August 15, 2007
Real-life Minority Report
Patterico asks, "What can legally be done about this creep?"
The creep in question is an admitted pedophile, who's all-too-willing to discuss his attraction to little girls, but claims (so far) to not yet have acted on his perverse desires.
Jack McClellan publicizes his attraction to young girls, does the rounds of television news and talk shows, and cooperates with the police.
When Santa Monica police confronted him last week at a Jack in the Box — after he had been spotted in the children’s section of the city’s main library by a nervous mother who called police — he agreed to let officers photograph him.
. . . .
As he did in the Seattle area where he lived previously, McClellan set up a website — now dismantled — to rate the summer festivals, parks and other places he has sought out as venues for catching a glimpse of young girls.
“Basically it advises pedophiles where to go to find children whom he identifies as LGs — little girls — and he rates the locations 1 to 5 with five being the best,” said [Sheriff’s Capt. Joe] Gutierrez, who confirmed he had seen the website and that the “information on it did not amount to the level of a crime.”
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge issued a remarkably broad restraining order against this perv, prohibiting him from coming within 10 yards of any child in California. The consensus amongst legal experts is that the order is impermissibly overbroad.
We'll soon find out; he was arrested twice yesterday, once for violating the ban.
The discussion in the Comments is interesting, with two main factions seeming to be: "He's a loathsome toad but we can't violate his rights to prevent uncommitted crimes," and, "Rights? How about a bullet in the back of his head?"
It's a dilemma, one that really cuts to the core rationale for a legal system: the social compact that the public enters into, forgoing vigilante justice in return for an orderly, safe society.
An amoral monster like this guy tests that agreement, strains it to the breaking point, as parents wait and hope it won't be their kid who finally provides the legal justification for incarcerating him for decades, the price of admission to prison being a broken, battered and abused child.
Posted by Mike Lief at August 15, 2007 12:25 AM
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Comments
Thank you Michael.
I rarely agree with you, but on this one we are in the same corner.
Thank you,
d
Posted by: Dawn at August 17, 2007 05:47 PM