The former Chief of Police of Mt. Airy, Georgia, together with his wife, will get 25 weekends in jail. Upon hearing that, some might cheer. After all, it’s not often a cop gets jail, and 25 weekends is nothing to sneeze at, right? But maybe not this time.
Richard Scott Burton, the former police chief of the tiny northeast Georgia town of Mt. Airy, was staring down 31 felonies — two counts of aggravated child molestation, one of child molestation and 28 of first-degree cruelty to children.
His wife, Cheryl, was looking at the same, minus the molestation. The possibility of decades in prison loomed over the couple, accused of abusing and neglecting their four adopted children for years.
Within the “pantheon” of crimes, molesting children has long been considered the one that is most disgusting, most intolerable. And in this instance, unbearable, as it smacks of “buying” kids, via adoption, to be abused. If ever there was a crime worthy of utter revulsion, Burton committed it.
Suddenly, 25 weekends in jail doesn’t seem so severe. During jury selection, a deal was cut, with Burton and wife to plead to one count of second-degree cruelty to children. The reason was the defendants’ witness list.
That prosecutor, Habersham County Chief Assistant District Attorney Eddie Staples, confirmed as much.
Staples said a number of people who were called to testify on the Burtons’ behalf were “law enforcement people,” folks that he tells juries are trustworthy on a daily basis.
These “law enforcement people” who were to be called on behalf of the defendants, presumably as character witnesses of some sort unless they also witnessed the sexual molestation of Burton’s adopted children and planned to testify that they didn’t see a problem with it, are the same people the prosecution uses regularly. They can’t be lying scum in this trial and truthful, brave, honorable cops otherwise.
On the part of the prosecution, this is conflict at its ugliest. On the part of those cops willing to testify for a guy charged with child molestation, this is where they abandon all pretense of being honorable for a swan dive into the shithole of taking care of one of their own. So, Staples tries to spin it, to deflect his failing as well as his cops’:
He said he didn’t want to risk putting the children through a trial that may have unraveled.
Do it for the children. Not to cover his own butt, his conflict of interest. Not to cover the scum who would protect a child molester within the circled wagons. Nope, it’s for the children.
“The only reason that I offered a deal was … to provide finality for the children,” Staples said. “And to make sure that regardless of what else happened, the defendants had to admit responsibility for at least some of the harm that has come to the children.”
Staples then walked away to rinse the feces off his face. As for the Burtons, their crime will taint them forever.
The single offense that the Burtons pleaded guilty to Monday covered their failure “to provide a nutritionally adequate diet … to the extent that (the children’s) growth was retarded,” Staples said.
Poor nutrition. That will show them. When cops can’t muster sufficient disgust over one of their own for child molestation, then there is little hope that beating or killing folks for the hell of it is going to give rise to a cultural shift in police priorities.
The only remaining question is whether, during those 25 weekends in jail, the Burtons receive the protection they deserve from other inmates who may not feel as kindly toward their nutritional deficits as do the other cops or prosecutor. Somehow, I suspect the screws may finally get one right and protect their charges from harm. Just this once.
H/T Mike Paar
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On the other hand, it could be a calculated tactical move, too. Give them a suspended that sounds good right now so they’ll jump on it, and then do a revocation at some future point in time. He gets the prison time without worrying about a jury that way, with a lower burden of proof (I assume) to boot. It’s so absurdly easy to show a probation violation that the revo is almost a given, should the prosecutor want to file it.
A very Machiavellian tactic, if tactic it is. Or very wishful thinking. I strongly suspect the latter.
Machiavellian it may be, but it works. I once had a prosecutor who admittedly did this all the time. He would offer the max, suspended, to nearly every one of my PD clients in jail. They all took the suspended since it got them out of jail TODAY. None of them would ever listen to me about what was coming down the pike, since they were getting out of jail TODAY. Two or three months later, they were standing in front of a judge who never saw a revo he didn’t agree with, and who only had one question about sentencing: “How much can I give him?” Max time, no real burden of proof, and no jury. Not a damned thing I could do about it.
According to all the local articles I found, there was no suspended sentence – just 50 days in jail, 10 years probation and a $10,000 fine for each of them. Since none of the articles were talking about the absurdity of this plea and were eating up the “protecting the children from taking the stand” nonsense, I would imagine if there was a suspended sentence, someone would have reported it.
Well, I’m not a Georgia lawyer, so maybe they have a different idea of probation down there that I don’t understand. But I took the 10 years of probation to mean a suspended. It could be a deferred, too, of course, or whatever they might call that concept in Georgia. In any case, I can’t imagine a probationary period that doesn’t have some sort of requirements to go along with it, the violation of which will bring some sort of penalty.
with all due respect sir..
look at the crime .. vs. .. the penalty .. if that was me, I’d be sitting under the jail.. nothing is going to happen to them down the road.. they want this to just go away.. quickly & quietly..
and that was the point that I gathered from the article.. in order to prosecute them, the system would basically be putting itself on trial.. can’t have that.. hence the outcome.. to ‘save face’ in the eyes of the community..
But of COURSE the same outcome would occur for any non-police officer that was accused of the same crimes, right?
So the terms of the deal say he can’t be a cop any more, and he and his wife aren’t to adopt any more kids…
But do they get to enjoy life on an Offender registry?
Part of me hopes some enterprising attorney decides to run a Willie Horton style campaign against the DA.