Crimes

A series of highly publicized child rape cases in which the defendants were widely seen as receiving lenient sentences has outraged South Koreans, who have called for tougher penalties for sex crimes, including the castration of repeat offenders. The most prominent case involves a 57-year-old habitual offender sentenced to 12 years for raping a first-grader and flushing detergent into her body to destroy evidence of the crime. Prosecutors had sought life imprisonment in the attack, which left the girl with severe intestinal damage.

A long-debated bill to strengthen the federal hate-crime law to cover violence against gays moved through the Democratic-controlled House today over Republican objections that it was attached to a defense bill. The measure, expected to go before the Senate within days, had faced a veto threat from President George W. Bush, but enjoys President Obama's support. The Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, said the vote puts the bill "closer to becoming law than ever before." "It's a very exciting day for us here in the Capitol," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco)

Yes, it's holiday book-buying time. But before we get to Sarah Palin's rogue book, we have David Plouffe's audacious book. You'll remember him as campaign manager for that also audacious Illinois guy who creamed the Palin-McCain Republican ticket last year, talking about change to believe in and transparency. Tempting little out-of-context pieces of the Plouffe book, "The Audacity to Win," are beginning to leak out (well, actually, in the book business, they're pumped out by promoters)

The U.S. Supreme Court recognized in 2005 that it is unconstitutionally cruel to execute people for crimes committed before they were 18, because youths lack the sense of responsibility that society requires of adults. Their personalities are not yet fixed; they are more susceptible to the negative influences of other people or events. Society's understandable demand for retribution is necessarily blunted when the perpetrator of a crime is a juvenile. Likewise, the threat of a stiff penalty cannot have the same deterrent effect on a youth as it does on an adult; young people have too little experience to fully grasp the consequences of their actions.

It is nice to see that some authorities are finally coming to their senses about the three-strikes law (Jan. 11). L.A. Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley and criminal defense attorney Brian Dunn may be strange bedfellows, but both seem to recognize the inherent unfairness of the three-strikes law. Many are being sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for petty crimes. These criminals are filling up our prisons and cramping the state's budget because they may have stolen a piece of pizza or a videotape or committed some other nonviolent crime that simply does not deserve such a sentence.

Re "A prison of our own making," Current, Dec. 10 Californians can see that "get tough on crime," if it means only longer sentences, is a cure worse than the disease. So, in 2000, we passed Proposition 36 for drug rehab by a large majority. Voters need to learn that "felony" nowadays means some politician trying to look tough by morphing misdemeanors -- the same petty crimes with a punishment on steroids. But putting sheep in wolves' clothing only frightens fools and increases taxpayers' costs.

Re "Tribunals are dealt another legal setback," June 5 The current Guantanamo Bay scandal proves once again that the American justice system is untrustworthy and incapable of prosecuting the war on terror. So far, none of the people imprisoned at Guantanamo has been convicted, and now it seems that they may never be. As a young person, I am outraged that our government has gone to such criminal lengths. It is unfair or illegal to detain foreigners in our military court system. We have wasted tax dollars, and we have wasted space in the prison that could be used for real criminals charged with real crimes.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that only those "directly" involved in criminal activities that defraud employees and investors can be held liable for the consequences of their actions ("High court rejects investors' suit against Enron bankers," Jan. 23). Those who provided essential aid in the perpetration of these crimes, the Supremes opine, are not legally liable. I suppose that now, in cases involving things like ordinary bank robbery, those who merely plan a robbery or who drive the getaway car have no reason to fear civil or criminal prosecution as either perpetrators or accessories to the crime.

A Paris court gave French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen a three-month suspended prison sentence and a $14,500 fine for denying the brutality of the Nazis' World War II occupation of France. Le Pen was convicted of complicity in justifying war crimes and in contesting a crime against humanity for comments he made during a 2005 interview. The Rivarol weekly had quoted Le Pen as saying: "In France at least, the German occupation was not particularly inhumane, even if there were a few blunders, which is inevitable in a country" its size.