How Is This Justice?

Note – the following news article may be triggering for some individuals.

From the San Antonio Express-News:

A former San Antonio police officer accused of raping a transsexual prostitute while on duty was ordered Tuesday to spend a year in jail.

Attorneys for Craig Nash, 39, had asked state District Judge Lori Valenzuela for deferred adjudication probation during the brief sentencing hearing, pointing out that he otherwise had been commended for his service during his six years with the department.

Prosecutors sought the maximum one-year sentence for the official oppression charge, which is a Class A misdemeanor.

As part of a plea agreement, Nash waived an indictment last month and pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor. In exchange, prosecutors agreed not to pursue a felony charge of sexual assault by a police officer, which had a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Nash also agreed to never again seek work as a police officer in Texas. Police Chief William McManus had indefinitely suspended Nash — the equivalent of firing him — last March and said the accusation had arrived as “a hard slap to the face” of other officers.

“Officers should be held to a higher standard,” prosecutor Trey Banack said Tuesday of his request for jail time. “A police officer who is a criminal does not deserve mercy from the system he serves to protect.”

(Article continues at http://tinyurl.com/4adefua.)

What kind of world do we live in where people who rape women are allowed to get off with only a year in jail? With a misdemeanor? Note the charge that could have been brought: “sexual assault by a police officer.” The reason why those last 4 words are there is because it’s supposed to be a MORE serious offense when a law enforcement officer abuses their position to commit the crime.

Yet not only was the officer not charged with the more serious offense, he wasn’t even charged with a sex-related crime! That’s like taking a drunk driver and convicting them of mail fraud instead. The justice system is supposed to be about truth, not about whatever charge is most convenient for the parties involved (including, apparently, the defendant).

Just to make matters worse, and possibly drive home exactly how little respect is being shown for trans individuals there, some further excerpts:

Nash was arrested last February after the victim — currently serving time in a male state jail facility for prostitution — reported that she had just been held captive and raped by the officer.

This is totally, utterly, completely unacceptable.

Two days after the officer’s arrest, a second person came forward to say he had also been raped by the officer in 2008. As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors won’t pursue the second allegation, according to court documents.

Prosecutors opted to pursue the misdemeanor charge against Nash instead of the felony as they began looking ahead to trial and contemplating “additional issues we’d have to deal with,” said Adriana Biggs, chief of the district attorney’s white-collar crimes division. She declined to elaborate.

“Declined to elaborate.” When you not only let someone who raped a woman get off with a misdemeanor, but also agree to not even look into another such charge, you should not be allowed to “decline to elaborate” on your reasoning. You want to know where the 41% suicide attempt rate among trans individuals comes from? This is where. When not even the police or the courts are a safe haven, life can seem pretty damn bleak – which is why things need to change. Trans people are people too, and deserve all of the basic rights, protections, and expectations of safety as anyone else.

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