE HIM NIGHTMARES, NO SLEEP, AND NO PEACE.
General Court home page
Commonwealth of Massachusetts home page.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE
JAMES H. FAGAN
State House District Office
Room 163 26 Dean Street
State House Taunton, MA 02780
Boston, MA 02133
Telephone: 617-722-2040 508-824-7000
Facsimile: 508-823-9892
E-Mail: Rep.JamesFagan@hou.state.ma.us
Party Affiliation - DEMOCRAT
DISTRICT REPRESENTED: Third Bristol. - Consisting of precinct B of ward 1, and all precincts of wards 2, 3, 5, 7 and 8, of the city of Taunton, in the county of Bristol.
EDUCATION: Monsignor James Coyle High School; Bridgewater State College, ‘69; Suffolk University Law School, ‘73.
PROFESSION: Attorney.
ORGANIZATIONS: Massachusetts Academy of Trial Lawyers; Taunton Boys & Girls Club (Board of Directors); Taunton Little League; Taunton Youth Basketball Coach; Massachusetts Bar Foundation; Massachusetts Waterfowlers, Inc.; Babe Ruth League; High School Umpire; Bristol Ducks Unlimited; Southeastern New England Area Boys’ Clubs of America (past Chairman).
PUBLIC OFFICE: Mass. House (1993-Present).
Committees on which the legislator serves:
House Committee on Ethics, Chair
House Committee on Rules
Joint Committee on Health Care Financing
Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight
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