Wonkette
Here is Massachusetts State Representative James Fagan talking about all the horrible things defense attorneys will do in order to get their clients off the hook when they’re facing stiff mandatory sentences. But because he himself was a defense attorney once, he says “I’ll do this” and “I’ll do that,” leading to people being outraged about how mean “he’ll” be to six-year-old rape victims. Oy. [YouTube]
POORLY PUT POINTS
‘I’ll Rip Them Apaaaht’
Read More:
11:43 AM
on Fri June 27 2008
By
Sara K. Smith
1351 Views
you know, “I’ll rip them apart” in the context of a six year old and rape is really pretty grotesque
I wish people would stop auditioning to be McCain’s veep.
Wow, kit gloves for the Dem from Mass.
If James Fagan was a Repub, the snark would be so deep you’d need a shovel.
This d*%@$#bag is the freaking Chair of the State Ethics Committee, fer chrissakes. And he loves the kiddies so much, he sits on the board of the local Boys and Girls Club, and coaches Little League, and umps youth basketball. But if his client rapes you, kids, watch out, because James Fagan will “ruin your life”!
Oh shit. I seen some hard-asses in my time.
This guy is special.
It’s great to know that we have such vociferous proponents of justice in America.
Yeah, that really works well with juries. They love seeing 6 year-olds sobbing and pleading for their mommies on the witness stand. Gets the rapist off every time. In more ways than one.
Whatta putz.
greatgooglymoogly: Yeah, juries eat that shit up. “SNAP! He called that 6 year old a whore! Not guilty, baby!”
What an enormous load of shit from an utter cocksucker. And it’s beyond disingenuous. I’m sure that lawyers of repeat kiddie rapists just roll over as the law is now—really it’s only 25 years or whatever so who gives a fuck. AND little victims hardly ever testify because kiddie diddlers almost always confess and there’s usually dna.
Even for a lawyer and state representative, this guy’s douchetastic.
…we should be praising defense lawyers and law makers like James Fagan of Massachusetts, because without him there would be no such thing as strippers or exotic dancers in this world!
P.S.
Im being sarcastic!
AngryBlakGuy: …and by the way this guys arguement is full of shit. I cant imagine a defense attorney going after a child in such an aggressive manor, for fear of making the jury even MORE sympathetic toward there situation. He was trying to prove a point and he failed epically on multiple levels by making himself look like an insensitive asshole!!!
He fails to mention what a Nazi D.A. will do in order to convict an innocent AngryBlakGuy in order to get another couple of years on the roost. Those assholes will stop at nothing.
AngryBlakGuy: Dude, no apologies or clarification needed. Since the hops harvest went to hell and the trees started Shymalalaling all the loggers, Portland has relied upon an almost entirely stripper-based economy to keep the latte flowing. We’re like Mecca for “troubled” semi-hotties.
If I’d seen this guy posting a comment on-line that began, “I’m a Democrat and I’m going to make sure that the rest of their life is ruined, that when they’re 8 years old, they throw up, when they’re 12 years old, they won’t sleep, when they’re 19 years old, they’ll have nightmares. And they’ll never have a relationship with anybody.” Well, you’d just naturally assume that these were the delusional trollings of some were some GOP nut-bag, right?
Apparently not. What an unpleasant specimen of humanity this guys is.
I mean, you can almost see the point he’s trying to make&Mdash;that imposing a minimum sentence of 25 years for first offenders committing certain crimes against children is going to increase the vehemence with which thew witness is going to be cross-examined&Mdash;but seriously, what a douche.
edgydrifter: I am now moving to Portland.
shortsshortsshorts: …hey, she told me she was 18 man!!!
edgydrifter: …yeah, I love the boobies too! Im just trying to avoid a RONALDPAGAN/DOGLESSLIBERAL tag team beat down before the weekend. My dry sarcasm has got me on their shit lists earlier this week and I’m trying to keep my face pretty for the ladies this weekend.
Am I the only one who thinks he needs to be cavity-searched for meth? Get the big net and make this whack job pee in a cup. There have to be some amazing chemicals in his blood stream. Better yet, waterboard him. Now that the White House has decided waterboarding ain’t torture, I’m finding it useful in many situations…
Find a defense lawyer in this country who would contradict what he is saying.
Mr. Herpes: Nota bene:
“EDUCATION: Monsignor James Coyle High School”
http://www.mass.gov/legis/member/jhf1.htm
Meth is nothing next to a Catholic upbringing when it comes to twisting your libido. Waterboarding? Foreplay.
AngryBlakGuy: You don’t know what you’re talking about. Strippers don’t turn out that way because of sleazy defense lawyers. They turn out that way because Dick Cheney’s their father…no, wait. That’s lesbians.
hopeforbill: Yeah, well that’t the problem, isn’t it? Death doesn’t seem to take the monsters any sooner than the righteous, does it? You can fix that, you know.
