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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
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.
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