Originally Posted by
JohnCommode
https://www.yahoo.com/news/arrest-ma...wtab&type=icon
The only reason that I opened up this thread for this case was because of what appears to be an incredibly shoddy original investigation combined with the leniency and consideration shown to him by the state of Arkansas. If my understanding of this is correct, he was convicted of rape in Arkansas, served only 4 years, and was released out-of-state on parole to Denver. Didn't local PD check on convicted rapists on parole in their area? Maybe Arkansas didn't notify Colorado Probation about his presence, but that seems unlikely to me as they would have wanted a Denver government contact to keep tabs on him. God knows what else he did in the next 40 years. It's unlikely that he became a model citizen.
For whatever reason (maybe you remember because you're older than me), there was a shocking amount of leniency regarding violent criminals in the 70s. This included a federal ban on the death penalty (since lifted, obviously), and bans on life without parole in states such as California (also since lifted). There were tons of light sentences where the perpetrator was either under-sentenced or given leniency because of some factor such as a rough childhood.
This continued somewhat in the 1980s, though not quite as bad, until a backlash in 1994 finally sent it back the other way. Part of the Republican midterm election success in 1994 was due to the crime issue (which was at an all time high in the early 90s), and the leniency Democrats still wanted to show violent criminals.
I'm sure this guy committed more rapes over the years, though probably not all that many (or at all) in the last 2 decades or so, because many rapists tend to lose a lot of the desire to do this as they pass 40. There are various theories on this, but the prevailing one is that the declining testosterone does it.
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