Judge Rules Wealthy Child Rapist Wouldn't Fare Well In Prison; No (1 Viewer)

[Zow]

I give up. Continue with the outrage!

Please don't. The poor guy needs someone to defend him.

I'm not defending him.

 

[Lutherman2112]

Civil Suit Against Robert H. Richards IV

ETA: sexually graphicdescritions/terminology/triggers, may not be SFW

 

[Clifford]

Sorry I disagree. I think this woman's decision represents an extreme towards favoring the criminal and away from protecting kids. I don't think her giving this lowlife 5 or 10 years instead of what he could have gotten from other degrees of rape would make people think she blows up plea deals. 5 or 10 for this creep is being very kind. No jailtime is basically admitting a bribe.

Blowing up plea deals wouldn't make people think she blows up plea deals? If you start with that premise I guess there's not much room for discussion.

My premise is giving a child rapist who should spend the rest of his life in prison a 5 or 10 year sentence is not blowing up a plea deal.

 

[Clifford]

Again, the admission was because of the plea deal. No plea deal, no admission. You can't argue for a sentence based on an admission you wouldn't have gotten without the plea. And once you have the plea the sentence is generally gonna be in accordance with the parameters of the conviction. You don't sentence a guy for first degree murder if he only cops to owning an unregistered handgun. It's all related.

but if the conviction says he can get up to 15 years for the handgun conviction, you don't just let him walk either...

The guidelines say 0-2.5 years. I don't know the details of their negotiations and relationships, but generally speaking judges would effectively kill a prosecutor's ability to negotiate pleas if they started ignoring sentencing guidelines in order to keep the press and strangers on the internet off their backs.

Or, you know, worry about protecting children from getting raped instead of worried about how a DuPont heir would fare in prison.

I consider it protecting children if we avoid situations where rapists from getting off scot-free because a prosecutor has to try a risky case due to their authority to cut plea deals being undermined by judges. Don't you? Would you rather have ten guys convicted as sex offenders and subject to significant disclosure requirements and oversight and behavioral restrictions, or nine guys in prison as sex offenders and one guy who was charged with a sex offense who is free to move next door to you without notifying you and hang out in your kids' playground all day staring down the kids and there's nothing you can do about it because he was found not guilty of any crime? Personally I prefer the former.

Do you even acknowledge that this judge has already admitted she gave the sentence not because of sentencing guidelines, and not because she feared the slippery slope effect it would cause if she didn't facilitate the plea deal with a light sentence, but because of her concern for the welfare of the rapist? Please just answer yes or no.

 

[FlapJacks]

Again, the admission was because of the plea deal. No plea deal, no admission. You can't argue for a sentence based on an admission you wouldn't have gotten without the plea. And once you have the plea the sentence is generally gonna be in accordance with the parameters of the conviction. You don't sentence a guy for first degree murder if he only cops to owning an unregistered handgun. It's all related.

but if the conviction says he can get up to 15 years for the handgun conviction, you don't just let him walk either...

The guidelines say 0-2.5 years. I don't know the details of their negotiations and relationships, but generally speaking judges would effectively kill a prosecutor's ability to negotiate pleas if they started ignoring sentencing guidelines in order to keep the press and strangers on the internet off their backs.

he can't give him 2.5 years even?

oh no... we don't want this whole system where people confess to crimes and are then free to go to fall apart over this one case....

 

[Lutherman2112]

Ah, our weekly knee-jerk sentencing outrage from people with very little knowledge of the facts, the applicable law, or most of the factors the prosecutor might have considered before offering a plea deal. A media and FFA tradition.

Oh, thank the Lord the Great Arbitar of Truth for the FFA has spoken on this issue.

 

[PatsWillWin]

Enraged might be strong but I can tell that it truly irks you when people comment on what you believe is your turf. I think you're just trying to deny it because you are now a little embarrassed.

It's cute how you guys circle up to defend each other though. Don't you all have your own echo chamber now?

"Truly irks" is a bit strong. Mildly annoying to somewhat comical is probably more accurately descriptive. Especially when the underlying message being offered isn't "you guys are completely wrong" but more of a cautious "hey, pump the brakes, in my personal experience the media often gets these things wrong and, here, let me frame the issue more accurately for you…". To have that then received by "you stupid lawyers don't have common sense" is a bit

Let me somewhat paint a picture for you. Imagine you went to school for seven years to do a particular thing. Let's say you studied medicine to become a foot doctor. You learned all sorts of good medicine and doctor stuff, including plenty about being a foot doctor. In fact, while in medical school, you worked part-time as a foot doctor. You then got out and became a foot doctor; working on feet daily, attended seminars on the practice, etc. You don't think you're the wisest foot doctor on the planet, but it's what you do and what you know. You then, for recreational purposes, wander onto a message board. Somewhat to your surprise you see several people talking about a particular foot problem. "Hey, I know all about that stuff," you think to yourself. "Let me see if I can provide some insight." You wander in and see people who are just as smart as you but don't have your training and experience. You see them using a non-scholarly source as a basis for their discussion, one you have personally experienced to usually portray the nuance of foot medicine distinctly wrong from the truth. You offer this caution and then try to add some points and descriptions to enhance the discussion. This is then met with the claim you lack common sense and ruin foot medicine. At that point, I imagine, you'd be slightly annoyed.

