Group defends honoring Montana judge rebuked over teen rape case

[Little Tich]

Source: Yahoo! News / Reuters

(Reuters) - A Montana bar association on Friday defended its controversial decision to honor a former judge who was censured for suggesting that a 14-year-old girl was partly to blame for her rape by a teacher whom the judge sentenced to just 31 days.

The board of the Yellowstone Area Bar Association, a private organization of attorneys in the Billings area, said it voted to present retired state District Judge G. Todd Baugh with a lifetime achievement award for his decades of service.

“While we recognize that Judge Baugh made a very public mistake ... we feel his more than 30 years of service to our community and our profession is worthy of recognition,” the board said in a statement.

News that Baugh was to be honored galvanized women’s rights activists whose protests over Baugh’s courtroom remarks and his sentencing of the rape defendant led to his reprimand in July by the Montana Supreme Court.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/group-defends-honoring-montana-judge-rebuked-over-teen-011923251.html

[2naSalit]

1. They're all

part of the same club... women aren't in it and it shows.

[MrModerate]

2. I'm sorry, but no matter if you give 30 years of good service . . .

(and I have no doubt that there are actually plenty of skeletons in Judge Baugh's closet), when you screw up so badly, that wipes out your reputation completely.

Even if you don't begin a career as a murderer until you're 60, no one is expected (nor should they be) to remember that you were nice to old ladies years ago.