This whole role-playing thing really threw Fox & Friends for a loop the other day. Doocey and Blondie were struggling to keep up, and seemed convinced the guy was a charter member of Nambla or something.
edgydrifter: Gandalf said something about that, I think. Of course, he was a fictional character in a book written by a philology professor to justify his creation of a new alphabet and language, so his sage credentials are a bit dubious. Whatevs.
edgydrifter: They were safely in custody by the time I saw them. I’ve never understood why SOMEONE who loves these children doesn’t pay that bill, though. Were it my son or daughter, I can assure you that the rapist would not see another sunset, no matter the consequence to myself.
spencer: me. I’m a defense attorney and totally disagree with this douchebag. Sex crimes against children carry gobs and gobs of time as it is, so it’s not like it’sa walk in the park as it is. But, the idea that he is (really poorly) expressing, that defense attorneys work for their clients harder if the potential sentences are longer, is offensive to me. Whatever charge you get is the most important charge in the world to you and any defense lawyer who is worth a shit will treat it that way.
“And that’s not because I’m a nice guy” (!)
Sorry, don’t mean to bring the room down. I come here mostly for the humor, and I suspect most folks do as well. To me, though, child molesting just is not a fucking joke.
hopeforbill:
Yeah, honor killings. Great idea. We could be just like some dusty shithole in the Middle East.
But that Maria Stephanos sure is a hottie, though. Rowr.
The good news is that he’s made it abundantly clear what a waste of DNA he is.
TGY: Gandalf said (paraphrased due to faulty memory), “Deserves death? I daresay he does! And many who die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not so quick to give death in judgement, for even the wise cannot see all ends”.
Gandalf only had mythological problems, though. Given this situation, I suspect the staff would get set to “fricassee”, and damned be “all ends”.
Botswana Meat Commission FC: Except that in honor killings you snuff the victim, because that five-year-old was totally asking for it and has now brought dishonor to the family. No, we’re talking good old-fashioned American revenge killing. With fire, ideally, though bullets and stabbies are also acceptable if one is pressed for time.
Besides, you don’t have to go to the ME for dusty shithole action. If you’re looking for an arid wasteland run by fundie mullahs, just travel to Texas or Utah for a week or so.
hopeforbill: To which Frodo replied, “Look, ass, that freak ate all the lembas and has been talking about strangling me in my sleep. Time to die–sucks to be him. I’ll bite off my own friggin’ finger when we get to the volcano.”
Well, that isn’t exactly how it’s printed in my Houghton-Mifflin edition, but I’m pretty sure Chris Tolkein included it in Lost Tales.
Botswana Meat Commission FC: You are correct. Our laws are what separates us from “some dusty shithole in the Middle East”. Justice delayed, however, is justice denied. As long as there is filth like Fagin to free these assholes to do it again, though, the law is not functional. If the law cannot effectively protect the least of us, we are left to our own devices to do so.
You don’t need to answer me, but ask yourself if you would be OK if someone who took your daugher’s childhood innocence, her ability to have children, her very ability to trust, away, leaving her with horrid memories and permanant diseases … if you would be OK with this person lawering their way out of confinement. Maybe the police were too rough arresting him, maybe someone didn’t cross a “t” on a search warrant, a witness gets intimidated - we’ve all had jury duty and seen courtroom dramas, you know how it is. He gets his life back. Does your daughter?
I agree with you, though. I want law, not vigilanteism. I just want the law to work. Bottom feeders like Fagin are the ones who do not.
hopeforbill: before addressing substance, can I ask what’s with all the LOTR talk? Did Wonkette cross-pollinate with a WoW/DnD blog? All the Gandalf references are making this place a little too Paultard/Second Lifey…
On substance. I have a daughter. Anyone abuses her and I will pretty much guarantee GBH at a minimum. That’s my choice and would be my price to pay (Botswana’s point about vigilante societies notwithstanding). P.s. Bobby Jindal and the LA legislature are pig-fucking retards.
hopeforbill: …Im gonna have to agree with Botswana on this one. Not because Fagan is such a stand up guy, but because the constitution affords everyone the right to a trial by their peers. I’m not perfect, you are not perfect and our justice system is sure as HELL not perfect in passing down judgment. However what separates law abiding citizens from street trash criminals is the fact that we hold ourselves to higher standard even when it HURTS. Administering street justice might seem like a good idea now, but when decomposing bodies litter the street for your children to see you might have second thoughts. If everyone with an opinion on who is guilty and who innocent went out killing defendants, then we wouldn’t need a judicial system. Does it suck ass that someone who appears to be guilty is getting off? YES! Do I wish someone would do something about it? YES! But should they? NO! It doesn’t take much research to find a time in American history when black people never even saw the inside of a court instead they hung from trees like “Strange Fruit”. Why? Because someone didn’t want risk a N#GGER getting off for a crime they KNEW he committed.
