Assessing the Sexual Predator Law

Re: priorities – I appreciated hearing the call from the lady who pointed out that we seem to deal more harshly with sexual offenders than with drunk drivers who kill or maim outright. It is certainly a good thing to protect our children from real harm, but my suspicion is that a good deal of the motivation to increase penalties for sexual offenses has to do with squeamishness about "a fate worse than death." The Victorian frisson dies hard.

We should all be shaken by the reality that any innocent man with no criminal history, charged with a sex crime in the USA today, could be just one false accusation away from the anguish of a life sentence. That’s a drastic increase in sentencing power these days. Between the 25 to life sentences for first time convictions and the new sexual predator law that allows for indefinite commitment to a mental institution of someone labeled a sexual predator after they have completed their prison sentence, no man in America is safe.

The sexual predator label can be applied in a wide variety of cases and can condemn someone to a punishment far worse than their original sentence. It could be a form of death sentence but without the usual court protections of such a sentence. It’s risky nowadays to be a man in America for sure; since a false accusation can be so easily made and could then possibly result in a lifetime of confinement and torment, even for someone with no criminal history. This category of conviction is a favorite amongst prosecutors because often it requires no physical evidence, no witnesses, no DNA, no actual proof to win a conviction. No where else in our justice, or to be more accurate I should say legal, system can such a severe sentence be given all based on questionable or sometimes even no physical evidence and just one accusers word.

Consider this crucial point for a moment. Absolutely everything is on the line for the accused as they must shoulder the incredible financial and publicity burdens along with the unimaginable horror of knowing what would be in store for them if convicted. An accuser doesn’t have to face any of that and could easily feel free to make a false accusation knowing that there’s almost certainly no risk of punishment for doing so. And in the extremely unlikely event that an accuser is held responsible for a false accusation, the punishment would be a mere slap on the wrist compared to the nightmare inflicted on the accused. This imbalance leaves men vulnerable at work and in their personal lives and is a highly unjust burden. It is true that the justice system will "often" exonerate the innocent and lock up the guilty, but due to the extreme escalation of consequences now facing an accused more certainty and safeguards are needed in these cases than ever before. Shouldn’t there at least be a proportional increase in the repercussion for a false accusation.

In many cases, false accusations are made due to child custody disputes, nasty divorces or for revenge. Our children are in much more danger of being wrongfully accused as a sex offender at some point in their life, than they are of being molested by a stranger. The profit and vote driven manufactured hysteria of these modern day witch hunts makes the Salem Witch trials and McCarthyism look like a day in Disneyland. Is it any big surprise that our young men, filled with anger and hopelessness, are taking their own lives along with countless others in national tragedies like we are all to often seeing.

It’s also worth mentioning that it will be difficult for consequences to not comparatively leave certainty in the dust when you consider the talent and vast resources of the state behind the accuser. God help the accused if they’re not wealthy. Liberty and justice for all ? While America is out saving the world, whose going to save the Americans from oppression. It appears the concept of freedom and justice has been lost on to many of our elected officials and judges.