HOUSTON — The crime Aaron Hart confessed to was undeniably repellent.
In September, the 18-year-old was charged with sexually assaulting a 7-year-old neighbor boy behind a tool shed in the small east Texas town of Paris. A relative of the victim said she walked outside and saw Hart with his pants pulled down, standing next to the boy.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday, April 09, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 National Desk 1 inches; 34 words Type of Material: Correction
Sexual assault sentence: An article in Tuesday's Section A about the 100-year sentence given to Texas resident Aaron Hart for sexually molesting a neighborhood boy reported the victim's age as 7. He was 6.
Police read Hart his Miranda rights, and he quickly admitted his guilt. On Feb. 11, Hart's court-appointed attorney entered guilty pleas to each of five related felony counts, a jury recommended multiple sentences, and a judge ruled that the prison terms be served consecutively, for a total of 100 years.
That might have been the end of Cause No. 22924 in the 6th Judicial District Court of Lamar County, Texas. Except that now, every court official who had a hand in the case seems to agree that Hart doesn't belong in prison for the rest of his life.
That's because Hart has an IQ of 47, and his parents say he functions at the level of a 9-year-old. The boy he confessed to molesting is mentally disabled as well.
What's more, the judge and the jury never heard any expert testimony about Hart's mental functioning, his capacity to understand his Miranda rights or his ability to assist in his own defense, because his attorney never subpoenaed any experts.
And since he has been in jail, Hart repeatedly has been raped, according to his parents. The first assault, allegedly by an inmate who is serving a sentence of eight years for sexual indecency with a child, so disturbed the inmate's mother that she called Hart's parents to apologize.
"I have nightmares thinking about Aaron in prison and how he is going to survive in there," said Robert Hart, Aaron's 70-year-old father. "He's the type of kid who his whole life people beat him up, took stuff from him, and he wouldn't defend himself. He can't read or write. He can't hardly talk."
Hart's case is threatening to once again bring unwelcome outside scrutiny to the criminal justice system in Paris.
The town of 26,000 drew national civil rights protests in 2007 following news reports of a 14-year-old black girl who was sentenced to up to seven years in youth prison for shoving a hall monitor at her high school and a 14-year-old white girl who was given probation for the more serious crime of arson. More racial tensions erupted last year after the slaying of a 24-year-old black man and the arrest of two white men.
