The Ladder of Law Has No Top And No Bottom
By Of all the crimes for which one expects rich white people to have a de facto exception, you’d like to think this wouldn’t be one of them:
A Superior Court judge who sentenced an heir to the du Pont fortune to probation for raping his 3-year-old daughter wrote in her order that he “will not fare well” in prison and suggested that he needed treatment instead of time behind bars, according to Delaware Online.
Court records show that in Judge Jan Jurden’s sentencing order for Robert H. Richards IV she considered unique circumstances when deciding his punishment for fourth-degree rape. Her observation that prison life would adversely affect Richards confused several criminal justice authorities in Delaware, who said that her view that treatment was a better idea than prison is typically used when sentencing drug addicts, not child rapists.
Well, at least the free pass for raping a child goes to one of the deserving rich:
Richards, who is unemployed and supported by a trust fund, owns a 5,800-square-foot mansion in Greenville , Delaware, and also owns a home in the exclusive North Shores neighborhood near Rehoboth Beach.
As an aside, this is an excellent illustration that the appropriate solution to draconian drug sentences isn’t “give judges more discretion” but “don’t allow judges to give harsh drug sentences to anybody.”
[Via Henley.]