Who's the Judge? Rough Case

I had a case that I was appointed as special prosecutor. I will spare you all the graphic details but the man was charged with lewd conduct. He basically did some things with his daughter he shouldn't have. At any rate he pled guilty and in the plea agreement I signed I said I would not be bound to any recommendations of the pre-sentence investigator. Meaning, I could argue whatever I wanted to at sentencing. This is ok to share because it is all public record.

I got all the evaluations back from the pre-sentence investigator and one recommends probation and one recommends 6 months in jail. Typically, a prosecutor won't recommend more than the evaluators, but it didn't quite sit right with me. I had not made up my mind what I was going to recommend until the Judge asked for my recommendation. But I also felt that no one was really remembering that fact that this defendant did some bad things to his daughter.

The standard goals of sentencing are deterrence, punishment, protection of society, possibility of rehabilitation. This defendant had no prior criminal history, admitted his crime right up front, and was remorseful for what he did. But I felt that if he was just put on probation there would be no punishment which is what I related to the Judge. The Judge asked me how much time I thought was appropriate and I said that 1 to 2 years was appropriate given the nature of the crime. (Now I know some of you will think that anyone that does this type of crime should be put away for life-and while I agree it is a very serious offense there is also in my mind a scale of severity. About a month ago I had another case with a defendant with the same charges, but he had done this for a number of years and other details of the case made it much worse than the case I had today-that other defendant received 8 years to life in prison. So when I compared that case to this one, this one wasn't anywhere near as bad).

The defense attorney was surprised at my recommendation and still asked for probation. The Judge commented on a lot of the statements that both I and defense counsel made and setenced the defendant to 1 1/2 years to 8 years. He said he had made his mind up before I made my recommendation.

My point with this whole post-Who the heck am I to recommend a man spend time in jail? I felt a little bad in that the evaluators recommended a much lighter sentence for this man due to that fact that he had no prior criminal record, that he was honest in all his answers, that he admitted his crime, yet I wanted more-I felt bad that I wanted more-not becuase I don't think he should be punished for his crime-it just makes me ache inside that he has destroyed his family and that there needs to be consequences for that. Addtionally, I just did not see how probation would serve as a punishment. At any rate-I am learning that these serious sex cases are not for the faint of heart. They are extremely tough for me to deal with. Recommending sentences is tough for me-This may be sad to say after doing prosecutor work for over 2 years now, but I have no idea what the appropriate sentence is for someone. Although the defendant that got 8 years probably deserved even more. But it is heartbreaking to watch these 8-10 year old kids disclose what has been happening to them. And then be involved in the process of putting their "Daddy" who they still love in jail for a while. Anyway sorry for the rambling, but had to write this out maybe for theraputic value for me if nothing else.