When it comes to child molestation, hanging judges are the best judges. Seldom is there a reason not to impose maximum penalties on such predators, who scar their victims with physical and emotional wounds that never fully heal.
Two recent cases involving Anderson men ended with justice. Gary Lakey, 54, was sentenced by a district court judge in Florida to life in prison. Jimmy A. Saxon, 50, was sentenced by Madison Superior Court 3 Judge Thomas Newman to 50 years in prison, the maximum for the charges he faced.
All child molestation cases are horrible. Those involving Lakey and Saxon were particularly heinous.
Lakey was arrested in March 2008 at his Anderson home by FBI special agents after an investigation uncovered his role in an international child pornography ring. Lakey was one of 14 men who trafficked images of children engaged in sex acts, using computer encryption to veil their exchanges online. The group traded “more than 400,000 images and videos of child sexual abuse,” according to a release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Lakey was party to every one of the children exploited in those photos and videos. A lifetime in prison, somehow, doesn’t seem like punishment enough.
Saxon was sentenced for the garden variety of child molestation that ruins lives one at a time. He had been placed in a position of trust to baby-sit a child and took advantage of the situation and the child. He was caught when someone saw him fondling the child and contacted police.
Another child molestation case against Saxon, springing from incidents in 2002 that led to charges in 2005, was being adjudicated at the time he was charged with the more recent crimes.
“Since you’ve had a similar case pending since 2002, I believe that if you had not been caught you would be continuing this kind of behavior,” Judge Newman told Saxon in court.
Saxon will never harm another child, but it’s an indictment of the judicial system that it takes so long to get a conviction. Meanwhile, the predator was free to harm others while the case meandered through the courts.
Crimes like Saxon’s have become all too common in the United States.
According to Shattered Souls, a Web site (www.shatteredsouls.net) devoted to helping people prevent child abuse, recognize its signs and seek treatment, one-third of girls and one-sixth of boys in this country are victims of sexual molestation before the age of 18.
And children are never too young to be targeted. Shattered Souls reports that the median age for reported abuse is 9 years.
About 39 million victims of child molestation are living in the United States today, according to the Web site. And over 30 percent of victims never tell anyone what happened to them.
In the cases of Gary Lakey and Jimmy Saxon, the court system has spoken loudly and clearly for victims. These child molesters were dealt with harshly and finally removed from society.
That is as it should be.
In Summary
In two recent cases, justice was finally served. But the scourge of child molestation in this country calls for swifter sentencing.
