Re: Robert H. Richards the child molester
If he were poor, pleading insanity would mean being put in a mental hospital which is probably worse than jail, until you're found to be mentally healthy - which may never happen. To say that the guy gets a defined amount of time on probation in his mansion instead is batshit.
As for the lawyer's argument, it's all lawyerspeak and if you fell for it, it's another notch on his desk. Here are some of the various fallacies and abusive tactics he employed, by paragraph. I encourage you to study this kind of "junk argument" so you know when you're being manipulated.
If you read her remarks – and they’re only two paragraphs you lazy bastards – you’ll note that she, in essence, agrees with me but cannot bring herself to side with the judge because child molester. Hers, unfortunately, is the most nuanced and honest take out there, so you can only imagine what the others are saying.
Here he insults the reader, cites an opposing viewpoint out of context, tries to align her argument with his to make it seem like they're pals, then insults her logical abilities. He places her argument as the best-done available for the opposition - is it really? He also insults the opposition.
So in order to deconstruct, let’s start with some facts. First, the specific facts of this case and then some truisms about the criminal justice system.
The specific facts of this case
It is important to remind ourselves that this occurred in 2009 and has only come to light now because Richards’ ex-wife has sued him.
It's the wife's fault! The lawyer puts her forth and insinuates that the issue is really not that big of a deal but she wife is just using it to attack the husband in divorce proceedings to get more gold.
In 2009 Richards was charged with rape in the second degree prior to trial. On the eve of trial, the prosecutor offered a plea deal and dropped the charges to rape in the fourth degree, which apparently carries a sentencing range of zero to 2 1/2 years. Richards accepted, admitted his guilt as part of the plea and was sentenced to 8 years’ probation.
In doing so, the judge noted that Richards had significant mental health needs which were better met at a long-term sex offender treatment facility, where he would be admitted.
For how long?
So: an eve of trial change of charges by the prosecutor in this case who knows more about it than you, and a judge citing significant mental health issues based on information you don’t have.
The lawyer, as you will see, also has no other information. He's making his best guess - although he's also biased, so he may not be telling you his real best guess. In any case, we're all operating from ignorance here. But by saying "you don't know" the lawyer makes it seem like he does.
Generally agreed to information about sex assault cases of minors and the sentencing of individuals in the criminal justice system
This stuff isn't generally agreed to. He just says that even though it's not true. A wild pattern appears!
Child molesters are pretty much the worst. They’re the only category of defendants that some criminal defense lawyers will refuse to defend. The cases are awful to work on because they involve little children mostly and unsympathetic defendants.
Playing "good cop" here. Aligning himself to your point of view so that later he can introduce new arguments and make you believe you also hold those.
Prosecutors are zealous and harsh, victim advocates are annoying as fuck, judges are strict and severe because, well, who the hell wants this kind of backlash, right? Legislators have mandated absurd penalties and many of them are mandatory and automatic. In other words, in the vast majority of cases, sex offenders are spending a very, very long time in jail.
Lawyers view "zealous" as a good thing. In many states you must "zealously" work for your client - it's in your ethical guidelines to be a lawyer. Zeal and harshness are sometimes good things, but he then calls the prosecution "annoying as fuck". Yeah, it sure is annoying when a little girl doesn't like being raped. Then he frames the judges as being strict only because they fear that the public would be angry if they weren't - again, making it seem like this is no big deal and the judges just have to go through the paces.
Legislators have mandated absurd penalties and many of them are mandatory and automatic. In other words, in the vast majority of cases, sex offenders are spending a very, very long time in jail.
He complains about legislators and absurd mandatory penalties - but in this case, the penalty would have been 0-15 years jail time and the penalty was not automatic. And, we don't care about "the vast majority" of other cases. We care about what happens in this case. Following his logic, if ten other people got two years too much for robbery, then the next robber should get a lot less because of all the harsh penalties given to other robbers. Instead, the argument should be that any new penalties should be in line with the new standard of 2 years lower. Finally, screw this guy for suggesting that judges should ignore the work of publicly elected legislators in favor of an individual judge's discretion.
A lot of these cases resolve short of trial for a variety of reasons, the primary being that families don’t want their little children to take the stand and testify and relive the horror. They want to spare the kids that trauma. Another reason is that defendants want to take the shorter sentence, which would be offered up front in exchange for not putting the kids through the trauma.
