One Month

[Content Note: Sexual violence; rape apologia; self-harm.]

Stacey Rambold, a former high school teacher in Montana who confessed raping his student, Cherice Moralez, who took her own life before Rambold went on trial, is free after a one-month sentence.

On Thursday, Stacey Rambold, an admitted rapist, will be released from incarceration after just 31 days. ...He won't be a free man exactly; he's on probation for the next 14 years, 11 months.

He'll be free enough to rape someone else.

Prosecutors are appealing the sentence, and the Montana and Pennsylvania chapters of the National Organization for Women, in conjunction with UltraViolet, have filed a complaint with a judicial review board, delivering petitions with 140,000 signatures demanding real justice.

"(Judge G. Todd Baugh) made a mistake and I'm disappointed, (31) days, that's outrageous, but the Montana Supreme Court stepped in. Hopefully they'll make it right," said Auliea Hanlon, whose daughter, Cherice Moralez, committed suicide before Rambold went to trial.

...The case drew widespread attention when Baugh imposed a one-month sentence on Rambold and made controversial comments about the victim, saying she "seemed older than her chronological age" and she was "as much in control of the situation."

Rambold admitted raping the girl in 2008 while she was 14 and he was her teacher at her high school. Moralez took her life shortly before her 17th birthday.

The judge later apologized for his comments, and earlier this month tried to revisit his sentence. But the state Supreme Court barred him from a new ruling, saying he didn't have the legal standing to change a sentence.

Baugh said he didn't realize at first that the minimum sentence should have been two years.

Baugh's secretary said Wednesday the judge had no comment on Rambold's release.

So, a rape apologist judge who doesn't even know the law and didn't even accidentally meet the paltry minimum sentence requirement during sentencing someone for raping a child who later killed herself, and hopes that this rapist will have learned his lesson after a month in prison, can't even be bothered to comment. There aren't words to describe the profound indecency of this guy.

Sign the petition to have Judge Baugh removed from the bench.