LBOtomist: …if I had a daughter and something like that happened to her I would probably want to kill the guy. But at the end of the day if I did, I would expect to go to prison. I wouldn’t want people to stand up and call me a hero, because the truth is I did break the law.
hopeforbill:
You lose the argument as soon as you resort to “imagine if it were your wife who was raped” (or something like that).
There’s a reason we have actual judges and juries to deliver justice instead of the emotionally-charged family members of the victims, who aren’t impartial. Vigilantism just breeds evil, evil shit like ethnic cleansing, lynching, etc.
LBOtomist: You’ll find that real life is stranger than fiction…and Second Life. But not, in some cases, by much.
Botswana Meat Commission FC: On this I agree.
This story gets better and better…
The Boston Herald published a letter to the editor, entitled “In defense of Fagan.” It is full of the same arguments - mandatory minimums actually get criminals off, because no one wants kids to suffer on the witness stand, blah, blah, blah. It is penned by one Joel Pentlarge, who is apparently the “Interim Director” of the “Criminal Justice Policy Coalition.” Mr. Pentlarge was a lawyer and former town official in Ware, Mass.
Oh, and one other thing about Joel Pentlarge? Convicted child rapist. Pleaded guilty to five counts of child rape (teenage boys) and was sentenced to four to five years in prison in 2000; he got out in 2006.
With friends like these, Mr. Fagan…
Botswana Meat Commission FC: Erm, OK. If you say so, hopeforbill must “lose the argument.”
But I must of missed the section where the Mandatory Minimum Law provided for grieving family members to take the perp out back and beat him.
Many people are revolted by pedophiles and child rapists. Many people need not have it happen to their child to want to have these people out on the streets. People who are fed up with the current law have every right to ask for tougher ones. And vote out the J. Fagans of the world, who think otherwise.
AngryBlakGuy: If I had a daughter and someone raped her, I would throw my daughter out of the house and make the rapist pay her bills.
Fagan, huh? How Dickensian.
“Yes, yes”, Fagan continued in the house chamber hallway, “it’s not that I don’t like children. I just like mine to shut the fuck up. But I do like it when they say, “More please. May I have some more, Uncle Fagan. I just can’t stop at that point. God, their little hands make my dick look so big, the little whores.”
It’s my understanding that Fagan’s point is that mandatory sentencing takes away the plea bargaining between the accused pedophile/defendant and the DA’s (“professionals” as Fagan calls the DA) and that will result in these cases going to trial.
Fagan feels a mandatory 25 years for sexually abusing a child is excessively harsh punishment and because it’s his obligation to represent his client to the fullest extent, Fagan say he is going to destroy the victim, if need be, to achieve a not guilty or acquittal verdict for his client.
This guy is a total “nutsack”! He’s a typical hack lawyer.
He’s saying for the sake of the child, society should plea bargain down with pedophiles so the pedophile is eventually put back in to society earlier then he otherwise would have under the enactment of the proposed law ( a law explicitly created because of the heretofore inadequate sentencing of repeat offenders on the part of courts), so the pedophile can again sexually abuse another child.
That’s just as nutty as squirrel’s breakfast.
Fagan has shown the world he’s not worthy of being pissed on if he was rolling on the ground on fire.
He’s the kind of lawyer that has perverted our legal system.
Where insufficient legal representation and/or the presentation of facts and evidence by a lawyer cannot prove a client innocent, I believe, Fagan is saying it’s ok to ruin the victim to get the client off.
I’m no lawyer, but I don’t think our laws and the spirit of our justice system was tooled for the abuse that Fagan is a proponent and judges should never permit such legal representation but sadly it seems Judges allow it.
I hope this is the beginning of the end of Fagan’s political career and I hope this becomes such a personal blemish on his character that no woman will ever put out for him again.
It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Jimbo, it is my sincere wish you’ve jumped the shark dude.
Dane Wayne: …I think Fagan actually brings to light a valid(although twisted) point. If you put 12 year old child who has been molested/raped for many years on the stand how well do you expect them to hold up? Not in the sense of future damage but in the sense of here and now? If their story begins to fall apart under oath(regardless of guilt or innocents of the defendant) wouldn’t that be “reasonable doubt”? I would rather have a sex offender take a plea deal that would put him/her away for 5 years than be released outright into society because of a bad testimony from the victim. Also mandatory sentencing can have the unintended effect of increasing the severity of the crime if the individual who perpetrates it feels they have nothing to lose, just like California’s “3 strike” law did. Not to mention many prosecutors use plea deals to incarcerate pedophiles who they have very weak cases against. By tying their hands a lot of guilty individuals may end up on the street regardless, due to lack of evidence. I don’t want pedophiles roaming the streets but I also believe you need to give prosecutors and judges as much maneuvering room as they possibly can. Mandatory sentencing is a one size fits all remedy for a very complicated judicial system and that is why it almost always fails.