Okay, this is more an offshoot of nanny-statism — minimum sentencing laws. This poor woman faces six years behind bars for a non-crime.
From the linked editorial:
An appeal last week to the state Supreme Court may be the final chance for justice for a former Boys and Girls Club staffer, found guilty of sexual assault in a case one ex-cop calls the worst travesty of justice he’s seen in 20 years as an investigator.
If the court refuses to take up the case or rules against 27-year-old Veronica Rodriguez, she’ll go to prison for five more years, after already serving one year for a crime she denies committing.
“I feel like a fountain overflowing on this. I feel as strongly about Veronica’s innocence as anything I have ever investigated in my life, and I am a very seasoned investigator,” says Michael Hintz, a former Tigard police detective who worked for Rodriguez’s defense team.
A Washington County jury found Rodriguez guilty in 2005 of first-degree sexual assault after police accused her of running her hands through a 13-year-old boy’s hair and pulling the back of his head against her covered chest in the middle of a crowded game room at the Boys and Girls Club in Hillsboro.
Under Measure 11, a 1994 voter-approved ballot initiative setting mandatory minimum sentences, Rodriguez faced six years and three months in prison. But Circuit Judge Nancy Campbell gave her 16 months instead, saying the Measure 11 sentence would violate the state constitution as cruel and unusual punishment.
(Hat tip: Fark)
Update 7/27/08 — This update comes courtesy of Chip Shields who since 2005 has been the Oregon State Representative for District 43.
From the link:
Should juries know the likely sentence when deciding guilt?
In the run up to the primary election, you may have missed this important criminal-justice story. On May 9, the Oregon Supreme Court decided it will consider whether, in the words of James Pitkin at Willamette Week, grazing a boy’s head with your breasts should get you over six years in the slammer. The case is State v. Veronica Rodriguez. Pitkin says, “The jury voted 10-2 to convict Rodriguez for allegedly pulling the back of the boy’s head against her chest.” She is facing a six year and three months sentence for Sex Abuse I under Measure 11, the 1994 voter-approved ballot measure penned by Kevin Mannix.
Judge Nancy Campbell, now retired, set aside the Measure 11 sentence and instead sentenced her to 16 months using the state’s sentencing guidelines. She stated that applying Measure 11 in this case would violate the Oregon constitution’s cruel and unusual punishment clause. The Court of Appeals overruled her and reinstated the six year-three month mandatory minimum sentence and in May the Oregon Supreme Court agreed to take up the case.
Click here and here for Willamette Week coverage of the case. The Oregonian covers it here.
David Kirkpatrick 