Attorney Says Pedophile's Light Sentence Sends Disturbing Message
by Allie Martin
January 11, 2006
(AgapePress) - - An attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) contends that a 60-day sentence handed to a convicted child molester is an outrage. He feels the outcome of a recent case in Vermont points to a serious problem in the justice system.Back in August, 34-year-old Mark Hulett pleaded guilty to felony child sexual assault charges. Hulett admitted to sexually assaulting a young girl repeatedly for four years. However, he was sentenced to spend only 60 days in jail because the Vermont Department of Corrections would not offer any sex offender treatment for Hulett while he was incarcerated.
The Alliance Defense Fund's Pat Trueman says defenders of child molesters often use legal tactics similar to those used in Hulett's case. "Defense attorneys argue that jail time for the perpetrator will not benefit anyone, but treatment will," the ADF counsel says. "So they always advocate that their client, the perpetrator, be given 30 or 60 days of treatment and then let out of jail."
Prosecutors wanted Hulett locked up for at least eight years, Trueman points out. Unfortunately, however, the defense "found a judge in this case that bought into that argument," the attorney says, "but he's a foolish, uneducated judge, because pedophiles have no cure."
The judge over the Vermont case stated that punishment was not his priority; rather, his emphasis was finding treatment for the perpetrator in order to prevent future abuse. But Trueman feels the judge was misguided.
"I think every state has to have mandatory, minimum sentences for child sex abusers," the ADF-member attorney notes, "and a minimum sentence would be 10, 15, 20 years. When a man sexually abuses a child, he has harmed that child for life, and the punishment should fit the crime."
Trueman served in the United States Department of Justice during the Reagan administration. He maintains that the outcome in the Vermont case was a grave error and that giving a light sentence to a convicted child molester sends a disturbing message to the public.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
