A Louisiana man has been sentenced to decades in prison and physical castration after pleading guilty to raping a teenager, according to a news release from the region’s district attorney.
Glenn Sullivan Sr., 54, pled guilty to four counts of second-degree rape on April 17. Authorities began investigating Sullivan in July 2022, when a young woman told the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office that Sullivan had assaulted her multiple times when she was 14. The assaults resulted in pregnancy, and a DNA test confirmed that Sullivan was the father of the child, the district attorney’s office said. Sullivan had also groomed the victim and threatened her and her family to prevent her from coming forward.
Physical, and chemical castration is a violation of the 8th Amendment’s ban on ‘Cruel and Unusual Punishment’. I’ll have to look further into it, but this is definitely one of those things that will not/should not be well-received in the courts.
The crime this man has committed against his juvenile victim is unspeakable, but so too is the stipulation that those convicted be castrated. Involuntary alterations to one’s person is, and should always be, regarded as a step too far, especially those which are irreversible. Absolutely putrid.
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Additionally, I don’t think there is any proof that it prevents future assaults. Sex is in the brain as well as the balls. It also seems pointless if he is going to be in prison for what appears to be the rest of his life.
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The evidence that it actually prevents risk is very questionable and inconclusive. Physical castration is outright barbaric and has no place in a civilized society. It’s on the same level as public lashing, or using rape as a criminal punishment, which is something that some societies used to practice as a way to keep women from getting into heaven in the afterlife.
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My chief concerns over using castration (especially physical) as criminal punishment (aside from indeed being cruel, unusual, barbaric, savage, etc.) are A. the double standard regarding the implementation of such a penalty (I doubt female perpetrators would be subjected to forced oophorectomy) and B. how this could be used to justify cutting off thieves’ hands and the like. If dismemberment is a legitimate method of crime-stopping, why don’t we just amputate the arms/legs and/or remove the eyes of other violent criminals?
And I know people will argue “that’s completely different, castrating somebody doesn’t prevent them from being able to take care of themselves”, but the fact is that lopping off hands of thieves was/is a legal consequence for thievery. Historically and contemporarily, severe mutilations and cripplings were/are used as punishments and crime prevention across multiple societies.
Mutilation is/should NOT be deemed an acceptable penalty for crime in a modern civilized society. The Deep South is NOT civilization.
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“Sex is in the brain as well as in the balls”. This should be a new slogan.
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