Judge says "wake up and smell the odd looking coffee creamer, you religious idiots" in slightly more Politically Correct words.
Quote:
I’ll do the sentence.
BALIFF: All rise.
(Recess)
THE COURT: Please be seated. Well, needless to say, since the trial I've
thought about the sentencing as much as counsel on both sides have certainly
thought about it. And I note there are some issues --appealable issues on the
part of the Defendant in the case. I've made my decisions and did my best to
follow the law as I saw it. And I excluded evidence that I didn't believe was
relevant, and I excluded evidence that both sides offered that I didn't believe
was relevant. And on appeal the Supreme Court will decide whether or not I did
so appropriately, and well they should. I do wanna say I appreciate the courage
it takes to come to court when a person is found guilty and speak in favor of
that person. And I also appreciate the courage it takes to come to court and
speak about things that I know are so difficult for family members. I think
Attorney Sisti talked about the years of --his years of experience--and he has
many: he's one of the finest defense attorneys in --probably in New England.
But in my years of experience—I would like to say this to the people here who
speak for the defendant: Be careful with your kids.
I can guarantee you that
within your group there, there are a number of people who have been sexually
assaulted. When I pick juries to sit on trials, it's not unusual for me to
have from half a dozen or more jurors come forward and say, No, I can't ~ sit
on this case: I was sexually assaulted; my daughter was sexually assaulted.
What you see when you visit someone like the defendant, or when you're in
church, is not everything, believe me. I've had trials where defendants who
were Catholic priests were found guilty, where victims have come forward
following the trial, finally letting people know that, yes, they too were a
victim; when someone had the courage to come forward and finally say something.
It's --I think as Attorney Harding said: It's the secrecy. Many people pull it
off, and it -- are never sentenced for anything, and have probably --and I
can't say in numbers, but I know that many people just feel, as victims, that
they just don't wanna face the system, and the stress of reliving things that
were so difficult for them when they were helpless with nowhere to turn. But
believe me, do not carelessly say, "I would leave my children with" anyone. And
the jury found the defendant guilty of these charges. And I was reading some
of the indictments earlier today, and I thought about Holly--Holly B.,
as it's written in the indictments. And it's Holly B.the woman that I see, but
it was Holly B. the child that was in the indictment. And she was being
emotionally and physically and sexually abused when she was between the ages
of, I guess, five and ten. And there was nowhere she could go. She -- her
parents couldn't help her; the defendant wasn't going to help her; the
church didn't help her; and the state didn't help her. And at that time in her
life, she could see no help on the horizon. I think as Attorney Brown said, she
didn't think she'd live to be sixteen years old. But inside of that child was a
hero just waiting; and now years later--twenty-one years old, tattooed--the
poet-warrior in a sense comes to rescue the child. I'm not going to call the
defendant a monster. No one that comes into the courtroom is a monster; we’re
all human beings and we make terrible mistakes. I will say this, that there is
something terribly wrong with anyone who would perpetrate this number of
offenses over that number of years on a helpless child. And I think Attorney
Sisti said that he had tried murder cases where the state's recommendation--this recommendation in this case would be much longer than a murder case. Well,
a murder case is a different game. It's one incident, frequently done in the
heat of the moment. It is not an incident that is planned and then carried out
systematically, secretly, at the expense of a child who cannot help herself
because her community will not help her. And so I'm going to give the State—
the State's recommendation of a sentence. I think the defendant's acts deserve
that. I think it is important that the defendant be punished for these acts.
And I'd point out that perhaps if somebody had spoken years ago, if somebody
had inquired, instead of relying perhaps on Jehovah--and I'm not talking
against anybody's religion; I'm saying I’ve seen this happen in any number
of different congregations-—maybe it would have been a shorter sentence, and a
lot less cruel for that child, then.
So, the clerk will now, I know, read the
sentences.
