The judge gave 20-year-old Sir Young five years of deferred probation for the crime, which occurred in 2011. She took the extra step of freeing him from the usual probationary conditions typically given to sex offenders–which have since been reinstated by the judge who replaced her. And unbelievably, she also ordered him to perform community service at a center where people in crisis seek support after they’ve been sexually assaulted.
All because, as the judge said, the young woman “wasn’t the victim she claimed to be,” and the young man who raped her was “not your typical sex offender.” The judge, a Democrat running unopposed for a third term in November, is Judge Jeanine Howard–and my letter this week is to her.
Dear Judge Howard,
It’s me, Melissa.
Now, you offered this in the explanation you gave for your decision, that:
“My job is not to make people happy. My job is to follow the Constitution and do the right thing. I will always do the right thing.”
Yes, Judge Howard, you may know your job. But you have some deeply problematic notions about what constitutes the “right thing” when it comes to sexual assault.
First of all, there is nothing right about the suggestion that Sir Young wasn’t a typical sex offender. Nothing. Not his multiple college scholarships, nor his acquaintance with his victim exempts him from the one action he has admitted to sharing in common with so-called “typical” offenders: namely, sex with a person who cannot, or will not, consent.
But more importantly, you justified your decision based on the fact that the young woman had previously wanted to spend time with Sir Young, that she’d agreed to have sex with him on another occasion, and because her medical records indicated she’d previously had sexual encounters with other partners, one of which may have resulted in a pregnancy.
What, exactly, does any of that have to do with the moment in 2011 when both the girl and Young agree that she repeatedly told him “stop” and “no” before and during the assault? Let me help you with the answer: nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Because all you really needed to know about whether the then-14-year old was (as you said) “the victim she claimed to be” was that in the moment of her assault, she was a girl who did not give her consent. But since you felt it appropriate to send her rapist to a rape crisis center as part of his probation–a decision you called “spur of the moment.”








