He grabbed girl’s arm — now he’s a sex offender Essentially you are a sex offender if you touch or scold a girl in Illinois. Insanity rules.
“This is the most stupid ruling the appellate court has rendered in years,” said Barnaby’s Chicago attorney, Frederick Cohn. “If you see a 15-year-old beating up your 8-year-old and you grab that kid’s hand and are found guilty of unlawful restraint, do you now have to register as a sex offender?”
The bigger question is how can you be a sex offender if NO SEX is involved?
Has any one heard of the word vigilantism? Fuck the law and political correctness; lets all start wearing ski masks! 🙂
The long term implications of this sort of idocy is to trivialize the concept of sex offender and put the community at risk. I’d suspect actual sex offenders (or sympathizers) are behind this ruling. This reminds of the cases where a citizen protects himself from a home invasion, shoots someone and the citizen is jailed instead of the criminal. People lose respect for the law under these circumstances and the courts as well as the police are to blame. This is an outrage if true as told.
Another long term implication is that our kids are going to grow up thinking they’re untouchable. That they can do anything without any negative consequences. They already act like they’re the center of the universe, but as they become aware that the full force of the law is completely behind them, all hell is going to break loose.
Usually, when you check the link on stories like this, you find that the story is more complex.
But this one is as bad as it sounds!
The court even ADMITS it wasn’t sexual:
>>While acknowledging it might be “unfair for [Barnaby] to suffer the stigmatization of being labeled a sex offender when his crime was not sexually motivated,” the court said his actions are the type that are “often a precursor” to a child being abducted or molested.
Man, this poor schmuck had a TERRIBLE lawyer.
Compare this case to Michael Jackson who got off free after SLEEPING with boys! Isn’t sharing a bed a “precursor” to sexual abuse?
Our justice system almost always works better for the rich.
We’re long overdue for an update of Gideon v. Wainwright which recognizes and fixes the glaring disparity of “justice” between the poor and the rich. Ain’t gonna happen in this political climate, though.
If the little bitch complains, then take her on a trip to any Latin American country just as the one where I live (Honduras) and then beat the spoiledness out of her. You’ll see the old women agree on that 🙂
This is a result of a knee jerk reaction to the recent flood of pedio rape-murders that have been all over the news. Over reactionary legislators and judges are quick to enact draconian sex offender laws and sentences to show they are “hip” to the problem. As usual, the real scumbags go free (M Jackson) and the poor chap above is fucked.
Ima, it’s already the case among gang members who’ve been hipped to the drill by the older members. That’s why kids who are [insert local or state regs, here] years old are used as lookouts or runners for everything from drugs to extortion. They ain’t about to get anything tougher than counseling and sealed court records — which ain’t admissable as evidence in their grown-up criminal career.
Incidentally, it ain’t news in the gang world. The Blackstone Rangers in Chicago — before they changed the gang name and got War on Poverty grants — were doing it in the 1960’s. Nowadays, it doesn’t even sell newspapers or used cars for TV advertisers; so, you won’t find any coverage in our free press.
Angel H. Wong
Your suggestion is worse then the travesty this man received. This issue, as the site admin put it, is the trivializing of true sex offenses. The girl’s “crime” was the walking in front of a car. Even in Illinois that is a misdemeanor, subject to a fine. Suggesting the girl be physically abused because of what the Court and the law have done defies logic. You sir, are the one I think need a good “attitude adjustment”.
In other jurisdictions, even two minors having consensual sex is considered Statutory Rape, requiring sex offender registration. As silly as that may be, this takes the whole procedure even further and has condemned for life a man because of the difference in sex and age between the two. To put him in the same category as a predator who has raped and abused others is the travesty.
The Law, as written, must be black and white, for its definition. But it may only be enforced in shades of gray. You simply cannot treat someone who throws a candy wrapper on the sidewalk the same as someone who dumps a truckload of toxic waste there. To do otherwise makes a mockery of justice.
The registration of sexual offenders was to alert the police whenever a convicted sex offender was in their jurisdiction. It is now being used to hound and condemn people for mistakes they made and have atoned for with no means of redemption. I am not apologizing for rapists or child molesters. I am talking about those “fringe” offenders that are now associated with the true scum for the rest of their lives. I am talking about the people that might have done something such as “moon” out a car window as a teenage prank applying for a job and confessing that he is a sex offender years in the future.
This is just another in a long series of cases of the eroding of our civil rights since dubya came to power. This includes as many as 1,000 people arrested and held on Material Witness warrants, held for months with no charges being laid, denied access to legal council, and then only released if they would leave the country. Of Lynn Stewart, a lawyer, being found guilty for the crime of representing her client. Of the Department of Justice telling the Supreme Court that the President has the power to deny anyone he wants to a writ of habeas corpus, of American citizens being held for three years without being allowed access to a lawyer and when forced to allow access, having the government listen in.
Ed, I’m thinking on a larger scale and longer term. I’m not talking about the kids who break the law with impunity. I’m talking about what will happen to these kids as adults. An entire generation of adults thinking they’re untouchable. Now that’s scary.