Judge admits he made mistake in sentencing Misty Roberts, who faced up to 17 years in prison after conviction
The former Louisiana mayor Misty Roberts has completed the 90-day jail sentence she received for raping a 16-year-old boy while still in elected office and been released from custody, according to state corrections records.
The 44-year-old finished her jail term on what was the Labor Day holiday in the US, one week after the judge who presided over her case rejected a request from prosecutors to force her to serve a harsher sentence.
Judge Kent Savoie nonetheless acknowledged in court he was mistaken to have based Roberts’ sentence off of a list of more than 30 cases that were resolved through plea deals, unlike her prosecution, which culminated in a jury trial and guilty verdict, the Louisiana news station KPLC reported.
“I asked someone to get me a list of cases similar,” Savoie was quoted as saying on 31 August. “I made an assumption, and that assumption was wrong.
At least they used the word “rape” this time instead of seduce or something.
A 17 years mistake yes, does he still have a job after that blunder?
They are doing that here because the charge she was convicted under is colloquially known as statutory rape, which they mentioned in the article. The media has to be very careful about how they refer to people, who have not been convicted or otherwise admitted to something, because everyone here is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
And even when a ruling is made, the type of ruling matters. Der Gröpenfuhrer was found liable in a civil suit for sexual assault and defamation, but it was not a criminal case. And even the sexual assault didn’t meet NY State’s archaic standards for what is “rape”. And even the judge there admitted that the sexual assault, while not meeting NY State’s definition, was for an act that most people would call “rape”. Yet, the idiot can say “The court found I didn’t rape her”, and still be technically correct, even if they statement misses the point entirely.
None of that’s incorrect.
They are I think elected, we can only assume now, by rapists.
That’s draconian. Not all mistakes should lead to termination. This judge made an honest mistake when sentencing and admitted it. Give them some grace for showing other what being the bigger person look like. They also have personal and professional embarrassment to live with and through - they understand what’s at stake. People have to be given a chance to learn and improve or else they will be afraid to do anything. And this judge will not make this mistake again soon because it is so fresh in their mind.
Stop falling into the authoritarian trap of “only good or only bad” professionals. There’s a lot of gray area in between and MANY people who do worse without citing their own failings.
You seriously believe this was an honest mistake?
Your right it is draconian. Show them the grace and mercy of a slow agonizing death via strangulated hanging. Mentally acute adults don’t rape children, it’s not hard to not rape someone.
if you are a judge, you should not be allowed to make mistakes.
Everyone makes mistakes. Firing someone for making one is how you end up with a system full of judges with no more than 5-10 years experience and making more mistakes because you start to run out of qualified people and need to start picking at the bottom of the barrel when looking to fill the vacant seats that need to be constantly replaced.
But there are some mistakes egregious enough that it falls into reckless territory, and in a job where people’s lives hang in the balance - sometimes quite literally life or death - you can’t just get a mulligan for those mistakes. That’s a Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200 kind of mistake.
This isn’t an unusual standard, we do this for other important jobs like piloting or medicine; if your mistake was something reckless where it could be predicted something very bad could result, that’s often not just a firing, but actually losing the ability to practice that occupation anymore at all.
At first blush, this sounds more like a case of reckless behavior, not a simple mistake.
He rejected the prosecutors pleads for harsher sentence, and couldn’t be bothered to look up previous cases. This wasn’t a mistake.
how about we create a state where the monopoly on violence is run by people who do not make fucking mistakes.
People who do not make mistakes do not exist.
then i reckon the state should not have a monopoly on violence then huh? ;)
A free for all on violence is too Mad Max for me.
who said anything about a free for all?
I’m sure her victim is down to listen to honest mistake bullshit. Whoopsie!
They used “rape” because the preparator was not a while man, and the victim not a girl.