I took a stroll today through OC’s main courthouse in downtown Santa Ana in hopes of taking the real temperature of the firestorm that erupted after Judge Marc Kelly violated California law and refused to sentence a convicted sex offender to the mandatory minimum sentence set by the California legislature for such heinous crimes. The best place for this extemporaneous polling seemed to be in the court’s cafeteria, where lawyers, prosecutors, litigants, and others congregate throughout the day.
Stacking the facts of a 20-year-old sodomizing a 3-year-old with enough violence to tear her anus and require hospitalization against Kelly’s bizarre justifications for leniency has stirred folks from Orange County to Chicago to call for his ouster. But what do the locals who work in the criminal justice system think? Continue reading