Speaker David Ralston: Defender of Child Molestors
by Bill Simon
Warning
The following Vine does contain subject matter quite unsuitable to anyone under the age of 18…or, anyone who just got into politics and thinks every elected official should be treated as a deity.
Two stories must be told before we get to the meat of this edition of the Political Vine. I’m not going to apologize for their subject matter because these are two factual stories that are quite relevant to the entire purpose of this PV. So, please be patient, and read the stories in the order in which they are presented.
Timeline: November 1985
On November 7, 1985, a decision was handed down by the Georgia Court of Appeals (“COA”) regarding the case of a man who was found guilty in the trial court of sodomizing his own 7-year-old son.
The attorney representing the sodomizer for the appeal argued to the COA that, essentially, because the 7-year old may not have been able to define what an “oath to tell the truth” meant, the 7-year-old was not a competent witness.
The COA decided to uphold the lower court’s ruling because the legal standard is not that someone specifically be able to “define” the meaning of an oath, nor that he/she be able to understand the process under which the oath was administered, but that the witness know and appreciate the concept of what it meant to tell the truth, and what it meant to lie, and what would happen to liars if they lie.
The COA cited the trial court’s evidence that the child testified that “…the [child molestor] placed his sex organ in the child’s mouth and anus. The evidence was sufficient for a rational trier of fact to find the appellant guilt of sodomy beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Timeline: September 1986 & April 1987
In September 1986, the Georgia Court of Appeals twice denied an appeal (an appeal and then a “reconsideration” of the appeal) by a convicted child molestor who was convicted of 5 counts of child molestation and aggravated sodomy of his own 11-year-old daughter.
In April of 1987, the Georgia Supreme Court (“GSC”) heard the appeal (and the reconsideration), and denied both as well.
When you read these two appeals, you will be able to construct what had to be going on in the mind of the criminal defense attorney arguing the case for appeal.
The attorney for both the COA and the GSC appeals argued that, essentially, because the daughter had slept in a bed with her uncle when she was 5 and when she was 7, then when the father had relations with her when she was 11, that she had already “consented” to have sex with the uncle, and therefore she could not accuse her father of molesting her.
AND…the criminal defense attorney was arguing to both higher courts that if he was allowed to cross-examine the 11-year old victim on her knowledge of what constituted “sex” that he would be able to show that his convicted client should not be found guilty if his daughter had no problem sleeping with her uncle. (Yeah. That was the logic of the appeal argued.)
Both courts determined that regardless of the times in which the victim may or may not have had relations with the uncle prior to the 5 acts of molestation the father was accused of performing on the victim, the victim could not “consent” to either act and prior sexual activities was not material to the defense’s claim. (Why didn’t the criminal defense attorney know that law about “consent” of a minor?)
Timeline – Interlude
Since you’re dying to know what the heck these two stories have to do with anything currently going on in Georgia, I’ll let you know, and then we’ll continue with the present day Timeline.
In the first case discussed dealing with the 7-year-old son molested by his father, the criminal defense attorney was David E. Ralston (whom you now know as “Speaker Ralston”). Here’s the case to read if you wish.
In the second case discussed, the criminal defense attorney for both appeals dealing with the argument that if a child has sex with her uncle and doesn’t accuse him of molestation then when her father does the same thing, she can’t accuse him of molestation, was also David E. Ralston. Click this link for those two cases to read.
NOW…we return to the Timeline…
Timeline – February 25, 2013
On Monday, February 25, 2013, the Georgia State House “debated” HB 142 (actually, they merely acquiesced to it because there was no “debate”).
HB 142 was solely written by Speaker David Ralston. And, there are some things in there that are good, and some that are not good. (At this moment, I don’t have the time to spend on the bill itself.)
What I have the time to do is present a few excerpts that I find especially indicative of just how freaking crazy some of these folks clearly become when they sit for so long in elected office. Two people in particular who spoke in favor of the bill: Representative Chuck Sims (R-Pharisee), and Speaker David Ralston (The Holiest One).
