Victims Outraged As Judge Seeks Job Back

[Rose Siding]

CONCORD, N.H. -- A judge's bid to be reinstated after he was convicted of groping five women while drunk at a conference on domestic and sexual violence is sparking outrage among his victims.

Joan Sergio, one of the women groped by District Court Judge Franklin Jones, said reinstating him would send a message to victims that the state doesn't take sexual assault seriously and would imply alcohol abuse can excuse a crime.

"If he's reinstated, it's a crime in and of itself," Sergio said in a telephone interview Friday. "People are going to look at it and think the judicial system's a joke."
Jones grabbed the women's breasts and buttocks in May while attending the conference. Jones, who has said he was so drunk he doesn't fully remember the night's events, knew the women because they worked as victim advocates in his courtroom.
...
Jones' defense team packed the committee's hearing room with supporters Wednesday. The supporters, some of them women, included a state senator, police officers and prosecutors who praised Jones' performance as a judge and said one incident shouldn't end his career.

Victims and advocates called the show of support a travesty, particularly because participants included public officials responsible for arresting, prosecuting and sentencing sex offenders. Sergio and two other victims testified Wednesday.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-judge-suspended,0,6265504.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

[roguevalley]

1. file formal complaints with the bar and then sue his bitch ass.

God, I feel cranky tonight. :)

[Hillary08]

2. Looks like the conference fee was a waste...

I don't think he learned much in the conference. I wonder how he would handle the situation of a defendant accused of groping his wife or daughter showing up before him. (ignoring the confict of interest for the sake of the hypothetical)

[liberalhistorian]

3. Well, guess what, Ms. Sergio,

the state obviously DOESN'T take sexual assault seriously, and it DOES imply that alcohol abuse can excuse a crime. And the judicial system right now is, indeed, a joke, frankly, as this paralegal knows all too well.

So, they believe that "one little incident" shouldn't ruin his career? Seems to me that it's a helluva lot more than just a "little incident", and only men would think that way. This is especially depressing coming on top of the law a Virginia representative introduced in that state to require women who suffer miscarriages, even in the very early stages of pregnancy before they may even know they're pregnant, to report such miscarriages to the police within the first 12 hours!

[gaia_gardener]

4. What?

They have to report it to the police?

When I go to the gyn, they ask me how many times I've been pregnant, I say "2 that I know of, there were a couple of times when my period was a few weeks late and really heavy". They usually laugh and say "most women have things like that and never know if they miscarried or what, all we ask is the best you can know".

If a gyn can't even tell a woman how to tell if she has had a miscarriage, how are women supposed to know?

IDIOTS!

[Kelvin Mace]

6. Yep!

Here's the link

http://democracyforvirginia.typepad.com/democracy_for_virginia/2005/01/legislative_sen.html#more

David Allen
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[gaia_gardener]

8. That's a well written site

but the content is very disturbing. Very, very disturbing.

[0007]

16. Excellent insight on this blog, David. And *I agree!

[Pithlet]

5. Really?! Why?

Re: the miscarriage law. What is the reasoning behind that? That makes absolutely no sense.

[Kelvin Mace]

7. Some highlights

When a fetal death occurs without medical attendance, it shall be the woman's responsibility to report the death to the law-enforcement agency in the jurisdiction of which the delivery occurs within 12 hours after the delivery. A violation of this section shall be punishable as a Class 1 misdemeanor.

OK lady, drop your panties and step back from the dead fetus.

OK, now, answer these questions:

# place of occurrence
# usual residence of patient (mother)
# full maiden name of patient
# medical record number and social security number of patient
# Hispanic origin, if any, and race of patient
# age of patient
# education of patient
# sex of fetus
# patient married to father
# previous deliveries to patient
# single or plural delivery and order of plural delivery
# date of delivery
# date of last normal menses and physician's estimate of gestation
# weight of fetus in grams
# month of pregnancy care began (sic)
# number of prenatal visits
# when fetus died
# congenital malformations, if any
# events of labor and delivery
# medical history for this pregnancy
# other history for this pregnancy
# obstetric procedures and method of delivery
# autopsy
# medical certification f cause of spontaneous fetal death
# signature of attending physician or medical examiner including title, address and date signed
method of disposal of fetus
# signature and address of funeral director or hospital representative


David Allen
www.thoughtcrimes.org

[Ilsa]

9. I had a miscarriage at 6 weeks. Guess what?

There is no need for a $2,000 DNA analysis to determine the fetus' sex. It was a small blob of blood and what looked like egg. It wasn't a person, but some cells that didn't grow right and they aborted because of it. (I was able to carry a healthy pregnancy to term starting about five months later.)

There is no "delivery" of most of these miscarriages. Even the gyns don't see a point in doing a D&C if the body is aborting the tissue on its own. Drs don't even know why this stuff happens most of the time, even when they do need a D&C at 12-13 weeks they don't always know why.

Politicians trying to be doctors and gods. Ugh! Makes me ill.