It's ####ed up that the guy assaulted/raped his daughter and isn't going to spend any time in jail for it. A law degree is not needed to hold this opinion.

 

[PatsWillWin]

Didn't the lawyers start their own thread for exactly this reason? Feel free to go there and laugh at all of the plebs who don't know or care what a class C felony means.

 

[fatness]

Du Pont heir never completed court-ordered treatment after conviction for daughter’s rape

An heir to the DuPont chemical fortune who was convicted of raping his daughter did not attend the court-mandated sex offender treatment program that enabled him to avoid jail time. Delaware online reported Thursday that Robert H. Richards IV was ordered in February of 2009 to report to an inpatient psychiatric program at MacLean Hospital in Massachusetts, but court records show that he never arrived at the clinic.

Jurden made the recommendation in part, she said, because the wealthy Richards — who is the great grandson of the industrialist family’s patriarch, Irenée du Pont and the son of Robert H. Richards III, a wealthy attorney — purportedly “would not fare well” in prison. She agreed that he be given probation on the condition that he attend the intensive program in Boston.

A transcript of the 2009 sentencing hearing shows that prosecutor Renee Hrivnak only agreed to the probation sentence if Richards checked into the Boston clinic.

“If the court is not inclined to send him to the Massachusetts program, then the state would be asking for some period of jail that the court would feel would be appropriate under the circumstances,” Hrivnak said.

Even as she passed the sentence, Jurden expressed misgivings about its leniency.

“I have concerns about this, because arguably you should be in Level V for what you did, and I hope you understand the gravity of what you did,” she said to Richards.

Richards’ then-attorney, Eugene J. Maurer Jr., revealed to the court on Tuesday that Richards never fulfilled the requirements of his sentence. There were issues with transferring Richards’ probation from Delaware to Massachusetts, he said. Furthermore, he claimed, the MacLean facility wasn’t secure enough to protect an inmate like Richards.

 

[Homer J Simpson]

Anybody shank this guy in his kitchen yet?

 

[fatness]

More details.

Richards' sentencing hearing had initially been set for August 2008, was continued to December and finally held on Feb. 6, 2009.

It was the 12th matter on Jurden's calendar that day, and began with Maurer telling Jurden that Richards had completed six weeks of treatment at the Keystone Center near Chester, Pa., which the lawyer said had cost "an inordinately large amount of money.'' The facility offers residential treatment for various addictions, including sexual compulsion, according to its website.

Maurer said during the hearing that he had not yet been able to obtain a copy of Richards' "discharge summary'' for Jurden to review.

During the hearing, Hrivnak said the Massachusetts hospital – which "should be a five- to six-month program" – would offer Richards a therapy option that might help in the future and would protect his daughter.

"I would feel more comfortable if he had the intensive psychiatric treatment that will address whatever issues he has, in addition to the sexual issues, and hopefully protect her and other children in the future," the prosecutor said.

But Hrivnak made clear to the judge that she was proposing only two options for Richards' sentence: treatment at the Boston clinic followed by a "lengthy period of probation," or prison time.

After Richards spoke at the hearing, Jurden gave him eight years in prison but suspended all eight years for Level II probation, which requires monthly visits with a probation officer. She ordered him held at Level III, which requires at least weekly contact with a probation officer, until he was sent to McLean.

"The only reason I'm doing this is so that probation can be transferred, and I don't know what we're going to do if Massachusetts won't accept it," Jurden said. She asked the prosecutor and Maurer to inform her "if there's a problem with any of this."

"Probation can be transferred to Massachusetts in order for you to complete this Massachusetts program and you will successfully complete that. That is a condition of you being out on probation,'' she told Richards. "You understand that?''

Richards said yes and Jurden said after he returns from Massachusetts, probation officials will decide whether he needed additional treatment or group therapy. "If they do decide you do, then you'll do that,'' she said.

Before adjourning, she stressed, "The intent of the court is that you get to Massachusetts and you successfully complete that treatment as soon as possible.''

Richards never went to McLean.

 

[Binky The Doormat]

I read the article. Nothing is addressed to any real degree about the penalties for not complying and why he isn't already in jail ...in general population.

 

[Johnny Rock]

Lol at "treatment" to make his daughter safe around him. Who started that BS line of thinking? Why is America so afraid to harshly punish these sex offenders?

 

[Zow]

Lol at "treatment" to make his daughter safe around him. Who started that BS line of thinking? Why is America so afraid to harshly punish these sex offenders?

It's not.

 

[Joe Summer]

Lol at "treatment" to make his daughter safe around him. Who started that BS line of thinking? Why is America so afraid to harshly punish these sex offenders?

Denial. People want their criminals to be dumb, poor, and menacing. They don't want to think that their nice, clean-cut neighbor could be doing unspeakably evil acts in his basement.

 

[Clifford]

Matt Taibbi has a new book about how there are essentially two different justice systems in America: one for the wealthy and one for everyone else. Probably worth a read.

 

[Rove!]

Matt Taibbi has a new book about how there are essentially two different justice systems in America: one for the wealthy and one for everyone else. Probably worth a read.

true dat

 

[drummer]

chetproblems