Currently, the video from yesterday’s house vote on HB 142 is online…and, after I discuss parts of this video, I suspect that either Ralston (or his Head Henchman Spiro Amburn) will direct Chip Rogers & Co. over at Georgia Public Broadcasting to rip the video off of the GPB website so that you won’t be able to witness their actual words. (Click this link for the GA House – Day 23 video if you wish to see the video at the Timemarks described)
Chuck Sims is recognized to speak at approximately the 1:08:28 timemark. Feel free to listen to Sims’s folksy journey as he takes you thru to someone’s childhood act of pushing over an outhouse, Washington’s axing of a cherry tree, and ending-up at the approximate time mark of 1:12:50 where Sims asks the question “Was Jesus Christ unethical? Everybody said he was.”
THEN…continue listening to Sims as he wends his way up to the timemark of 1:13:25 when he transitions to what can only be interpreted to mean that he truly equates Ralston’s dealings with discussions of legislative ethics to Ralston being Jesus Christ. (He does not say this, he implies it and he infers it because there was no other reason to bring-up some statement regarding whether Jesus was accused of being “unethical” before this point.)
And so, Sims apparently believes Ralston should receive extra-special “goodness” attention because he takes the barbs from people accusing the house members of being “unethical.” (However, I interpret this ‘crown of thorns’ that Ralston wears for all the other House members to actually be more indicative of the fact that some individual members of the House are TOO stupid to speak for themselves…and Sims is especially included in that characterization of an inability to speak for himself unless he’s in the House well…protected from talking to serfs and other non-Pharisees).
NOW…let’s look at one comment from Ralston in the well (because I could not take hearing him speak for long at all):
Timemark 1:32:00: Ralston claims that in no version of his bill was there ever an attempt to quash the free speech right of a citizen to express their views to a legislator…and that any other characterization in that realm would be a “Blatant misrepresentation of the truth.”
COMMENTARY
Since Chuck Sims asked the question of “When did Ralston become unethical?”, based on the clear evidence of the type of law that Ralston practiced (i.e., criminal/child molestation defense), and the way he argued those cases, I’m going to answer that question for Mr. Sims: Ralston likely walked into the House with an immoral/unethical mind existing already.
Now, you can argue all you want that everyone deserves a criminal defense (I’m certain I’ll receive emails from criminal defense attorneys to that effect)…but, for someone to be able to…literally, warp their mind into arguing that an 11-year-old girl, because she apparently had sex with her uncle when she was 7, and she didn’t have a problem with relations then, then heck-yeah!…she should not have had a problem with her dad molesting her 5 times when she was 11…yeah, I think something has to be pretty twisted in Ralston’s mind to have been able to argue that as a legal basis for an appeal.
And, not just argue it once, but twice. He ignored the logic of the Court of Appeals’ decision, and continued to display a blatant disregard for the statutory rape and child molestation law to appeal again to the Ga Supreme Court.
One has to wonder what criminal defense attorney Ralston would have cross-examined the 11-year old victim about if he had been granted the appeal? Think about that for a moment.
Would Ralston’s cross-examination have been been worded like this: “Now, Little Girl, you were okay with your uncle messing with you in bed when you were 5 years old…why don’t you just go ahead and admit you liked it when your uncle did it, and you also liked it when your father did it, right?”
Can you imagine the psychological trauma that little girl would have had to experience in dealing with Ralston’s cross-examinination of her had he won his appeal in 1986/1987? To have the opportunity to tear her apart on the witness stand? That is one sick mind, Folks. (And, I doubt that mind ever got “well”.)
The fact that both of Georgia’s high courts denied his claim proves to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that his mind is not something that anyone should rely upon to know the difference between right and wrong when it comes to the “ethical behavior” of legislators.
You folks in the State House who worship this guy as your “Speaker” (or, Chuck Sims, who considers David Ralston to be the Son of God)…know this: When David Ralston looks at you, and seeks to “defend” you against the “evil media” and those “evil Tea Party People” that he…actually…may view you as a criminal needing to be “defended”….and/or…for all we know, some of you may actually be child molestors that David Ralston successfully defended, and that explains your “loyalty” to him.
So, when you shake his hand, and you walk around the Gold Dome thinking your Speaker “loves” you and will “protect” you, keep this in mind: One day, he may defend the person who molests your 7-year old boy/grand-child…or, your 11-year-old daughter/grand-daughter and claim to the court that your child somehow invited the molestation to occur.
There are some truly messed-up minds in this state’s Legislature. Now we know why. And, like a fish, it is all rotting from the head all the way down to the tail.
