[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11410]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               JUDGE ROBERT CHATIGNY--UNQUALIFIED JUSTICE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Madam Speaker, sexual predators, sexual deviates, 
sexual criminals are the most despicable of all persons in our society. 
We can see, maybe, why somebody steals, and maybe we can see why people 
use drugs, but we as a society do not understand, nor should we, why a 
person would sexually violate somebody else. You see, when a sex 
offender commits a crime against another person, in many cases, that 
person loses their dignity. The predator tries to destroy their 
humanity, tries to destroy their soul.
  I spent a lot of time at the courthouse--8 years--prosecuting cases. 
I saw a lot of those people. I tried death penalty cases and spent 20 
years on the bench hearing everything from stealing to killing. During 
that time, I saw a lot of these victims of sexual predators come to the 
courthouse. Many of them during that time seemed, after the crimes were 
over, to have sort of lost their way. They tried. They tried to 
recover. They tried to recruit their dignity, but they didn't. I even 
had victims, years after those cases were over with, call me and try to 
get other bearings in their lives. Some, unfortunately, even committed 
suicide based upon those sexual crimes committed against them by sexual 
predators. Society needs to understand that these real people have real 
emotional problems.
  But, Madam Speaker, there is a rogue judge loose who is out of touch 
with victims. He seems to be a judge who is very sympathetic to the 
criminal who commits sexual predator crimes. Let me give you some 
examples.
  In the State of Connecticut, that State passed a version of Megan's 
Law which requires sexual offenders to register after they're 
convicted. This Federal judge said, Ah, that's unconstitutional 
because, as he said, ``It stigmatizes the sex offenders.'' In other 
words, it hurts their little feelings that they have to register on a 
sexual database. It seems to me that he was a criminal sympathizer, but 
the United States Supreme Court unanimously overruled the Federal judge 
and said his actions were wrong; they were in violation of the 
Constitution and were in poor judgment.
  The same judge consistently reduced the sentences of defendants who 
were connected to crimes regarding child pornography, and he made 
excuses for these offenders. He said, Well, it's not really their 
fault. They had bad childhoods.
  You know, I was on the bench a long time. I heard a lot of excuses, 
and this was one of them.
  He also said, Well, it wasn't really their fault. They had 
addictions.
  This one I like the best. He said, Well, it's not really their fault 
because they had posttraumatic stress because of the fact they were 
being prosecuted and people knew about it.
  Well, yeah. Of course. Hopefully, they had some kind of reaction in 
that they felt like they were being insulted by being prosecuted. It's 
kind of like those folks in California, the Menendez brothers, who 
killed their parents and then complained to the judge that they should 
get sympathy and compassion because they were now orphans. That's what 
the judge sort of says in these cases.
  He also, in those types of cases, reduced the convictions of sex 
tourism. Those are the guys, the deviates, who get on the Internet and 
lure girls to have sex with them. He reduced those sentences, saying, 
Well, they're generally law-abiding citizens.
  That's not all.
  In the famous case of the Roadside Strangler in Connecticut, Michael 
Ross, here is the kind of guy he was. He kidnapped, sexually assaulted 
and murdered eight women in Connecticut. He is tried by jury. The jury 
gives him the death penalty--yes, even in Connecticut. This was in 
1987. Finally, the day of reckoning came in 2004. He is supposed to get 
executed, and this Federal judge intervenes in this case. The judge 
excused the killer because he suffered, according to what the judge 
said, from a disorder of sexual sadism.

                              {time}  1730

  What is that? In other words, because of the perversion, he should 
have a defense? Of course, that is not a legal defense in any court in 
the country. But the Federal judge said he should be excused from that 
conduct. So the judge made up a defense for the individual, stayed the 
execution for a long time, in spite of the jury's verdict that the 
person should get the death penalty; in spite of the fact that Michael 
Ross said, If I didn't get caught by the police, I would do it again; 
in spite of the fact that Michael Ross told the media that he should be 
executed for the sake of the families. The Supreme Court, rightfully 
so, overruled the judge, withdrew the stay, and ordered Michael Ross to 
be executed, and he met his maker in 2005.
  And now this judge, Robert Chatigny, is to be appointed to the 
Federal Court of Appeals at the second circuit appellate court. This 
judge lacks judgment. This judge doesn't follow the law. This judge is 
apparently biased in favor of sexual predators. This judge places his 
personal opinions above the law. And this judge should be in the Judges 
Hall of Shame, not on the appellate court of the United States hearing 
cases. The Senate should not confirm this person to be an appellate 
judge in the United States.
  And that's just the way it is.

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