Hey, child rapists: Everything’s coming up roses!
Published by Lisa Kansas June 25th, 2008 in Human Rights, Rape, ViolenceA Massachusetts politician and defense attorney has touched off a firestorm with his shocking public vow to torment and “rip apart” child rape victims who take the witness stand if the state legislature passed stiff mandatory sentences for child sex offenders.
Rep. James Fagan, a Democrat, made the comments during debate last month on the state House floor.
“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.”
Excuse me while I go puke now.
WT? Did this guy make some personal vow to live up to the absolute worst stereotypes of lawyers or something??
Excuse me, I was so boggled by that quote that I forgot the F in WTF.
Let me see if I’ve got this straight…because the sentences are stiffer for child sex offenders, he’s going to grill the victims, a sort of “I WANT THE TRUTH” scenario…
I have to say, a child rape victim is likely to throw up, not sleep and not be able to maintain a relationship anyways because of the psychological fallout of being RAPED AS A CHILD.
I’ve never been very good at Empathy, but even I can see that this person shouldn’t be allowed around children.
Yeah, I think somebody might have beat you to that, Mr. Fagan.
Can’t you be disbarred for this sort of behavior?
W…..T…..F…..!?!
That is all
Bizarre. I understand that he was speaking hypothetically about a new minimum sentencing law, but he chose a fucking bizarre way to go about it. We can criticise mandatory minimum sentencing without looking like cretins, kthnx.
Whoah, people. Before we get the lynching party rounded up– I smell a right wing hatchet job here.
Call me an optimist, but I’m guessing this is a case of FOX News taking a Democratic politician’s statements completely out of context. It’s notable that Fox goes out of its way to identify him as a Democrat, but does not credit the politician who rails against him as a Republican. It’s also notable that, rather than just being a simple news report, Fox puts Fagan’s office’s information at the bottom of the page and suggests that readers contact him to complain. Finally, it’s notable that the remarks are over a month old yet it’s only suddenly being reported now.
I’ve searched in vain for a full transcript of Fagan’s remarks. Here’s one possible way the quote could be put in a context that would not only not make it sound batshit insane (like it does now), but also actually make logical sense (which it doesn’t right now). The actual parts Fagan really said are in bold:
Now, if my version happened to be at all accurate when you add a little context, well, perhaps you wouldn’t agree with his reasoning, but at least it makes some sense.
Um…making up shit out of complete thin air to stick before the quote…proves what exactly? I must be missing your argument. You’re not adding any “sense” to what he said…it already made sense in the context of, “I’m gonna do whatever I can to get my client off.” All you’re doing is pretending he mouthed platitudes about the awfulness of child abuse.
And his argument’s flawed anyway. So he, and other trial lawyers “far worse than he,” don’t already use those tactics? They’ll just now suddenly START? …heh. That’s almost even funny now. Rape shield laws didn’t spring outta nowhere, ya know.
Wow. I’m so sorry that you’re cretin of a client is going to be in jail and not out raping more children. What a pity…I can see how he’s so emotional. Maybe we should have a national hug a child rapist day or something..pathetic. Ugh and WTF..and all kinds of other stuff…
OK, so I’m not saying that I am either for or against this bill, but I’m definitely FOR our freaking civil liberties.
First off, a person is supposed to be presumed innocent until PROVEN guilty. And the price of proof can be steep.
All this lawyer was saying was that should such heavy penalties be hanging over a defendant’s head, his/her lawyer would have to pull out all the stops and do absolutely everything in their power to prove their innocence, including crossing the line of delicacy that should be afforded to rape victims, particularly children. Seriously, he makes a valid point. Trials are already traumatizing for any victim, but for a child to be browbeat on such an issue seems more than repugnant. But, just as every person is presumed innocent, every person is entitled to a defense lawyer who will defend them to the best of their ability - this means pulling out all the stops.
You’re all also only thinking of this happening in a particular way - that a happy child for whom everything is hunky dory, is brutally raped one day and his or her attacker ends up on trial. In reality, not all situations are so black and white.
I work with children with severe emotional issues, some resulting from childhood traumas, some simply have neurons firing incorrectly. Our kids LIE. All the time. To no end. They lie, they retract, they alter. We have had allegations made against staff that literally have been proven to be impossible.
