Let's Review Roy Moore's Creepy Judicial Fanfic About Little Girls (And Boys) Who Had It Coming

Say no Moore!

Roy Moore is a good ol' boy who loves Jesus, and America too. And he loves the Bible so much he knows that's why sometimes he had to ignore the law, since the Supreme Court isn't the boss of him. Now that he's in all this hot water over allegedly molesting a 14-year-old, and maybe getting attempted-rapey with a 16-year-old, some of his past judicial opinions certainly take on new shades of meaning, like listening back, knowing what we know now, to certain comedy routines by Bill Cosby and Louis CK.

Consider his vote in the 2015 Alabama Supreme Court appeal of Eric Lemont Higdon, a 17-year-old who worked at a daycare and was convicted of raping a 4-year-old: One charge was for sex with a minor -- statutory rape -- and the other was for "first-degree sodomy by forcible compulsion," or forcible rape. An appeals court threw out the latter conviction and the state attorney general -- Luther Strange, as it happens -- appealed the decision to the Alabama Supremes (worst band mashup ever):

Eight of the nine justices on the panel found that the appeals court had erred. Their legal logic was such that a 17-year-old’s sexual assault of a four-year-old was enough to produce in the mind of the four-year-old, an “implied threat of serious physical injury.” The decision was reversed and remanded and Higdon’s conviction was reinstated. 

Moore dissented, because he didn't see why Higdon's being a big hulking teenager who wanted to do sex things to a 4-year-old necessarily involved a "threat":

Because there was no evidence in this case of an implied threat of serious physical injury…or of an implied threat of death, Higdon cannot be convicted of sodomy in the first degree “by forcible compulsion.”

Yr Wonkette is not a lawyer, but wouldn't that logic invalidate any rape convictions where a victim was unconscious, too? But that's a side issue -- the main thing is that Roy Moore, good Christian, doesn't want anyone to go to jail for rape unless it's the rapiest rape possible, and the victim was really pure and undeserving of rape. The New York Times Thursday noted (and then deleted in a later update) two cases where Moore believed accused rapists should have been allowed to challenge the character of their underaged victims:

In a 2015 case involving a man, David Pittman, who pleaded guilty to raping an underage girl, Mr. Moore wrote in a dissenting opinion that Mr. Pittman should have been allowed to introduce evidence showing his alleged victim’s parents “suspected her of sexual activity,” because it could be relevant to discerning her “alleged motive” in claiming she had been assaulted.

And in a 2014 case, involving a man convicted of abusing two underage girls, Mr. Moore wrote in a dissenting opinion that the man, Sherman Tate, should have had the chance in court to demonstrate that his accusers were romantically involved with each other. Mr. Moore wrote that connection “could be relevant to the victims’ alleged bias against Tate.”

In his dissent in the Pittman case, which was joined by two other justices, Moore argued that while Alabama's rules of evidence prohibit use of a rape victim's sexual history, in this case, the rules allowed for an exception: Since the girl's parents had suspected her of having sex with a boy, they had planned to take her to a clinic to be tested for herpes, and that she only accused Pittman of raping her so she wouldn't get in trouble for sexing the other boy (Pittman tested negative for herpes, you see).

Moore thought Pittman should have been allowed to use the "I didn't give you no herpes" defense to raise doubt about the girl's credibility:

I believe Pittman's constitutional rights to be confronted with witnesses against him, protected by the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, may have been violated by the denial...

I believe that we should issue the writ to consider whether, if Pittman's motion in limine had been granted, a reasonable jury then "could [have] appropriately draw[n] inferences relating to the reliability of the [complaining][w]itness."

No, that didn't happen.

In the other case, Moore argued (and again, two other justices agreed) that the 15-year-old victims needed to be cross-examined, mostly because they were lesbos and might have made up the whole story together, don't you see. AL.com explained his reasoning, such as it was:

In his dissent, Chief Justice Moore said he felt that if Tate's attorneys had been able to enter evidence of the girls' "romantic relationship," it might have shown their "alleged bias against Tate or their collusion." The possibility of cross-examining the victims about their relationship also could have produced relevant information to the defense, he wrote.

"Tate's knowledge of the victims' romantic relationship, coupled with the fact that Tate informed the mother of one of the victims of that relationship, would make the proposed cross-examination relevant to show that the victims had possibly fabricated the charges against Tate," Moore said in his opinion.

You know how it is with those 15-year-old lesbians: A decent godfearing Christian rats them out to one of their parents, and the next thing you know they're accusing him of rape.

At the very least, we certainly can see why Roy Moore would deny ever having done anything to a 14-year-old girl. He knows teen girls are just spiteful buckets of deceit and hormones, and liable to say any damn thing to cover up their sinful ways. And wouldn't you know it, that sort of blame is now being heaped on Leigh Corfman, Moore's accuser, because heavens, she's had multiple bankruptcies, and how can you trust a floozy like that?

We hate to do this to you, but this piece of pixel-cyanide is your OPEN THREAD.

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[ Lawnewz / ThinkProgress / Daily Kos ]