Here he admits that child molesters frequently get shorter sentences because the misery they have caused is so bad, the child suing him can't bear to testify. How "annoying".
Yet another reason, of course, is that an allegation doesn’t equate to guilt. And as prosecutors and defense attorneys start to prepare in earnest for trial, they sometimes uncover information that makes a plea offer pertinent. Maybe the witness had falsely accused someone of something similar in past, or had a reputation for lying, or they learned something about the defendant that made him extremely sympathetic or the medical records don’t match the story and then a balancing starts: what number is worth the risk of a conviction or acquittal. It happens often enough that cases resolve on the eve of trial, or during jury selection, or after evidence.
Maybe the witness sometimes lies. Maybe the child molester seems like a fun guy to have a beer with. Maybe the molestation didn't leave many marks. All this weakens the position that the child was molested and makes a deal more likely. Here he again explains that child molesters often get shorter sentences. Wasn't he just trying to argue that child molesters get unfairly long and automatic sentences? Finally, he doesn't know if any of this is a factor, but he insinuates that all of them may be true - casting an undeserved shadow on this little girl as a liar.
Each case is different. And that’s another important issue here that must be understood: each case is different. The criminal justice system cannot be set up as one-size-fits-all and this applies to sentencing too. The individual sentence meted out in each case must depend on the harm alleged and the individual circumstances of the person to be punished. That is universally accepted by all. Otherwise there would be no need for minimum and maximum sentences. There would only be one sentence for each crime that would be imposed regardless of any mitigating or aggravating factors.
This paragraph is almost pointless, but then he stops thinking properly. First off, "universally accepted" is a flat out lie. Second, the circumstances of the accused makes people think about insanity, youth, etc. but in this paragraph the insinuation is that the punishment should be totally negotiable by the defense. Finally, mitigating and aggravating factors are already accounted for in the different criminal codes. He knows it, but he's trying to create a hypothetical evil legal system as a contrast to the current one which he favors. Thus any outcome of the current one, no matter how shitty, is still better than his straw-man alternative.
The next thing is probation. Sex offender probation is the worst. It’s usually considered a remarkable feat if an offender makes it through these generally very-lengthy probations without ever being re-arrested for a technical violation. When you understand how onerous these probations are, only then will you realize how amazing that is.
No, sex offender probation is not the worst. Federal prison is worse. That's why the defendant pushed for probation instead. It's easy to make your probation when you hire a personal assistant to interface with your parole officer and you stay in your mansion all day.
Finally, a lot of people accused of committing crimes like these have mental health issues. And I don’t mean ADHD. They have either been molested themselves or have severe personality disorders and have never gotten treatment or are borderline mentally retarded, if not below the threshold. That’s not to say that all of them have mental health issues, but a fair number most certainly do.
But the lawyer doesn't know what the defendant in this case has in the way of mental issues. He throws out what most people consider a minor disorder (even though it can in reality be severe) to contrast the really serious illnesses he describes. But by describing these illnesses, he insinuates that the defendant in this case cad something that serious. The lawyer knows nothing more than we do. In the end he stop short of saying all the child molesters are retarded because he probably has some clients who would be insulted by that.
Now that we’ve covered all of that – if you’re still reading – let’s move on to the problems I have with the reaction to this case. It’ll be like a follow your own adventure.
That's "choose your own adventure" jackass. Also enjoy the subtle dig at the intelligence and perseverance of the reader.
Does everyone – regardless of circumstance – convicted of such a crime deserve to go to jail?
That is the fundamental, threshold question. If your answer to this is yes, then the rest of the conversation is unnecessary. We will never agree.
He makes a valid point, says fuck off to all the people who don't agree, and then, sweeping you in closer with his arm, now that you both agree with each other on this obvious point, let's move on to manipulating you to agree with him on other points.
But just to poke a bit further, is the answer the same if you learn that the defendant is retarded with an IQ of 50? What if you learn that the defendant is paranoid schizophrenic? What if you learn that the defendant is 15 years old and the victim is 5? What if you learn that the defendant was severely raped as a child by his parents for the first 12 years of his life and hasn’t adjusted to society and doesn’t know how to interact with others?
We don't know if any of this applies to our child molester. But by bringing them up he insinuates that they do. Also, WTF is up with leniency for a late teen diddling a toddler? I sure as hell don't agree with that. And plenty of people were molested as children who do not grow up to become child molesters; similarly, not everyone who gets robbed becomes a robber.
