OC DA Appeals Lightened Sentence For Man Who Sodomized 3-Year-Old
SANTA ANA (CBSLA.com/AP) — The Orange County district attorney has appealed a judge's decision to give less than half the mandatory sentence to a man who sodomized a 3-year-old girl.
Tony Rackauckas announced the appeal Thursday. The district attorney has said he believes the April 3 ruling by Superior Court Judge M. Marc Kelly was illegal.
Kelly gave Kevin Rojano-Nieto 10 years instead 25 years to life, ruling the mandatory sentence was unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.
"We believe a 10-year determinate sentence after trial for this crime is just willfully inadequate and not a lawful sentence," the district attorney said. "We recognize that, yes, there's a mandatory minimum sentence, but that the constitution is a higher law than the statutory law that we're dealing with."
Kelly said a court-ordered examination concluded Rojano-Nieto wasn't a sexual predator and acted on impulse when he attacked a relative. He also said the girl's parents had asked for leniency.
The ruling outraged victims' rights groups and sparked recall demands. County supervisors also plan to vote on a resolution calling for the judge to resign.
Such backlash <a href="concerns some in the legal community, who count on judges to be independent and not swayed by public opinion.
"Whether we agree or disagree with the ultimate outcome is not really what the issue is here; it's whether he in fact was doing his job the way he should be, and he did," according to Kate Corrigan, of the O.C. Criminal Defense Bar Association.
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