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Opinions/Editorials Title: Response To: Brock Turner’s Sentence is Not Unique, Here’s Proof Cops Can Rape Children and Face No Consequnces Brock Turner’s Sentence is Not Unique, Here’s Proof Cops Can Rape Children and Face No Consequnces While reading down the article I came across the name, John Van Trump. We should remember this name. Deckard posted a thread on LF in July, 2015, about his case. That thread received little interest with only 4 posts. After reviewing the article, I will now take the John Van Trump case to parse one aspect of the author’s findings. Trump’s status as a retired deputy sheriff was not proven to be a factor in the adjudication. In fact, court records show that other cases in Texas have been handled in exactly the same manner when the individuals were not police officers. Furthermore, he was not “convicted of sexually assaulting the little girl.” There no conviction, there was a Deferred Adjudication. To understand the difference, let’s explore what a Deferred Adjudication is under Texas law. To repeat, a Deferred Adjudication is not a conviction under Texas law. A criminal background check will show the arrest for the charge, will show the Deferred Adjudication, but it will not show a conviction. John Van Trump was not the "active duty" police officer that the author tried to channel us to believe. He was a 69 year old retired deputy sheriff in 2015 when he received the 10-year Deferred Adjudication for aggravated sexual assault of a child. He was originally arrested in November 2013. The girl was 8 when the former sheriff deputy was arrested. She told family members earlier that year that Trump had molested her several times. The girl was his former girlfriend’s young daughter. All this is according to Harris County court records. There is much we don’t know here. Without breathless hyperbole both this article and the hyperlink in the original article are a little weak. I would therefore say that, in Texas, a Deferred Adjudication is pretty much only given in a plea deal. So, why would there be a plea deal? It has to be both to the advantage of the prosecutor and the defendant. This process took almost 2 years to be adjudicated. If the prosecutor could prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt then the time line would have been shorter, much shorter. There should be no doubt about this. On the other hand, if John Van Trump had pleaded guilty to the initial charges, the process would have been over immediately and he would have been spending 10 years in jail. Why did neither of these happen? We can only safely assume there were extenuating circumstances. In a case like this, the reason a prosecutor and judge would agree to Deferred Adjudication is if they think their case might fail if the ONLY evidence in the case is the testimony of a 10-year child that will not stand up to a jury. It has been proven that children do lie im molestation cases for various and sundry reasons. Or, the prosecutor doesn’t want to put a poor, allegedly abused 10 year old on the stand to be viciously cross examined. More reasons for the Deferred Adjudication is that there could be mishandling some aspect of the case, lack of forensic evidence and etc. We can rail against the judge, cry corruption, say bad cop and all the rest ... but it's quite possible that this is what the family wanted. I only said it is possible, I don't know this case, but it's not unheard of. It takes all parties to agree for a Deferred Adjudication. So, a good defense lawyer for John Van Trump may tell him that whether he is guilty or not, if the case goes to trial and if he is found guilty … then spending the final years of his life behind bars as a retired deputy sheriff and convicted child molester will be most unpleasant for him. Which is something John Van Trump would already know. So the defense lawyer may recommend he take accept the Deferred Adjudication although he may profess his innocence. I point all of this out, not to agree one way or another, to say what is and isn't just, or anything of that sort. It's simply to point out that not having access to all the facts we should then be objective since there could be a reason (good or not) for this sort of outcome. Putting this behind us for the moment, I view with jaundice the posting of this “hate cops” article on the same morning that breaking news had already been released about a terror attack in Orlando where some 20 people died and around 42 were admitted to the hospital. When listening to that breaking news, I learned that the first cop on the scene was a lieutenant who “ran towards the threat” and with total disregard for his personal safety engaged the Islamic jihadist terrorist in gunfire. It was also notable that the SWAT team arrived and rescued 30 hostages. I will not find it strange if we see no post of information about the successful heroic efforts of law enforcement who risked their lives on a thread … but, we can instead expect a continuing flow of “hate cops” articles. It is high time for some posters to face and accept the fact that cops are not letter perfect. There are human beings first and they are cops second. Law enforcement cannot effectively screen applicants to 100 percent effectiveness to weed out at the ones who will be bad before they enter the profession. Consequently LE will take some bad people in to be cops and conversely there will be some cops already in who later will do bad things. Cops make mistakes and do wrongs the same as all other humans do. If I remember the percentages, they are the same among cops as they are with other professions. I think those who need to make cops the enemy should reconsider their actions. Their real enemy Is the same enemy of all Americans … the Islamic jihadist terrorists. Like the little bastard who shot up the club in Orlando and like the bastards who hijacked the planes on 9-11. I have been called a “boot licker” because I generally stand up for cops in defense of the posted yellow journalism articles. Well, I am here to tell everyone that I accept and wear that title proudly. I will continue to stand up for cops and I will condemn those bad cops after they are found guilty by a jury of abuse and lawless actions or they are found to have violated departmental procedures. When I am called a “boot licker” I will think of the “cop haters” as “Islamic Jihadist terrorist enablers” because of their continuing effort to denigrate and take down the force that stands between all American and the Islamic jihadist terrorist bastards. God Bless America and God help law enforcement combat and annihilate the Islamic jihadist terrorists in America and from the face of the earth. 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#2. To: Gatlin (#0)
Source?
Source? Northeast ISD tells us that David Winbush was hired in 2008 as a physical education teacher at Reagan high school. In December of 2012 a student went to a teacher saying her friend was having a sexual relationship with Winbush. "Initially Mr. Winbush and the girl denied that there was anything going on, but later the girl did admit to her mom that they had been having a relationship for a couple months," said NEISD communications director Aubrey Chancellor. The girl was 16 at the time; Winbush was 33. The legal age of consent in Texas is 17. Child Safe tells us this child in this case was most likely lured into this relationship. "So when you have someone that tells you they love you, that they care about you, they fill an emotional need or they fill a financial need, whatever it may be, then you tend to be a little more open with that person and believe you have a relationship with them," said Director of Programs for ChildSafe Randy McGibeny. And now, after 4 years, receiving the sentence Winbush did, Child Safe says this is disappointing to say the least. "It tells me that we have a long way to go in our society and in culture when we are talking about sexual abuse of a child, by definition that is exactly what he did," says, McGibeny Northeast ISD tells us they contacted both Child Protective Services and the Texas Education Agency about Winbush. The Bexar County Criminal District Attorney's Office sent us this statement... On 6/2/16, the defendant entered a "no contest" plea to the charge of Indecency - Child Exposure. As part of the plea agreement, the judge sentenced the defendant to four years deferred adjudication and assessed a $1,000.00 fine, plus $714.00 court cost. Additionally, upon successful completion of deferred adjudication the defendant is required to register as a sex offender for the term of probation and ten years after the completion. In this case, the victim and her family did not want to participate in prosecution against the defendant, making it extremely difficult for us to proceed to trial. We felt the defendant had to be held criminally responsible for his actions, therefore we made the decision to offer a plea agreement.
Thanks!
I should be more careful to list credits. Thank you for calling my attention to this.
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