If one of our kids made an allegation, true or false, that eventually made its way to a courtroom, I cannot imagine the long-lasting effects on the child of such an interrogation. Our kids are 3-13. Some of our kids make up such lies to get attention, but whenever they are questioned, even lightly and in a caring way as we would handle it, the actual trauma in their backgrounds inevitably rises to the surface and overwhelms them.
When people’s lives and liberty are at stake, lines can be crossed. The effects of having to go through such a trial on a child would be unspeakable. And the GUILT. Molesters and rapists are usually known to the victim, a trusted individual. Whether fabricated or not, the weight of making such statement in a court of law and sending such a person to jail for the rest of their life is bound to weigh heavily on a young child.
With all this coming on the heels of Louisiana’s crazily controversial ruling that the death penalty was deemed cruel and unusual punishment for child rape, it’s all getting to be a bit much for me. I was myself abused and raped repeatedly as a child. I cannot imagine having that terrible man’s blood on my hands for the rest of my life. He haunts me enough as it is.
People really need to weigh the cost of more trauma upon existing trauma. It’s all supposed to be in the best interest of the children.
I can imagine having his blood on my hands. Really, I’m quite comfortable with it. You are attempting to project onto others what would cause YOU PERSONALLY more trauma, which is a favored tactic of pro-lifers when asked to justify refusing abortion to rape victims. For some rape victims, it would indeed be even more traumatic to abort. For some, it would be far more traumatic to carry to term. It really isn’t possible to make a blanket judgement about “this would cause the child MORE trauma if they saw their attacker severely punished!” It might for some. It wouldn’t for others. Probably best to leave that judgement entirely out of the equation then, eh?
Children do lie. However, children who have never been sexually abused or who have not been primed by someone else to lie about the abuse, NEVER lie about being sexually abused themselves. Now, children who have been sexually abused do indeed sometimes start assigning abuse randomly to others innocent of the abuse or even creating events of abuse that never happened…but they do not do it if they have never had an encounter with it. As someone who works with kids I’m surprised you don’t know that yourself quite well.
I do firmly believe in “innocent until proven guilty.” However, any alleged child victim is also damn well innocent-until-proven-guilty about whether or not they’re telling the truth and deserve at LEAST as much protection under the law as the accused adult does based on that, don’t you think?
My argument is that what everybody is angry about in the first place is a bit of press trickery. So what, his argument doesn’t wash. I never said it did. My point was not to defend his argument (as I said above) so much as try to show that might not be the child-bashing loony that the FOX News article makes him out to be, either. Forgive me if I’m naturally suspicious of reacting the way that FOX News wants me to.
You’re right, I was pretty stupid to write the bogus intro to his words. I see now that the quote I gave above does the job well enough. After all, I found that quote on a different website, and it’s much longer than what FOX chose to include. Like I said, I don’t know Fagan’s full statement, but even from the longer version I found, notice the parts of what he said that FOX left out of their article, beginning with:
“Let me tell you why it’s so wrong, It’s so wrong because in these situations . . . that 6-year-old is going to sit in front of me, or somebody far worse than me and…”
Now look at the dishonest slant FOX gives it by starting the quote from the next word:
Please leave aside your objections to his actual argument for a moment. Can you not see that the way that they’re completely reversing his actual argument to make it sound like he wants children to be hurt and abused further? When in fact (meritless though his argument might actually be) he was merely giving a hypothetical case meant to show how he thinks children could actually be hurt by the bill. FOX kind of sort of acknowledges his argument later in the article– but make it sound like he’s blackmailing the public by saying “pass this bill and I’ll hurt your children– and LIKE it.” If FOX wanted to argue against his actual argument, fine. Instead they went for the partisan hatchet job meant to work up their base.
I think the reason everybody got worked up over this had nothing to do with his actual argument, but the lurid and untruthful way the story was presented. Call him an asshole for his actual argument, fine. But that’s not how this post actually started off.
I really don’t want to sound like I’m rushing to the defense of child molester apologists everywhere. I guess I’m just a little sensitive to quotes being taken out of context by the press. I’m not even in the public eye, and I’ve had it happen to me a couple of times already.
“You are attempting to project onto others what would cause YOU PERSONALLY more trauma, which is a favored tactic of pro-lifers when asked to justify refusing abortion to rape victims. For some rape victims, it would indeed be even more traumatic to abort. For some, it would be far more traumatic to carry to term. It really isn’t possible to make a blanket judgement about “this would cause the child MORE trauma if they saw their attacker severely punished!” It might for some. It wouldn’t for others. Probably best to leave that judgement entirely out of the equation then, eh?”
