An Example of the Absurdity of Prosecuting Consenting Adults

In what looks like an update of a case covered in this earlier entry…

A 65 year-old Samoan man has escaped a jail sentence after being found guilty of incest, which will allow him to join his family in Australia.

Instead he will pay a 5-thousand US fine, with half to be paid to the victim.

I’m glad that he’s not going to jail. That he was prosecuted and fined is ridiculous.

During the trial the defendant denied the charges but the court accepted his ex-wife’s evidence that he was the father of the victim.

Both the father and daughter were charged with incest, the daughter pleaded guilty, and is already serving a three year sentence.

Okay, so what do we have here?

The article twice describes the thirty-something woman as a “victim.” The father is even ordered to pay a fine, half of which will go to her. Then, in the very next sentence after the second reference to her as a “victim,” it says they were both charged with incest, and she is serving a three year jail term. Why send a “victim” to jail? She went to jail, he got fined. Again, I ask why? Did she force herself on him? Why did she get the harsher sentence, especially being the “victim,” who is going to receive part of the fine? She even pled guilty, while he denied guilt, and often courts will go lighter on someone pleading guilty. Is this because she is a woman?

The whole thing is absurd. Neither one should have been prosecuted in the first place. What waste of government resources.