[Pithlet]

10. Pro-life BS

They're just setting things up for Roe V Wade to be overturned. This is disgusting.

[liberalhistorian]

11. This is all part of their strategy

to implement the legal recognition of "personhood" for the fetus from the beginning of conception. What's really disturbing and frightening is that someone posted, on the original thread discussing this, a paragraph explaining how the Nazis strictly controlled women's reproduction and health issues, ranting against and forbidding homosexuality and abortion (sound familiar?), checking hospital lists of women who'd had miscarriages to make sure they weren't abortions, etc. Women grieving over a miscarriage had to also explain to the Nazis that they had not had an abortion.

Given that that is one era of history I've extensively studied, I had already known that, but had put it in the back of my mind over the years. Never, ever, in a hundred million years did I EVER think this would happen in this country, NEVER. Here we go, people. We MUST MUST MUST fight this and show people exactly what the wingnuts and fundies are truly up to, that they are NOT moral, that they have ulterior motives in mind.

[Pithlet]

13. This is a slope we don't need to be heading down.

Soon they'll require us to monitor or cycle and report for mandatory PG tests when we're late. Didn't Ceausescu do something like that? :scared:

[liberalhistorian]

15. As far-fetched as it sounds right now,

I can actually envision that happening in the not-too-distant future. Thank God I had a hysterectomy a few years ago at 37! Ceausescu did, indeed, have similar reproductive controls, but I don't believe even he went as far as to require something like this, although I could be wrong. I do know that he tightly controlled women and their fertility and absolutely forbade abortion, making even "underground" abortions extremely difficult to get. This is why there were so many orphans and orphanages in Romania. He may have required hospitals to report miscarriage rates and those who had them, and things like that.

[liberalhistorian]

12. And, according to the article,

in Virginia a class 1 misdemeanor is serious stuff; it includes felony burglary, stalking, etc. And it's punishable by a year in jail and a $2,500 fine!!! Notwithstanding all the millions of other objections to this absurd POS piece of Nazi bullshit, did they ever think that a woman might have a few other things on her mind right after a miscarriage besides calling the cops?

And what if she's in the hospital from complications? And what if they decide that she didn't take good enough care of herself, even if she didn't do anything wrong, and that was the cause of it? And what if she didn't even know she was pregnant, as happens most of the time with miscarriages? Are they going to be inspecting tampons and pads now for incriminating evidence? UN-BEFUCKING-LIEVABLE!

[Pithlet]

14. It can be harrowing enough to go through.

I've been through more than one. I was convinced that one of them was caused by an accidental overdose of vitamins I took the night before, even though my doctor highly doubts it. Intellectually, I know he's right, but emotionally? I always wonder if I did something. Having to report to the cops... I can't imagine it.

[TahitiNut]

19. It's not a "fetus" until the end of the 8th week.

Until then, it's an "embryo."

[0007]

17. Who else would get another chance? This prick should be put

in a state mental hospital. WTF, this is the way third world counties do business.

[MaineDem]

18. What an ass!

However, if he does stay ont he bench I see many appeals based on his conduct. I'm not a lawyer but it just seems likely.

That being said, there's NO WAY he should be allowed back.

[Vektor]

20. Oh, my stars...

"after he was convicted of groping five women while drunk at a conference on domestic and sexual violence..."

Disturbing on so many levels.

[SemperEadem]

21. Inappropriateness

Jones' defense team packed the committee's hearing room with supporters Wednesday. The supporters, some of them women, included a state senator, police officers and prosecutors who praised Jones' performance as a judge and said one incident shouldn't end his career.


I wonder... would those same law enforcement people praise Jones if he had in his chambers a PS2 with the video game 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas', and in the game he was randomly killing police officers and then using the cheat codes to clear the 'wanted' stars during recess from a cop killer murder trail he was presiding over? Would they schedule news conferences to whine and cry and over the inappropriateness of that? What he did at the conference was beyond inappropriate. Any judge who cannot control his liquor is a liability and should be removed from the bench.

I believe that for most people who have appeared before this judge for various reasons should have state senators, prosecutors and police officers standing up saying "One incident shouldn't mar the defendent's record". However, the difference is this isn't one incident. Each grope was an incident. Therefore, he's got multiple, witnessed incidents.

He is a liability to jurisprudence and should be removed from the bench until he has completed alcohol detox, sensitivity training and 80 hours of community service and 10 years of probation.

He is held to a higher standard, so therefore, his punishment should serve as a deterrent to other people in law enforcement as an example.

[Demeter]

22. Ah, New Hampshire! I Got Divorced in NH, and Screwed

by the court (repeatedly). A word to the wise: don't do anything in New Hampshire, they truly believe in their motto: Live Free or Die.

For a state with only about 1 million people, they have a high per capita number of corrupt and venal judges!

[Rican1]

23. Sounds like Bush found his replacement for Rehnquist

He's following the Clarence Thomas school of law