Justice Blinded
Thursday, February 19th, 1998Most Americans have had little attention to spare for matters other than the President’s sex and perjury scandal but the Karla Faye Tucker case pushed it briefly aside. For three days a convulsion of pity and horror gripped the national media till the axe murderer was sent to her reward. Then, scarcely noted came an after-quake, a fitting postscript to several current examples of the systematic gender bias that today passes for law.
Last November in Massachusetts, when Judge Hiller Zobel let British au pair Louise Woodward walk away from the murder of baby Matthew Eappen, in Washington State Mary Kay LeTourneau got six months and counseling for the rape of a 13-year old boy, her former 6th grade student. The fact that LeTourneau was married at the time of her affair and had a son the age of her sex-target-partner seemed of little import to Judge Linda Lau.
“I give you my word,” LeTourneau wept in November, “it will not happen again.” A prosecutor recalled, “she stood there and demurely asked for help. She doesn’t believe she needs treatment because she doesn’t believe she did anything wrong.” (more…)