That isn’t what I said at all. I’m saying that the trial itself, and the likelihood of being badgered on the stand by a defense attorney with no emotional sensitivity and only the thought of an acquittal driving his questions is what would be traumatic.
In terms of the death penalty, I am against it entirely, and am not uncomfortable with that. I weigh all human life equally, regardless. Trying to keep that perspective keeps me sane. Nowhere in my comment did I make refererence to such a scenario being traumatic to anyone but me, although I do wonder what surrendering to bloodlust teaches our children.
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“Children do lie. However, children who have never been sexually abused or who have not been primed by someone else to lie about the abuse, NEVER lie about being sexually abused themselves.”
Umm, talk about blanket statements.
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“Now, children who have been sexually abused do indeed sometimes start assigning abuse randomly to others innocent of the abuse or even creating events of abuse that never happened…but they do not do it if they have never had an encounter with it. As someone who works with kids I’m surprised you don’t know that yourself quite well.”
Actually this is not true. As I said, some of our kids have been abused, some have not. We have seen false allegations made by kids without trauma backgrounds, made likely because they have been exposed to the other kids’. So, can you make such a blanket statement that just because a child has not EXPERIENCED abuse, they cannot conceive of it? I think not. With the Internet, tv, and everything else, kids are exposed to a great deal today that make them older before their time. If you think a child can be supervised every moment, you are just naive. False allegations happen. It’s why we HAVE trials.
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“I do firmly believe in “innocent until proven guilty.” However, any alleged child victim is also damn well innocent-until-proven-guilty about whether or not they’re telling the truth and deserve at LEAST as much protection under the law as the accused adult does based on that, don’t you think?”
Of course allegations of any kind of abuse should be taken as fact. While under investigation, suspects are considered guilty until proven innocent. IN A COURT OF LAW, a person is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, which would, yes, mean that victims and witnesses’ accounts can be called into question. People’s lives hang in the balance and stories have to be substaniated.
The point is that many different scenarios exist for how such things could go down, and we need to do all that is possible to shield children from further anguish, while at the same times, ensuring that no one’s rights are cast aside. That was my only point.
Here’s the context; it’s not the full speech, obviously, but it gives another 20-30 seconds past the quote.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq-NJ1YQu8M
In essence, he is talking about a hypothetical lawyer who, having nothing to lose and everything to gain when mandatory minimums would be imposed on his client, would forego a plea and some sort of reduction in sentence and instead go after the victim, because that’s the only way his client could avoid jail time.
You know, an unanticipated negative externality argument, like providing child rapists with an incentive to kill their victim/witness if they were getting the death penalty from their action anyway.
Quin, I had a very similar reaction to yours, when I read the initial snippet … “What exactly is going on here?”
And I think you’re right. I think that Rep. Fagan was not stating that he plans to reduce child victims of rape to shreds, but that he was informing people that these victims will undergo this sort of treatment at the hands of defense attorneys like him. And that defense attorneys will be more brutal if their clients face stiffer penalties.
I think his rhetoric was impassioned, that he chose graphic, if ill-advised, language in order to make his point. I’m just not clear on what his point was, and I don’t trust Fox to tell me accurately. I too would be quite interested in reading a transcript of the debate that engendered it.
norbizness, when you put it like that, maybe Fagan’s argument actually has merit after all.
But I’ll be the first to admit I don’t really understand all the issues at play. (Sorry to equivocate Lisa, but as a general policy I only admit to knowing as much as it’s convenient to at the time.
)
zingerella, I’m glad to know I wasn’t the only one with that impression. Sometimes I feel so alone in this cold, cruel world.
I started to reply to everybody’s comments and realized I was well on my way to another blog post, in sheer length if nothing else.
Jeez…
…so why fight it, there WILL be another blog post, prolly as soon as this evening, taking up on all the issues this one has raised, hopefully in a more coherent manner than my very rambling comment was turning out to be. Stay tuned!
How are they going to ‘rip apart’ a child rape victim? By bringing up an 8-year-old’s past sexual history? By pulling out the sexy Garanimals the kid was wearing? By telling them they asked for it by watching cartoons seductively?
The mind, it boggles.