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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1367 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 22, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Here's a court opinion from Queensland, Australia.

  • At three in the morning, a drunk 19-year-old male engages a 51-year-old prostitute for a 30-minute session. After the woman tells him that his time has expired, he angrily responds that he hasn't finished (ejaculated) yet and punches her in the face multiple times, resulting in "significant" injuries. Two hours later, he accosts a 66-year-old woman who is on her morning walk and rapes or attempts to rape her three times—once with fingers in vagina, once with penis in vagina (just an attempt since he failed to achieve an erection), and once with penis in mouth. He also inflicts severe injuries on the 66-year-old (dislocated shoulder, broken jaw, fractured eye socket, and broken nose). Some hours later, he is arrested, makes "partial admissions" to the police, and expresses "genuine remorse".

  • The 19-year-old pleads guilty. Before the sentencing judge, the prosecutor suggests a total sentence of 14 years—3 years for the assault on the 51-year-old, and 10–14 years in total for the attempted and actual rapes and grievous bodily harm on the 66-year-old. The defense accepts that a range of 10–14 years is appropriate for the second set of offenses, and asks for a total sentence at the low end of that range. The judge imposes a total sentence of 13.5 years (with the possibility of parole after 10.8 years)—1.5 years for the assault, consecutive with concurrent sentences of 12 years for each actual or attempted rape and 6 years for the grievous bodily harm.

    It is critical, as is required, that a sentence be just and appropriate, and not too crushing and disproportionate. What I have sought to do is ameliorate the sentences so that the overall sentence is just and appropriate. The likely overall sentence would have been, I think, about 16 years; that is, the sentence for count 1, in my view, is likely to have been over two years, and was likely to be over 13 years for your sexual offending, coupled with the violence.

  • The appeals panel reverses. In this case, the offender was only 19 years old, had no criminal history, had a disadvantaged background (his mother committed suicide when he was 13, and he lived unhappily with his grandmother afterward; he was exposed to excessive drinking and violence in his childhood; he started drinking at age 15), has expressed remorse, and has been out on bail for 16 months without reoffending. In the context of both the crimes and the offender's background, the sentence imposed was "manifestly excessive".

    The case of R v Wark, in which the offender was resentenced, on appeal, to 12 years’ imprisonment, supports the view that 12 years was too high in this case. The offender in Wark was 51 years old, with a limited criminal history of minor drug offending. He too had a problem with alcohol and had been drinking in the lead up to the offending, which started at about 1 AM one Saturday morning. The complainant, a woman in her 30s, [suffered one assault while armed, one assault with intent to rape, one deprivation of liberty, five actual rapes, and one attempted rape]. Both by reference to the circumstances of the offending (which involved a far more prolonged series of violent and degrading sexual assaults) and the offender, Wark is a more serious case.
    The panel resentences the offender to 11 years (with the possibility of parole after 8.8 years)—1 year for the assault, consecutive with concurrent sentences of 10 years for each actual rape, 5 years for the attempted rape, and 5 years for the grievous bodily injury.

  • One judge on the panel dissents. She would impose a total sentence of 10.5 years (with the possibility of parole after 8.4 years)—1.5 years for the assault, consecutive with 9 years for the oral rape, and no further penalty for the other crimes.

    It seems to me that a comparison with the offending in Wark and the offending in the present case shows that the primary judge’s starting point of perhaps 16 years for the total of the appellant’s offending was significantly too high. Serious though it was, the appellant’s offending was objectively much less than Wark’s offending. Not only was the starting point too high but, again in comparison with Wark, a reduction from 16 years to 13 and a half years in the present case was an insufficient reduction to reflect a guilty plea. Significantly the primary judge in this case needed to mitigate the sentence he imposed to reflect a guilty plea, and also to reflect the fact that the appellant was a young man with no criminal history (Wark was a mature man). The appellant’s youth and lack of criminal history bore upon his prospects of rehabilitation. His youth also bore upon the primary judge’s consideration of totality. That is, in considering what might be a crushing sentence, the primary judge was obliged to consider the appellant’s youth.
    The period of nine years is inflated to allow for the criminality of all the offending against complainant 2.

