Judge Baugh MUST resign.

I listened to Melissa Harris-Perry as she read her letter to G.Todd Baugh, the judge in Montana who stupidly blamed the 14 year old child for her teacher raping her. Although he subsequently apologized for his misogynistic statements, his apology appears to be falling on deaf ears. Instead of sentencing the rapist to a minimum of two years as the law provided, the rapist was ultimately given 30 days. Judge Baugh said that the teenager was “older than her chronological age” as justification when he sentenced her rapist to 15 years, and then suspended that to 30 days. Before she was 18, the child victim committed suicide.

As both an incest survivor and a mother, this makes me insane. Montana law states that anyone under the age of 16 cannot consent to sex with an adult. She was 14, for God’s sake. How could she consent? She can’t. And while the judge believes he should be, in his words, “chastised”, he refuses to resign from the bench. 

Judge Baugh’s resignation should be the least of what happens to him. This girl committed suicide in 2010, after which the prosecutors said they would drop the charges if the rapist entered a treatment program. Treatment program. Right. Like that’s going to help. Rehab has become the way criminals avoid incarceration. Go to rehab, avoid jail. What rehab exists for this child, or her family? What exists to help them avoid the pain and the permanent incarceration of their souls? The system failed them. The judge failed them. And an innocent child is dead.

We don’t think right about sexual abuse and its consequences. The fact that the child committed suicide as a result of her abuse should have resulted in more jail time for her rapist, not less. Had she not taken her own life, her emotional and psychological future would still have been in jeopardy. 

Any child who experiences sexual abuse has a difficult time in adulthood, no matter if she is believed or not, or has had therapy or not. It’s the same thing as the PTSD our soldiers suffer from. I didn’t go into therapy until I was 39 years old, after my mother died. I only told my husband and my boys a few years before that. Sexual assault destroys you. To live with that kind of fear, particularly when it’s a parent responsible for the abuse, is beyond terrifying. I only began breathing easier on July 2nd of this year, when my father died. I’ll be 56 in October and what he did to me has governed everything about me.

I have spent most of my life trying to survive in the midst of abuse reactions. First of all, I fear everything and everyone. I don’t let on to anyone that I feel this way, but I do. Doesn’t matter if anyone is doing anything wrong, there’s still this underlying terror that sits inside me. And yes, it gets in the way. All the time.

I don’t like it when anyone impedes me from doing something. Simple things, like my husband putting his arms around me while I’m doing the dishes for example can completely freak me out. Now that he knows what’s going on, he tries not to do that anymore. Other survivors report the same thing. Never come up behind a survivor and prevent her escape. Most people never understand they’re doing that because it’s not their intention. But if you’re standing between me and a way out, I become terrified. I can know with complete certainty that you’re not doing anything to hurt me. It doesn’t matter. I’m still terrified. But you won’t know that.

Motherhood is interesting when you’re a survivor. I tend to people-please and I never want to be in a position of not believing someone who is telling the truth. Enter my boys. Gifted and articulate, they could plead their cases with aplomb. So who to believe. Sometimes I would send both to their rooms, and then apologize for doing so. Fortunately, they didn’t manipulate me during these times. They knew I was struggling. 

There were times I couldn’t answer the telephone when it was ringing (before caller ID), because I was terrified it would be my father. I would stand in front of the telephone, shaking, tears streaming down my face. Then one of the boys would approach me and ask if I wanted him to answer the phone. Sometimes I would let them, and sometimes I wouldn’t. After all, I’m their mother. It’s my job to protect them. It’s not their job to protect me.

I finally told my father what I experience when I hear his voice. He called the business we owned at the time and although I was in a panic attack, I knew I had to speak to him.  I took the phone from my husband and told my father just what I was feeling at that moment. I told him that whenever I hear his voice, I can’t speak, I can’t breathe, I feel like I’m going to die. I told him then that he cannot call me anymore. But that didn’t stop him and his umpteenth wife from doing it again. That time, my husband spoke to my father’s wife on the phone, and told her in no uncertain terms that he would not allow them to see me. That was several years ago. 

Now that my abuser is dead, I’m safe.  He had an arsenal and never let any of us forget that fact. But I can talk about it now without worrying what he will do to me. Cannabis helps with my PTSD issues and I’m glad Oregon is allowing that as a qualifying condition now. Survivors need access to something that’s safe and effective when coping gets dicey. Believe me, our veterans are thrilled at this new policy change as well. They need it as much as we do.

Survivors just try to survive. That’s what we do. It all may seem odd to someone who hasn’t experienced this. People may think that since it’s not happening anymore, we should just let it go. As if we could. When the judicial system in all its forms doesn’t support us, then our last line of defense is gone. Judge Baugh can engage in all the revisionist history he wants. He can’t un-ring that destructive bell. He can’t bring back that child. He must atone. He must resign and take his good ol’ boy attitude with him.

Here is Melissa’s letter to the judge. And this is an article I read in Huffington Post.

UPDATE: This is a link to a Think Progress article talking about Judge Baugh reconsidering the 30 day sentence. “Judge Who Sentenced 14-Year-Old’s Rapist To 30 Days In Prison Decides This Sentence Was Illegal”

UPDATE:  The predator is apparently going to be released today.. Just great.