White football player accused of raping black, disabled team-mate avoids prison
Source: Guardian
White football player accused of raping black, disabled team-mate avoids prison
Prosecutor’s declaration that alleged rape with coat hanger was not sex crime or racially motivated sparks criticism among campaigners against sexual assault
Julia Carrie Wong in San Francisco
@juliacarriew
Tuesday 20 December 2016 18.26 EST
An Idaho prosecutor’s declaration that an alleged rape of a black, mentally disabled football player with a coat hanger by his white team-mate was not a sex crime and was not racially motivated has sparked mounting criticism among campaigners against sexual assault.
John RK Howard was initially charged with felony forcible sexual penetration by use of a foreign object, but on Friday, the 19-year-old reached a plea bargain that allowed him to plead guilty to a felony count of injury to a child. The deal will allow Howard to avoid prison time unless he violates his probation, the Twin Falls Times-News reported.
The October 2015 assault drew national headlines after the victim told the court that he had been attacked by three football team-mates and sodomized with a coat hanger in the locker room.
. . .
The victim was called racial epithets such as “watermelon”, “chicken-eater”, and “nigger”, and Howard taunted the victim with a “Ku Klux Klan” song, the lawsuit alleged.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/20/idaho-football-coat-hanger-rape-teammate-john-rk-howard
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The racism was OBVIOUS!
Not to mention that it's sick behavior for anyone to do to anyone else!
Then again, it may be that there was no video, no good evidence for the claims in the lawsuit that we assume are well established in fact, and that the victim would make a really, really bad witness.
Sounds like the racial aspect is reported by the parents from what the victim told them. Not sure how that would stand up in court. As usual, there's a lot we don't know but assume isn't important. That said, the kid got off too easy. What he (and the others) did was heinous.
It's also worth pointing out that the reduction in charges as part of the plea deal probably makes the family's civil case all the harder to win. No nice testimony from the trial to use, no established facts ready-made for the civil trial.
And, yes, it may also be that the judge had some mercy for the defendant and his age. Reporters go hot and cold on this aspect--recently heard a story in which a defendant who was in his mid-20s when he was about to be sentenced was treated sympathetically by the reporter, partly because of his age and lack of experience at the time; the reporter thought it a travesty of justice that he was dealt with harshly.
Both happen, but typically we only see it in different states with different judges and sets of laws, yet assume that somehow there's one single state criminal court system in the country. (Oddly, statistics looking at juvenile offenders, at least, and both race of judge, race of victim, and race of defendant found that the biggest factor in sentencing was when the judge was black and the defendant was black--white judges + black defendants and black judges + white defendants both had lower sentences than black judge + black defendant. That, of course, is on average, which means "on average."
