LETTER: Criminal deserved harsher sentence

Talk about it

To the Editor:

When 81-year-old Dewayne Houser got sentenced for sexual contact with a child, why was the law not followed in sentencing? He said the 10-year-old was “asking for it.” Is he too immature at 81 to realize that he is an adult and the victim is a child? He is beyond rehabilitation if he still thinks that at his age.

It would be hard to imagine that he would start such a thing if he had not done that at an earlier age. The public safety (morality) would be better off if he did spend the rest of his life in prison. Did he got five years of his sentence suspended because he sounded nice in his remorse? Being overly nice is how he got in this mess.

Judge O’Brien needs to realize that laws are written for a purpose. The 10-year mandatory sentence is a law for a reason. He has been in the Legislature, so he should understand this. As a legislator, he also proposed a law to reduce DUI penalties for 19- and 21-year-olds while he was a legislator from a college town.

What are his values based on, if he has any? Or, is he just nice to those who sound nice at the moment?

Tags: sexual contact, opinion, updates, letters, crime, judge, prison