Child Abuse>
Flying Wombat
Date: Fri, 14 Oct 94 6:10:32 PDT
Subject: Girl Jailed For Hiding Diary
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) -- Future victims of child abuse may be afraid to go to authorities because a judge had a 12-year-old girl handcuffed and jailed for refusing to turn over her diary in an abuse case, a victim advocate said.
The girl, who accuses her policeman father of molesting her, relented and surrendered her pink diary Thursday, the day after she was jailed for about an hour. Circuit Judge Robert Carney lifted the contempt of court charge when the diary was turned over, then agreed to withdraw from the case after the girl said she was "terrified" of him.
"When other children that age read this, if there's abuse going on, it's going to make them reluctant to report it," said Ruth McDonald, administrator at the Phoenix Center, a Broward County sexual assault program. "They may not have a diary, but the message is they'll be further traumatized."
The girl had told Carney he could look at the diary in private, but he refused. The new judge will be assigned to the case and reconsider that option, as well as the girl's other motion to have the diary exempted outright.
Carney had sentenced the girl to five days in juvenile detention Wednesday but then allowed her to be released after about an hour.
"That child has gone through 24 hours of trauma that no one can erase," said her lawyer, Howard Finkelstein. Carney disagreed.
"I have done everything in my power to apply kid gloves in this case," Carney said. He likened the incident to a child who "was spanked and now she doesn't like the judge."
"This is the first time I can remember someone looking me straight in the eye and refusing a court order," said Carney, a nine-year veteran of the bench.
The girl's father, a detective, is not being identified to protect the girl's privacy. He is accused of molesting her five times last year and could get up to seven years in prison on the indecent assault charges.
During pretrial interviews, defense lawyers learned of the diary and asked to see it. The girl says it includes nothing about her father's alleged molestation. The defense argues that's a point in favor of his innocence.
Carney first ordered the girl to turn over her diary in August, then demanded it again on Oct. 3, and again on Wednesday.
"For the third time, I am asking you to produce the diary," Carney said as the girl stood before him with her mother.
"No," she said.
She was handcuffed and led off, shaking and in tears.
"I don't understand," the honors student said before booking.
"There's nothing in this diary but little girl thoughts," her lawyer said. "It talks about her friends, her birthday, what she thinks is important."
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 94 15:30:46 PDT
Subject: Judge who ordered girl to jail leaves abuse case
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Reuters) - A judge removed himself Thursday from the trial of a police officer accused of sexually molesting his 12-year-old daughter, a day after he ordered the girl to jail for refusing to turn over her diary.
Broward County Circuit Judge Robert Carney stepped down in the face of an unusual alliance, as prosecutors and public defenders filed motions asking for his recusal, a public defender said.
The girl was taken from the courtroom in tears and handcuffs Wednesday when Carney found her in contempt of court and ordered her to spend five days in a juvenile detention center for refusing three times to hand over her diary.
The child was taken to the center and checked in, but the judge later allowed her to go home until lawyers appealed the contempt order.
Her father, a Fort Lauderdale police detective whose name is not being used to protect the identity of the child, is charged with five counts of indecent assault on a person under 16, for allegedly fondling his daughter during a six-month period.
"She had turned to the adult system for protection from an adult who violated her trust, and the system incarcerated her," said attorney Howard Finkelstein, the public defender who sought Carney's ouster.
Finkelstein said the judge's stance had put the case in jeopardy.
"This girl was completely traumatized," he said. "She told me she would not walk into that courtroom with that judge again under any circumstances."
The child's diary became an issue in the case when defense attorney Michael Dutko learned of its existence during pretrial interviews and asked to see it. The girl has said it includes nothing about her father's alleged crimes.
A new judge will be assigned to the case before jury selection resumes, Finkelstein said.
Lilith
well that's just great. another example of how our "justice" system supports the wrong-doers. and people wonder why there is so much violent crime. no one wants to take a stand.
Saint Bob
Where *is* Ruadh, anyway?
LA REINE
i could never keep a diary when i was little because i was certain that somehow someone would be able to read it. now i see that i was correct. sad, isn't it. kids have such little control over anything. and now it's time to lock up what they think.
Virus
I Never Bothered To Keep A Diary/Journal Because I'm Pathologically Lazy.
ZooKeeper
the courts are so busy making sure they defend everyone so that no one is wrongly punished that they end up punishing the victims.
doesn't it just figure?
Torch Song
Yet another victim is given excessive reason for not trusting anyone...again. As if being victimized once wasn't enough...