(The judges don't mention it, but obviously any 19-year-old male who would choose to hire a 51-year-old prostitute also has a severe mental disability that warrants special sentencing treatment.)

I think you may have hit a new low for how “fun” your cases are.

(1) It's very funny to watch these judges nitpick over a year or two of prison.

(2) It's very interesting to compare Australian sentencing with US sentencing. Presumably, these offenses would get something closer to 30 years in a US court.

@Amadan

I enjoyed it thoroughly, thanks for posting. I don't think it fits better in any other thread. All the sentences to me are "welp, probably time to kill myself." It's fascinating that they try that hard to tweak the sentences those little bits.

Presumably, these offenses would get something closer to 30 years in a US court.

Looking at the PA sentencing guidelines, I'm not seeing anything close to 30 years no matter how you slice it. Even getting to what the Australian court imposed would be tough. All I see here is one count of simple assault causing bodily injury from the first incident. From the second incident, one count of simple assault causing bodily injury, one count of aggravated indecent assault, one count of attempted rape, and one count of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse using force. The IDSI charge is the most serious here, and sentencing from the remaining charges of the second incident would almost certainly run concurrently. They would probably tack on the assault charge from the first case to run consecutively, but that's only 24 months of probation. There are no relevant enhancements or mandatory minimums. The aggravating circumstances would likely be balanced by the mitigating circumstances. This is a first offense, and the sentencing guidelines for IDSI for a first-time offender call for 4.5–5.5 years in state prison. Even if we grant the max allowed for aggravating circumstances, that only gets an additional nine months. Plus sex offender registration and whatever post-release supervision the guidelines call for.

Judges in Pennsylvania have discretion to deviate from the guidelines, but they have to provide a justification, and the sentence is reviewable. Getting to 30 years would be theoretically possible, but it would require such a gross deviation from the guidelines that an appellate court would shoot it down pretty much immediately. Hell, the statutory max is only 20 years; anything beyond that would require consecutive sentences. Even the aggravating factors here are kind of weak, even if you don't take the mitigating factors into account, and the guidelines already account for them. As grisly as these crimes sound, they're really par for the course when it comes to what the guidelines anticipate.

I guess my sense of US sentencing practices has been skewed by reading too many cases that feature offenders with voluminous criminal histories. Still, in New Jersey, aggravated sexual assault (sexual penetration (of any orifice) during the commission of aggravated assault (purposeful infliction of significant bodily injury)) carries a sentence of 10–20 years—a bit harsher than the 0–20 years that Pennsylvania prescribes for involuntary deviate sexual intercourse (deviate sexual intercourse by forcible compulsion).

The issue here is that it's not aggravated assault. New Jersey, like most other states, defines serious bodily injury as

"Serious bodily injury" means bodily injury which creates a substantial risk of death or which causes serious, permanent disfigurement, or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ

While the injuries in the above case were serious by any casual definition, they don't meet the high bar required to upgrade the charge.

I said significant bodily injury, not serious bodily injury. Purposeful infliction of significant bodily injury still is aggravated assault in New Jersey, though a lower degree.

b. Aggravated assault. A person is guilty of aggravated assault if the person:

(1) Attempts to cause serious bodily injury to another, or causes injury purposely or knowingly or under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life recklessly causes such injury.

(7) Attempts to cause significant bodily injury to another or causes significant bodily injury purposely or knowingly or, under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life recklessly causes such significant bodily injury.

Aggravated assault under paragraphs (1) and (6) of subsection b. of this section is a crime of the second degree; and under paragraphs (2), (7), (9), and (10) of subsection b. of this section is a crime of the third degree.

(2) It's very interesting to compare Australian sentencing with US sentencing. Presumably, these offenses would get something closer to 30 years in a US court.

I was thinking about this earlier. In my state, if he went to trial and got convicted, he'd be looking at life with no possible release for at least 25 years (and the release isn't parole, it's far more restrictive and rarely granted). I would be surprised if any prosecutor here would offer him a plea deal with less than 20 years, and even that seems optimistic.

I'd honestly be surprised if this were the case in your state. If you wouldn't mind telling me what it is I can look at the sentencing guidelines myself.

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