Word: simonson
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Permissive age or not, it is unwise to be too understanding of rapists even in a relatively liberal university town like Madison, Wis. Judge Archie Simonson learned that lesson last week while handily losing his $36,000-a-year seat on the Dane County (Madison) bench in the first judicial-recall election held in the U S in three decades...
...judges raise the question of the victim's responsibility "I 'm trying to say to women stop teasing. There should be a restoration of modesty in dress and elimination from the community of sexual-gratification businesses," declared Dane County Judge Archie Simonson, 52. "Whether women like it or not they are sex objects. Are we supposed to take an impressionable person 15 or 16 years of age and punish that person severely because they react to it normally?" Voicing such sentiments, Judge Simonson let a convicted 15-year-old Madison, Wis., defendant off last May with a wrist...
...supporters, Simonson's remarks reflected a troubled quest for proper justice in an era notable both for its sexual liberation and the use of sex as a sales device. But feminists were outraged. Women picketed the courthouse and circulated petitions, signed by over 35,000 voters, demanding Simonson's removal. Paul Soglin, the liberal mayor of Madison, was also critical. Said he: "Regardless of community standards, under no conditions can a sexual assault or rape be considered normal...
...Simonson case illustrates some changes and ambiguities in prevalent legal attitudes toward rape. Since 1974, in response to women's rights advocates, at least 20 states have modified rules of evidence in rape cases, restricting, for example, inquiry into the victim's sexual history. But at the same time the law is softening and refining the punishment for rape too. The U.S. Supreme Court in June banned the death penalty for rape. When sentencing rapists, judges now tend to distinguish more and more sharply between varying degrees of brutality and other mitigating circumstances...
...television glorifies violence and, yes, America is "permissive." In Madison, Wis.. Dane County Judge Archie Simonson released a rapist, 15, into the custody of his family. Madison, the judge explained, is a sexually permissive community where women wear see-through blouses. The kid was only reacting "normally," said the judge, though the 16-year-old victim was wearing an unprovocative sweater. But surely these and similar arguments, which go to any length to hold society and not the individual accountable, are glib and shallow...