ZooKeeper
I had one, but it was creatively hidden.
JayDee
seen that...
it has taken Tamsen over three years to just "recover"
and the list of victims didn't stop with her
her mom took the gaff, as well
ZooKeeper
the list of victims *never* ends with just the victim. there's family, friends, future friends, future SO's, even present/future bosses/coworkers in extreme cases.
'course, the same can be said for perps, and has been...
damn
JayDee
the perps can fuck off, and die, as far as I am concerned
GB
Wow. Only 7 years for molesting someone 5 times... that seems very light to me...
Saint Bob
I kept a journal in my teens. My mom & her boyfriend were pissed at me for something & went through my room... found it, and I got in trouble for what they read in it. They didn't have souls, so they skipped the soul-poetry, which would've revealed a hell of a lot more than what they punished me for, which was getting pulled over for doing 70 in a 35 zone (wasted) at 2AM after the 4th of July. I was so blinded I didn't see the cops until there were five of them behind me. If they would've read about what went on the night of the tent party... or read between the lines of my hallucination poetry... I probably would've been hospitalized. Journals are the best self-therapy there is. Parents reading them can learn alot about their childrens' minds; parents acting on what they read can destroy a child's trust. Perhaps this is a good thing. I'm glad to have had my trust destroyed, in a way. The world is a cold place. I don't *want* to trust anyone.
Lady Non Sequitur
My Mom never understood why I compulsively wrote things down -- then again, she often never saw what I was writing -- but when I was in college, and engaging in behaviors she couldn't understand (I was never myself until I left the hick town I grew up where I didn't have to behave because she was a schoolteacher) -- I came home for Christmas and found in my old room a notebook of mine. She'd gone into my room when I was at college, worried about me, and remembered how I used to write things out, and she'd done the same. I cried reading it, she'd had to support four-five kids singlehandedly so long we'd never really had a chance to be particularly close, and all at once I felt I knew her better than I ever had before.
Blain Nelson
We'll see if this works. If I misspelled the ID, please kill this and let me know.
Freejack
why couldn't that judge take the diary in private to make a determination if it was pertinent evidence or not? the guy sounds like he's on a power trip...
Torch Song
And just think -- that's 7 years more than most abusers get...
But the victims have a life sentence.
MontyL
You're in the right place, Blain.
Blain Nelson
Good.
Flying Wombat
yes, and welcome. like I'd said (when seeking for network this room), child abuse and domestic violence (spousal abuse) go hand in hand. as they are symptoms of the same basic pathology, it's good to discuss them together.
GB
A lot of child molestors are let go in order to make room for those evil miscreants convicted of marjuana possession or <<GASP!!>> even worse, cultivation!
If you want to know where a lot of pedophiles hang out, go onto the USENET group "alt.sex.mike-labbe". They basically legally exchange pictures of naked kids their for all to download, as well as texts involving consensual (and in rare cases, nonconsensual) sex involving children.
I think Mike Labbe was this convicted pedophile who argued that children knew what they were doing when they had sex, that they were competent, and that many children enjoyed sex.
I brought up the question, "Why are you people pedophiles?" on the group. I didn't want to see like just another flamer, I wanted to actually talk to one of them and pick their brain.
I got one pedophile to give me a very good explanation.
"Homosexuals can't really help being homosexuals can they? It is the same with pedophiles. We are simply aroused by children. Some people may be aroused by sheep, or door knobs, without really knowing why."
Ok, makes sense.
"I have two kids and a wife of my own. I believe that children know what they want, and that they can enjoy sex."
With this I asked, "What age group are we talking here? Pedophilia can apply to 14 year olds or 6 year olds. Would you ever have sex with a child, and of what age?"
He wouldn't answer the having sex with children part, obviously out of fear that I would narc on him or something. But he explained that all children can enjoy sex, and that he's known six year olds who willingly and with pleasure indulge in sex.
Give alt.sex.mike-labbe a try... it's interesting that it even exists...
Blain Nelson
FW -- I'm not sure if spouse abuse and child abuse do share the same basic pathology. Perhaps they do. Clearly there is some shared territory, but there are some particularly interesting areas where they don't.
But before I talk about that I'm going to have to talk about spouse abuse more than I can tonight. Sorry.
I'll be back.
Kagro X
It was a plant. I wrote that book.
GB
If we're talking child beating I think the abusers of wives and children are one in the same. Sexual offenders are a little more complicated.
Child Abuse> _