Child molester given probation because he’s “too short” for prison

What kind of harebrained bullshit is this?

A judge said a 5-foot-1 man convicted of sexually assaulting a child was too small to survive in prison, and gave him 10 years of probation instead.

His crimes deserved a long sentence, District Judge Kristine Cecava said, but she worried that Richard W. Thompson, 50, would be especially imperiled by prison dangers.

"You are a sex offender, and you did it to a child," she said.

But, she said, "That doesn't make you a hunter. You do not fit in that category."

Thompson will be electronically monitored the first four months of his probation, and he was told to never be alone with someone under age 18 or date or live with a woman whose children were under 18. Cecava also ordered Thompson to get rid of his pornography.

He faces 30 days of jail each year of his probation unless he follows its conditions closely.

"I want control of you until I know you have integrated change into your life," the judge told Thompson. "I truly hope that my bet on you being OK out in society is not misplaced."

Well, Judge, if your entire rationale that a convicted child molester will be “okay out in society” is based on the fact that he’s not “a hunter” since he’s short, I feel pretty safe in saying that your “bet” is indeed misplaced.

And since when does someone’s likelihood of being “especially imperiled” get them a get-out-of-jail-free card? That’s what we have protective custody for. Frankly, I think the best judge of whether Thompson was fit to serve in prison is Thompson—and as soon as he broke the law, he consented to being sent there.

The thing about this that’s really getting on my last good nerve is that this guy wasn’t convicted of robbing a bank or jacking a car or murder. He was convicted of sexually assaulting a child. What concern did he show for that child’s safety? He abused someone weaker than he was—and now he’s getting out of the prison time he so richly deserves because the same thing might happen to him, by a design of his own making. Unbelievable.