Steven D. Sandison, 51, a now-former inmate at Saginaw Regional Correctional Facility in Freeland, Michigan, offered a simple explanation for killing his cellmate, ____ ____, 67, in October 2014.
“The reason I killed him was because he was a child molester,” Sandison told Chief Circuit Judge Fred L. Borchard on Monday, MLive reported. Full Article
This is the second time this year I’ve read about prison staff putting a registrant in a cell with someone already serving time for murder. Both times the registrant was murdered. I read about this happening every year. Sounds like the prison staff doesn’t think much about who they house registrants with. These laws are so wrong. Since when were laws considered good and necessary even if these laws get people murdered? Oh yeah, when being a registrant became no different than joining the Price Club. Those idiots have allot of blood on their hand’s.
This was a case of a unrepentant murderer not having any self control, killing someone, and then giving a lame excuse why he did it. If the murderer couldn’t find a person who had been convicted of a sex crime, it would have been someone else — but it then wouldn’t have been newsworthy. Sxxx and violence sell web sites.
You know what is most annoying about the term child molester? Basically nobody who uses it understands the definition of molestation in a sexual context. Generally speaking molestation does not involve non consensual sex. The forcefulness of the touching might simply be factual because one person involved legally is not allowed to consent. A fourteen year old being sexually touched by an eighteen year significant other could absolutely classify as molestation even in Romeo and Juliet law States which have an age gap not exceeding four years (Iowa is a state with such an age gap).
When people think of child molestation they imagine something closer to what could occur in an extreme BDSM (bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism, masochism) scene. While this likely happens in a very small percentage of molestation cases even among those it is rare for absolute non consensual brutality to be present. If it were common there would be far greater media coverage talking about horrific molestation cases.
Exposing someone under eighteen to pornography or the genitals of another person without consent of the intended viewer can be molestation.
So many different acts fall under molestation that without details in any case it would be irresponsible to claim it is the worst possible example of what molestation could be. Everything short of rape can be an act of molestation if involving someone under the age of consent or sexual assault for someone above the age of consent. This includes the production of materials for sexual purposes without consent (for instances involving minors under eighteen a child pornography charge could be added which probably carries greater penalties than molestation).
Is child molestation a crime? Yes. Though not all molestation is as bad even though it is all illegal.
Is it the worst crime? No.
Can it be absolutely horrible? Yes.
Should people treat all child molesters like monsters? No. Just like not all rapists are monsters. Specifically if someone commits statutory rape there might have been consent between the individuals even though the law still considers the act to be rape.
Just because someone did something doesn’t mean they represent the worst incarnation of the label given to them after the fact. Here’s to hoping that one day we in the United States will have a rational conversation regarding how irrational we are in using gross generalizations on so many things, but especially sexual thoughts and conduct.
I worked in the criminal justice system for 25 yrs., on the defense side of the ledger (not as an attorney). I had a client who, similarly, murdered his cellmate who was a child molester. My client himself had been molested as a child, and was diagnosed as ‘paranoid delusional’ years prior to this homicide. His initial crime that landed him in prison in the first place was: attempted murder of a gay man in West Hollywood. Just as the subject in the news article, my client was then sent to a higher security prison. His new cellmate: a convicted child molester. Well guess what…..what a shock when he murdered his new cellmate (victim #2). Prison staff, in prisons across the nation, do this regularly. This story speaks for itself. Some people just have no souls.
Actually, what seems to be running just beneath the surface of this article is the murderer’s very frank admission and motivation: he didn’t kill the guy BECAUSE he was convicted of molestation. He told him to shut up and he would have to move in the morning. He killed him because he would not shut up about justifying it. I would say the article would better represent the facts if it was written that he was an unrepentant molester or that he just didn’t know when to shut up. Had this guy discovered his cellmate was a molester THEN killed him, I think that would be a big story. As many of us here know all too well, you shut your mouth when you were in there.
I was in a cell with a murder for a while my self. He did not know my crime thank god. I had a fake paper that said I was in for burglary and he bought it.
My first cellmate at Wasco was serving a 49 to life sentence. I was worried that he might have an issue that I only had ten months to serve vs. the fact that I was a registrant. Fortunately, he was a good guy. After many conversations, I found out he was technically a victim of sex abuse and he would also have been a registrant if one of his victims came forward. When he was 17, he had sex and impregnated a 21 year old. When he was an adult he had sex with his friend’s sister who was 16 or 17.
He never asked about my conviction because we were both p.c., but I did tell him after he told me about his friend’s sister. I made the mistake of dating someone who was 17. He was cool with it. He was a good guy. We still write each other monthly.
I had a cell mate trying to put his hands on me.. I shoved his head in the steel toilet. . The jail realized from that point on, military prisoners should be placed away from general pop… it was good when I got to where I was going. To a military prison, where they has a entire dorm for sex crimes and you were away from everyone else.
We had 8 women in a cell the size of a 2-car garage. The vibe was mostly peaceful and sisterly day-to-day, but I just happened to be placed for many months in a cell with one woman who had allegedly, along with her husband, killed a man they believed molested their daughter. My next placement was where one woman had been convicted of murdering her own molester.
I didn’t think it was a coincidence, and kept my mouth shut about my offenses.
And now Steven D. Sandison is condemned to a life of public shame on the Murderer Registry…right?
For your consideration, an article from Business Insider, dated Feb. 2015, on point:
http://www.businessinsider.com/sex-offenders-are-being-killed-off-in-california-prisons-2015-2