Birdsong's Law Blog

Years ago Birdsong was stationed in Germany as a State Department officer. Here are a few recent weird stories from Germany.  Ja voll.

Laguna Niguel, CA: They say that the pants were down but so was the size of the crowd at a cheeky Southern California event.  Only 400 people showed up for the annual Moon Over Amtrak Fest in Laguna Niguel, where people line up to moon passing trains.  Last year, about 8,000 showed up, forcing deputies to shut it down because of traffic jams and drinking.

Drinking and mooning — a bad combination!

Saginaw, MI: A parolee who robbed a Michigan bank was caught when he tried to hitch a ride from an undercover police detective,  police said.  Mark White flagged down Saginaw detective Scott Jackson after the bank robbery a few blocks away, say police.  White had been paroled 30-days earlier after serving time for a DUI.

Idiot! Perhaps, he missed the prison food…or the prison sex?

Willow Street, PA:  A Willow Street teenager had the bright idea to toss eggs at a police cruiser with a cop

Attorney Shirley Huang, a former student of Birdsong’s, has recently had her article Child Rapists Live To See Another Day published in the American University Washington College of Law Criminal Law Brief.  The Criminal Law Brief is a law journal where students, practitioners and academics may discuss, debate and explore various elements of  criminal law.   In her article she analyzes the Supreme Court’s decision in the  2008 case of  Kennedy v. Louisiana which held that the death penalty for child rape is unconstitutional. Attorney Huang’s article grew out of very excellent research she did while a student  in Birdsong’s Criminal Justice Administration Seminar.  Attorney  Huang won the book award in that seminar for writing the most outstanding paper of the class.

Read and Learn…

Child Rapists Live To See Another Day

Shirley Huang, Esq.[1]

 I.                   Introduction

The human capacity for good and for compassion make the death penalty tragic; the human capacity for evil and depraved behavior make the death penalty necessary.[2]

Rape has been described as a “fate worse than death”[3] and “one of the most egregiously brutal acts one human being can inflict upon another.”[4]  Child rape is perhaps the worst crime one can commit, debatably second only to murder.[5]  It was not until the mid 1980s that child sexual abuse was brought to the nation’s attention by the media as a serious issue.[6]

This article explores the constitutionality of the death penalty for the crime of child rape, focusing specifically on Louisiana’s capital child rape statute.[7]  In 1976, the Supreme Court decided that the death penalty for the crime of rape is a grossly disproportionate and excessive punishment, and thus violates the Eighth Amendment.[8]  For over thirty years, the constitutionality of making child rape a capital crime was questioned.  The Court ended the ambiguity of the issue by recently determining that the death penalty is inappropriate for the commission of child rape where the victim is left alive.[9] 

MEMORANDUM

 TO:  Judge Judy, Sumter County Court

FROM:  Law Student # 123456

RE:  Sentencing Recommendation for Arthur Dees

           You have requested that I outline and discuss the objectives of sentencing for you in the above-referenced criminal case of Arthur Dees.  You also asked that I recommend to you a sentence for Mr. Dees.

           It would be my recommendation that Mr. Dees be given a sentence of ten (10) years in prison, with the Execution of eight years of the Sentence Suspended (ESS) and that he be given a $1,500 fine. After serving his two years prison time Mr. Dees would be on probation for eight years. The reasons are set out below.

           The generally accepted objectives of sentencing in any criminal case are general deterrence, specific deterrence, incapacitation, and reform or rehabilitation (sometimes restitution may be considered).  The objective of general deterrence is to fashion a sentence that might deter others in our society from engaging in such criminal conduct.  Specific deterrence is meant to send a message specifically