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The Girl Down the Hall: A Prosecutor and Husband Looks at S.B. 33
Jacob Rambo
Jacob Rambo is a California prosecutor. He's also the husband of a survivor of child sexual abuse who found that California laws protected her abuser, not her. If the Circle of Trust bill had been law when the Rambos sought justice, a known predator would have gone to prison. Instead, the justice system sided with him. In this essay, Rambo addresses the problem of judges who used the incest loophole to give special preferential treatment to criminals who rape and abuse children in their own home.
I will never get over the shock of February 28, 2003. As prosecutor, I have always harbored a natural trust and distrust of a trial judge's ability to exercise discretion. Every attorney can rattle off their list of good judges and bad judges, the judges you want to decide a particular issue and the judges you would prefer not to hear the issue. But I have, or had, always been confident that where the legislature has clearly articulated the rules and given clear directions to a judge of how to proceed on a particular issue, that judges, good or bad, would follow those rules.
On February 28, 2003 I sat with my wife, feet away from her stepfather, as she pleaded with the court to send that man to prison for the years of sexual and psychological abuse he had inflicted upon her. She begged Judge Proud to send Randy to prison, describing in detail the difficulty she faced every day just to walk outside knowing Randy was free. Judge Proud had before him stacks of letters describing the pain caused to Sonia and reports from Sonia's psychologist and pastor detailing the impact Randy's freedom was having upon Sonia's life. He had before him psychological evaluations of Randy that concluded he was a marginal candidate for treatment. He also had a stack of letters written by Randy's family that made clear their position: they rejected my wife as a member of their family in favor of Randy, the man they loved. The lies and manipulation underlying the letters were obvious.
If Randy had been a Sunday School leader or school teacher the sentence would have been all but assured: Randy would go to prison for 12 to 16 years. But Randy was my wife's stepfather, and that is all anyone cared about. Judge Proud would not address my wife's best interest, he ignored the psychological evaluations, and did not even mention the potential threat to the community. He was not going to send a man to prison for this crime, and he had a way out. Randy was granted probation. Had the Circle of Trust bill been enacted, Randy would have gone to prison. Instead he haunts our family trips to the mall or the movies.
As a prosecutor, I took to heart the lesson of February 28, 2003, that where the law proscribes harsh consequences, some judges will grasp any excuse to avoid imposing those consequences. For Randy, that hole was the technical fact that he molested the girl down the hall instead of the girl down the block. I hope that the Circle of Trust is just one of many laws, aimed at ensuring judges will not duck their responsibility to impose difficult sentences for serious crimes.
Copyright © 2005 Jacob Rambo. All rights reserved.
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