Well that’s…disturbing.
A Montana judge has apologized for comments he made about a 14-year-old female rape victim that seemed to take the “blame the victim” approach to a new level. “I don’t know what I was thinking or trying to say,” Judge G. Todd Baugh tells the Billings Gazette. “It was just stupid and wrong.” In ordering a former high school teacher to spend just 30 days in jail for raping a student, Baugh explained on Monday that she was “older than her chronological age” and was “as much in control” as teacher Stacey Rambold. The girl committed suicide with the criminal case pending.
She was as much in control…and yet she committed suicide. That doesn’t sound much like being in control.
Apparently a 14 year old bears more responsibility for being raped than an asshole judge has for the words coming out of his mouth
I’m sure being “older than her chronological age” erased the power imbalance between the two…. Right?
Not that I know what the hell “older than her chronological age” is even supposed to mean. I was a serious kid, not having many friends my own age and spending summers with my grandma and her friends and other older relations. I knew how to make conversation with adults, and no idea about interacting with kids my own age. In some ways I was “older than my chronological age”, and I often felt it when seeing other kids and perceiving them as immature. But that didn’t actually mean I was more mature in all fields. Thank Dog no predator got me in his hands, because I was a naive, stupid little thing which I realize now when I look at those years. Saying this girl was “older than her chronological age” means shit.
And after all, she could have been a world weary kid with a ‘soul’ of a 50-year-old, he still should have kept it in his pants.
Saw a poll the other day, somewhere, where one could post one’s opposition to the Judge and the judgement. I did. Sorry, too disorganised right now to locate it.
30 days for rape&murder*? Come on! And let the perpetrator (teacher) loose on yet more school classes? Not registered as a sex criminal?
I just have to wonder what the dishonorable Baugh has been up to. Or is there some toxic substance in the Montana air?
* OK, hyperbole albeit chimp change.
milsson @3
Here’s a link to a petition for Judge Baugh to resign.
Thanks, Al D. Don’t think that was the one I meant, and signed, though. Soo, here goes! Signed, again.
…what.
Could one hope that the sentence will be appealed by the DA?
Is he going to be able to keep his teaching certification?
on the Judge
I wonder what kind of skeletons are hiding in this guy’s closet and/or basement, that he would even think to say that a 14 year old child is responsible, in any capacity, for the actions of a man over twice her age?
on the Suicide
At that point, her life (and death) was the only thing left that she had any real control over.
I’ve been… not exactly there, but more than close enough, and when you have no control over your life and your body, you end up wanting to take the ultimate control over your life and body, and end it.
(YMMV, everybody’s brain is a bit different.)