He had another rather controversial ruling recently in a teacher child sexual relations case…
Monday’s sentencing of a Louisville woman to 20 years of intensive supervised probation — but no prison time — for having sex with an underage boy once again raises the question of whether female and male sex offenders get equal treatment under the law.
Irene Gomez, 39, was sentenced in Boulder District Court more than a year after being arrested for having sex with the boy, which whom she had two children. One of their children was conceived when he was 13 and she was 32 and the other when he was 16 and she was 35, police said.
While Gomez will have to register as a sex offender and won’t be able to see her children — she has five altogether — until she successfully completes a treatment regimen, some think she is getting away with a lesser punishment than men would in a similar position.
The prosecutor comments…
That includes prosecutor Amy Okubo, who lost her bid Monday to get Judge James Klein to include two years of work-release as part of Gomez’s sentence.
“I don’t think there’s any question that (if the gender roles were reversed) we’d be talking about a prison sentence here,” Okubo said. “Frankly, her behavior is outrageous.”
(bold is mine)
Erika Stutzman from the Daily Camera editorial board takes on the decision in a recent editorial and concludes…
“Grooming” and consent issues are given their due during sentencing phases in courts, and they were in this case as well. So, too, were the victim’s statements. He said he didn’t consider himself a victim, and he said he thought Gomez was a good mother to their children. The victim’s perspective should be respected — but victims aren’t sentencing judges and for countless good reasons.
What may be slipping through the cracks is the intent of the sexual assault law — which is to protect children from harm.
Those children include 13-year-old boys.
I don’t want to get offtrack at the moment so I won’t comment at this time on the disparity between the treatment of the adult men and women in similar situations.
The point is I can’t get to the voting booth fast enough to cast my single vote against Judge James Klein. Please join me. See Judge Kleins bio here.
Added 10/26/2008:
For additional information on Judge Klein scroll down the left sidebar and select the labels ‘Judge Klein’ and ‘land grab’.
this is the father and the so called victum of this bullshit my wife / mother of my babys did nt do ne thing wrong we wer so happy everything was going good then that asshole dect. Molander from louisville got involed then everything went to hell i hate him and that fuck head judge Kline they took my babys away and took my solemate / babygirl away they broke up myy familh i only hope the same them both !!!!!!!!!!!! Hope they rawate n hell singed (R.M.C) aka the so called victum