Pedophilia? And Justice unserved!

The other day, I discussed the heinous acts of a pedophile. To rehash, a 38-year old man was convicted in Shawnee County District Court of 17 counts of the rape and sodomy of a 14-year old Topeka girl. The penalty for these convictions, according to sentencing guidelines, should have been 155 months (13 years) in prison. Shawnee Country District Judge Matthew Dowd however, sentenced the 38-year old to 36 months of probation.

In response to my earlier posting, one reader stated that I was calling for a harsher punishment simply because of the name of the crime. I have to agree with him. Whenever a 38-year old violates a 14-year old girl like this, it is called pedophilia. Anyone convicted of pedophilia deserves to pay for the degradation, humiliation and long term psychological damage they cause to young children.

There are no excuses that should allow a judge, who supposedly is there for the purpose of justice, to heap the insult of leniency onto the head of the 14-year old girl and her parents by letting the animal who committed these crimes back onto the streets of Topeka.

There are no excuses for a judge, responsible for safeguarding the rights of the victim as well as the perpetrator, to simply ignore the will of the people and release a pedophile onto the streets of our city to possibly commit this atrocity on another innocent victim.

Maybe this is another example of my personal bigotry against criminals who prey on the innocent, but I do indeed believe that any 38-year old man that has sexual relations with (especially the sodomy of) a 14-year old girl, does indeed deserve significantly more than 36 months of “supervised probation”.

Of course, maybe it is my simple view that thinks a 14-year old girl could be easily manipulated by an adult. Maybe it is yet another simple view that says our children must be protected from pedophiles. Maybe I am just simple for assuming that a 38-year old should be capable of making rational decisions.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

In my simple view of life, this is an outrage. Our children have life hard enough that we don’t need to open the door to more suffering because a Judge won’t do his job.

In this case, there were no extenuating factors in the perpetration of the crime. There was no doubt of his guilt. The judge simply ignored the sentencing guidelines passed by our legislature, and based his decision upon the fact that the perpetrator claimed to be depressed over his parents divorce 30 years before, and that the animal had a good job history and “good” family support.

Unfortunately, with Judge Matthew Dowd, this wasn’t the first time that he gave a convicted pedophile a slap on the wrist and probation. In two other cases, one of which a 27-year old had relations with a 15-year old and a second case where a 34-year old was convicted for solicitation of sex with a 13/14-year old girl via the internet. In both cases, Judge Dowd found reason to believe that probation was the appropriate punishment.

In the case of the 27-year old, we fortunately had the animal put into prison by a different Judge who sentenced him to 54 months in prison for yet another charge of aggravated indecencies with yet another child. Obviously, Judge Dowd did not consider this person to be a threat to society.
Matthew Dowd (I’m sorry, I can’t bear to call him a Judge any more) has shown such a softness in his heart towards pedophiles, I am wondering if he has any hidden motives behind these weak sentences that he has handed out. Or is it that he simply thinks that the violation and abuse of our children is acceptable behavior.

Our only hope until we get this person off the bench, is for District Judge Nancy Parrish to ensure that all cases such as this are kept out of the incapable hands of Matthew Dowd.

You can email Alan at alan@alanfernald.com twenty-four hours a day.