If you’ve answered yes to any of those questions, then it was as I suspected all along. Your outrage isn’t that a child molester got to go home, it’s that this child molester did.
This argument does not follow. He's just trying to talk a circle around you, put you off balance, and tell you that your thinking is not what you thought it was. Then he attempts to shame you because you care less about other child molesters than about this wealthy one. Which isn't even true - again, because we don't know the circumstances of his mental illness, if any.
Assuming that treatment may be necessary in the right case, instead of jail, why isn’t Richards deserving of that?
Here he says "treatment". In my mind, in order to prevent people from claiming temporary insanity, you need the asylum to be a worse choice than jail. You would never want to do the asylum unless you needed treatment. But this "treatment" was an unspecified amount of time in some facility, followed by 8 years' probation where he's still eating filet mignon and spanking housemaids. Then the lawyer cleverly places you in a position to decide whether he deserves that - a position of power which you will probably enjoy very much and favor the lawyer who asked your valued opinion on the subject.
Assuming, as we must, that in some situations some defendants may deserve not to go to jail, but instead to go to a hospital or some treatment, the question then becomes why is this guy going up your ass a mile?
Insult to the reader, recapping this section of the argument, and again insinuating that our defendant suffers from the severe insanity the lawyer described above. Again, the lawyer knows nothing more than we do.
Remember what we know about this case: the charges were substituted to lesser charges by an apparently seasoned prosecutor who knows the facts of the case to a charge that carries a sentence of 0 to 2.5 years. The judge cited ‘significant mental health needs’ which would have been presented to her in a sealed confidential report that only both sides have access to. Based on that information, the judge determined that probation was appropriate. Other prosecutors interviewed in the news article didn’t seem outraged or shocked. This tells us this wasn’t out of the ordinary. It’s also worth nothing that this was 5 years ago and that he hasn’t been re-arrested for violating any conditions of his probation or for committing any new offenses.
We assume that because he's wealthy, someone will bribe the prosecutor and judge. The lawyer knows this but doesn't bring it up. Maybe he thinks that we think wealth and privilege are just things that you have not things that you wield like a poisoned knife in the dark. Secondly, the "other prosecutors" might not be in a position to make an informed statement - unlike this jackass - or were complicit in a culture of supporting your buddies at the same level. Who knows? Third, of course he hasn't violated probation. This lawyer makes that out to be a "remarkable feat" but this child molester hasn't had a problem.
On the other hand, we – you and I – don’t know squat.
What we know is that this guy is an admitted child molester, that he got a cushy plea deal because his victim would be terrorized by testifying and because his lawyer probably got a pocket psychiatrist to say he was somewhat disturbed, and an independent medical evaluation by his paid doctor cast a doubt on where this little girl's vagina was actually really all that damaged after all. We also know that he is wealthy and that he got a much lighter sentence than other, poor folks.
So while I understand the temptation to yell “CHILD MOLESTER”, we have already moved past that stage and are at a more evolved stage of this discussion.
Here the lawyer simultaneously aligns himself with the reader, shouts an insult at him, and insults the entire argument thus far as pointless because you just should have listened to him in the first place. Don't struggle so much, he insinuates. Trust me.
Now let’s take money out of the equation for a second. Imagine a poor guy named Richard Thompson who also was accused of this crime, but at the last second the prosecutor offered him a sentence with a range of 0 to 2.5 years.
We're upset because that doesn't happen very often
A different judge orders a psychiatric evaluation and determines that he has ‘significant mental health needs’.
Except that the defense attorney picks the psychiatrist, pays him, and reviews his findings.
The judge says “Mr. Thompson I have two choices: either I send you to jail where you will not get any treatment that you so desperately need or I can send you to a treatment facility where you will get treatment and that will increase the likelihood that you will not commit another crime like this again. Unfortunately, there is no facility in this state that fits the latter need. There is one out of state, but you have to pay for it yourself.”
Mr. Thompson cannot. Are you upset at this scenario? Are you upset just like Mr. Tarloff in NY who, by most accounts, deserved to go to a mental hospital instead of jail?
I agree that the judge should be able to mandate sending the guy to the asylum instead of the full normal jail time disregarding leniency due to his insanity. No choice. Why would you leave that choice up to an insane guy?
