Fagan Plans to Rip ‘Em Apart
By Repair Man Jack Posted in Law — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
When William Shakespeare wrote his ironic verse about hanging the lawyers, he hadn’t met the likes of Rep. James Fagan (D-Mass). Had he heard what State Rep. Fagan had to say for himself regarding how he would defend people accused of raping children, The Bard would have considered hanging far too kind a way to end a malicious and hateful existence.
Fagan rose to debate a bill that would have imposed long mandatory sentences on anyone convicted of raping children in The Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Fagan showed the world how Democrats are the party of compassion. He spoke out on how to fix whiney, little raped children but good below.
"I'm gonna rip them apart," Fagan said of young victims during his testimony on the bill. "I'm going to make sure that the rest of their life is ruined, that when they’re 8 years old, they throw up; when they’re 12 years old, they won’t sleep; when they’re 19 years old, they’ll have nightmares and they’ll never have a relationship with anybody.” - James Fagan (May 2008)
Republican House Minority Leader Bradley Jones found himself in the pleasant position of being able to serve both morality and political expediency at the same time. He showed too much restraint by only mildly condemning the disgusting comments with which Fagan had polluted the legislative chambers. He should have beaten Fagan with rhetorical shillelagh. His comments were at least in the right direction.
“I thought his comments were over the top and unnecessary,” Massachusetts House Minority Leader Bradley Jones told FOXNews.com on Wednesday.
“I appreciate that he’s a defense attorney, and felt he had a point to make, but I think it was unnecessary,” said Jones, who supported an original version of the bill. “It was excessive.”
Jessica Lunsford’s father, Mark, has known first hand what it was like to have something like this happen to his family. His daughter, Jessica, was raped and left buried in garbage at the tender, young age of nine. He asked the obvious question.
“Why doesn’t he figure out a way to defend that child and put these kind of people away instead of trying to figure ways for defense attorneys to get around Jessica’s Law?” Lunsford told the paper. “These are very serious crimes that nobody wants to take serious. What about the rights of these children?”
There is that question of billable hours….
In fairness to defense attorneys as professionals, rape charges based primarily on the sworn testimony of the victim, are among the most ethically challenging situations that a decent and honorable lawyer can encounter. A paying client is owed a rigorous defense. The attorney can’t let sympathy with the plaintiff stand in the way of doing the job.
However, there should be at least some sense of remorse. There should be a feeling that the entire encounter was a colossal shame and a travesty. I don’t get that sense of remorse from Good Old “Rip ‘em Apart” Fagan.
He sounds like a hyper-active adolescent blasting aliens on his PlayStation III. The man seems to charge himself off of ruining young lives. Judging from Representative Fagan’s words, the man could have defended Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy and actually rooted for his clients to walk.
Fagan could have gotten totally carried away in his rhetoric. People say over the top things or type themselves beyond the pale in political debates all the time. The proper thing to do it that instance is to apologize.
From the comments of Representative Bradley Jones, I get the sense people that Fagan’s fellow legislators were neither intimidated nor impressed. They know garbage when they hear it, and do not find it anything other than gross and disgusting.
Fagan didn’t win any friends. Not for himself; not for his party; not for the cause of more careful sentencing guidelines. A performance like the one he put on in the Massachusetts will not exactly make the jury feel lenient towards his clients. I can only imagine what he would say on the floor if Massachusetts started debate on the law Bobby Jindal recently signed in Louisiana; that called for the chemical castration of child rapists.
How better to ensure that august body remains the political equivalent of a dead letter office.
'Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a
delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted
by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds
forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick
up a turd by the clean end.'
...I prefer my political party save that kind of vitriol for terrorists and rapists.
--
"We want great men who, when fortune frowns, will not be discouraged." - Colonel Henry Knox
Note the very bottom of the Fox News article:
"Reader Information: State Rep. James Fagan is a Democrat representing the Third Bristol District, which includes the city of Taunton. Fagan, a 1973 graduate of Suffolk Law School, has been representing the district since 1993, and serves as chair of the House ethics committee."
This human excrement is chair of the House ethics committee. Can we voluntarily force Mass. out of the union? This is a sickening commentary on the defense of the indefensible. Legalism versus ethics. Good versus evil. Once again, surprise, surprise, Democrats come down on the wrong side. Notice also the defense of Fagan by former Boston College Law School Criminal Defense Clinic director, Phyllis Goldfarb. I can only pray that BC, one of the finest Catholic, Jesuit schools in the country no longer employs the good professor. Otherwise, it is time to invoke Blaise Pascal's Provincial Letters and charge that the Jesuits are once again guilty of shameless casuistry.
Good catch on this under-reported story, Jack!