From Mark Morris: A federal judge sentenced a Mississippi man to 10 years in federal prison today for attempted commercial sex trafficking of a child. Christopher M. Cockrell, 34, of Amory, Miss., pleaded guilty in July after he answered an online ad, posted by undercover Independence police officers, offering minor girls for sex. Cockrell admitted that he agreed to pay $80 for unprotected sex with a 15-year-old girl.
Hat Tip: Many thanks, Ken!
A lot of issues here.
1. How can one person be both customer and trafficker? That cannot be by definition. The customer would not benefit financially from the exploitation so he cannot be the trafficker.
2. We have no real victim here. No one was actually trafficked, yet a 10 year sentence w/o parole. The federal system does not have parole.
3. I am guessing they sentenced him in the Western Dist of MO where they have the judges rigged to hand out extreme sentences for sex crimes. There was a reason why they took the JOCO massage cases out of jurisdiction.
I wonder what Mississippi federal judges would say about entrapping a man outside of his home jurisdiction and then sentencing for a crime involving no real victim. That seems to come pretty close to a human rights violation. But since MS was never too concerned about human rights anyway, they probably have that one locked in anyway.
As we saw earlier this week with the retiring Bakersfield CA District Attorney (and with the Duke rape case), most of these sex case persecutions and extreme sentencings end up getting dropped or overturned in appeal because of the unethical legal practices of the grandstanding prosecutors.
Posted by: Stifled Freedom | Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 04:55 PM
...sorry a "civil" rights violation...not a "human" rights violation.
Wasn't the federal prosecutor and court system actually established to address civil rights violations in local and state courts. I believe it was. Quite ironic that the federal system is now used for such persecutions.
Posted by: Stifled Freedom | Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 04:58 PM
I like the law and I am glad the lawmakers that created that statute did so. I would prefer that someone who has a proclivity to have sex with minors be arrested this way rather than society having to wait until he has actually has sex with an underage girl or child. I would rather no child have to be raped or put in peril of being raped. I don't know...perhaps I'm not as "moral" as Moral City USA.
Posted by: me | Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 10:56 PM
Me, I actually appreciate your point of view and the civility you used to present it.
The FBI did a presentation in my office about a month ago. The agents said about 3-5% of adult men have pedophilia tendencies. Do we really want to entrap that many people into our already-overloaded prisons? Do you know how many people that is? 7.5 million people.
I agree that they should be stopped from harming children, but I think we can find a better way than 8 years in prison for a first offender……over something that had no victim. They generated this criminal and ruined his life. Even after 8 years, he will be released, as a registered sex offender. His life is ruined. He cannot get a job, rent an apartment. What if he has a family to support? They are on their own. He can’t help them now. Do you care what they think of losing a father. Sure he made a mistake, but ruin his life?
It is a very dangerous thing to disenfranchise large segments of the population. There will be terrible social consequences later to all these outcasts. What will society be like with 10s of millions of disenfranchised ex-cons running around. We cannot hold everyone in prison forever….it is not feasible…..not at the rate we are packing them in today. So when does it end?
Posted by: Stifled Freedom | Friday, November 20, 2009 at 10:49 AM
We will pay a big price tomorrow for today's irresponsible legal hysterics.
Posted by: Stifled Freedom | Friday, November 20, 2009 at 10:50 AM