If you say “well he deserves to go to treatment, but if there’s no treatment he should go to jail”, then you haven’t made any progress at all. It isn’t an “either-or” situation. What is more appropriate? Having determined that the latter is more appropriate it is not right to send the man to jail because there are no alternatives.
Insulting the reader if the reader doesn't automatically agree with the lawyer, who is trying to make a brand-new point here. He says it's not an "either-or" but there are other alternatives to the two he gives, one of which is what he wants you to agree with and the other is clearly a poor choice.
Sadly this is reality and there are thousands of people in that situation.
But not this guy. We don't care about anyone else but this exact child molester right now. None of the other child molesters in America are affecting this one's sentencing.
Now, Mr. Richards happens to be able to answer this judge’s question in the affirmative. “Yes judge I can afford the treatment myself.” The judge says “great, because that’s what I think you need”. Off he goes2.
Assuming that both deserve treatment and one gets it because he can afford it and one doesn’t because he can’t, who’s the villain? Is it the rich guy? Or is it the system that doesn’t provide necessary services for the poor? Everyone who needs the same immediate treatment that Richards did should have access to it and judges shouldn’t have to choose between that or jail.
This is pointless sidetracking. But it does serve a function: the lawyer is aligning himself with you by making a point that you agree with. By now he's run out of things that a sensible person would agree with and must drag in points entirely unrelated to the case. Yes we should increase access to justice, yes we should reduce corruption. No, someone who is wealthy shouldn't have access to alternative sentencing that is more lenient just because he can afford it. He should be sentenced exactly like any poor person.
If you read into this that Richards got offered a sentence with 0 years as a possibility because he’s rich and the judge sentenced him to that 0 years because his money influenced her decision, then that’s a bias that you have that’s unsupported by anything that’s been reported.
That's because a reporter isn't willing to commit libel by suggesting that the prosecutor and judge took bribes. But that's a definite possibility, and to me more probable than the defendant being secretly super-insane. Note the lawyer arguing that the reader carries a specific bias, using an argument that holds no water. I don't need to be biased to suspect foul play.And even if that makes me biased, it is a good bias for me to have that encourages me to consider likely outcomes. Making the statement also appears to leave the lawyer free of bias, which is a nice little smokescreen.
The system fails thousands of people all over the country every day. They’re a mix of rapists and child molesters and drug addicts and gang bangers and murderers and drunk drivers.
Your job satisfaction must be incredible.
That one of them had the fortune to provide for himself the services that the system should, but could not, is not an indictment of him, it’s an indictment of the system.
Yes the system should provide better for child molesters to get whatever sentence would be best - but that doesn't excuse a rich man from spending money the average person doesn't have so that he could stay out of jail.
And even if you hate him and the money he represents and think he should’ve gone to jail, isn’t the idea that the only place he got treatment was outside of a penal institution make you take notice? Aren’t those thousands of mentally ill people populating our prisons worthy of your outrage?
A personal attack maligning the reader, suggesting that the reader hates the man because he's rich. The fact that he is an admitted child molester who got off with a slap on the wrist of course has nothing to do with why we hate him. There's also a clever logical leap made here: the lawyer says if you hate a rich guy claiming to be crazy who avoided jail, you should also hate poor people who are really crazy who are stuck in jail. The two are diametrically opposite in circumstances. An alternate reading might suggest that the lawyer is trying to deflect outrage away from the rich man who got off scot-free to the system that can't treat the insane. His prior paragraphs suggest this may be what he was trying to say. But that's also complete bullshit, so whatever.
So who’s the privileged one? Him? Or you, with your luxury to absent your convictions when standing by them would leave a bad taste in your mouth.
Nice insult toward the reader, reader shaming, and somehow privilege-shaming. What privilege? I didn't molest a little girl, why should I feel privileged to not be in his shoes? At this point I'm not swayed by any of his previous argumentative fluff so I'm actually standing by my convictions here: I hate to see someone lie elaborately and persuasively. All lawyers are trained to argue the substance of the matter, and if there is no substance you are wasting the court's time. Thus guy didn't care and just wasted our time.
This moral convenience is why it isn’t hard to understand the failure of the nomination of Debo Adegbile.
Adegbile was nominated for Asisstant Atty General. His nomination was not accepted. Not sure what that has to do with this case specifically - it appears that the lawyer has a grudge because, effectively, his political choice was not made. It's like Ron Paul supporters pissing and moaning after losing, and it looks very unprofessional here in the place of a real conclusion paragraph.
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