Federal judge allows rapist sheriff to remain free until sentencing in May
Bill Keating (above, from this video), a former Texas Sheriff, pleaded guilty in federal court to sexually assaulting a woman, telling her she had to comply or face jail on a drug charge.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert K. Roach decided to allow Keating to remain free until sentencing in May. The honorable Judge Roach said Keating was neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community because he had a "stable marriage" and because "this crime and other alleged misdeeds happened when he was acting as the sheriff."
Keating and [as many as 12 other former sheriff's personnel and inmates] also face state charges related to having sex with inmates and taking illegal substances into the jail, Montague County District Attorney Jack McGaughey said. He declined to reveal specifics Tuesday but said he would present cases to a grand jury in February.
So rapists get special treatment if they carry a badge? And did the judge ask Keating's wife how "stable" her marriage with this rapist is? Civil Liberties Examiner has more.
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ummm,do people in Texas actually PREFER it this way?
It's reached the point where ''Texas'' is a damning modifier. Texas Sheriff. Texas judge. Texas jury. And the most blood-chilling of all — Texas district attorney.
When did the word Texas become so fearsome?
Not that I want to bash on the great state of Texas (I've never lived there but my sister-in-law does) ,but this certainly isn't the first time we've heard of this kind of behavior emanating from the "Lone Star" state. Hell, even if it is a red state full o' truckers with red necks, I'm sure the good citizens down there, whatever their stripe, cannot condone such egregious double standards? I'd consider living there if it didn't seem like the Taliban ran things.
this is one of the many reasons i left texas as soon as possible.
still... i remind people that there are a great number of "reasonable" texans, even some who are ultra-conservative. so let's remember... though some amazingly weird stuff happens in tx, most peeps there are okay sorts.
though.. it should be said.. when i decided i wanted to create a tech business.. the primary reason i moved to california was cause i didn't want to have to worry about the health / welfare of my LGBT and non-anglo employees.
He looks just like one of William Burroughs' "avttre-killing sheriffs"; "soft-spoken country sheriffs with something black and menacing in old eyes color of a faded grey flannel shirt...."
I know exactly how stable my marriage would be if I found out my husband was a rapist.
The fact that Judge Roach doesn't get the irony of this statement makes you wonder what sort of hell-hole his marriage is.
obviously reprehensible and disgusting. so, is there anything we can do? can this judge be censured? is there someone to contact?
@2 I think, living in Texas (in the cultural oasis of Austin) that part of the problem is that Texas is HUGE and has a lot of outlying areas where things are still ingrained with generational bias towards this kind of crap happening. It happens other places too though, I saw it (and still do) back in NY where I grew up (in the rural farming areas that make the vast majority of the state) but Texas has the cultural rep for it and several more of these small towns / smaller cities scatter about it. Coverage is making it into these areas to bring out the stories but there is no influx of new people, ideas, energy, etc to change shit.
Thats the TX part of it but this was a federal judge which speaks to a whole new level of WTF.
I would like to remind the viewing audience of a couple horrors from other states. New York cops sodomizing a suspect in a police station. Bay area cops shooting a prone/cuffed suspect. New York cop body checking a bicyclist. Shit happens everywhere. Texas happens to be one of the largest states population and size wize. Ya'll (ironic emphasis) enjoy bagging on Texas because Bush was from there.
@2
It probably has something to do with the fact that there are still towns and entire regions that lynch blacks.
Oh, and 8 years of listening to an idiot with a fake Texas accent run our country into the ground.
But mainly I think its the lynchings. There was one just last year where a dude was dragged behind a car until his head popped off. Which was the second time in my lifetime the exact same thing happened to a black man in TX. My cousin's husband is from a part of TX where they all love to talk about the black people they've killed...
As an aside, is it some rule of nature that ass hole right wing dumbass white dudes breed incredibly hot (if intellectually vapid) daughters? TX and MT both contain many striking examples of this bizarre phenomenon.
This reminds me of a case in Orange County, California. A police officer in uniform followed a stripper on her way home from work and pulled her over. He forced her to perform a sex act on him in the car on the side of the road. She filed charges against him and the jury found that by virtue of her job as a stripper, she was "asking for it" and the officer was not even reprimanded.
Orange County is our own little slice of Texas, right here in California.
If a regular poor black man was guilty one has to wonder if this would be getting a bit more play in the media.......
Innocent until (long after) proven guilty.
I should say the second time in my lifetime that I heard about this exact thing happening to a black man in TX.
@7,8
Yes, good points that there are ass holes everywhere. One difference: When things happen in NY and CA like you describe there is genuine and widespread outrage (assuming the press ever reports it). In TX, not so much, right?
@8
Sorry, but there would still be plenty of hate for TX regardless of Bush. It certainly doesn't help, but when you have a state that loves to set itself apart and above all others, it inspires animosity. The same thing happens to CA and NY, but there it is generally the liberal nature of the states that is both espoused and despised, while in TX it is their blatant (and often homicidal) bigotry and good ol' boys politics that is espoused and despised.
And all apologies to the great city of Austin, your location is most unfortunate.
If I was the judge, I would have sentenced him to seven months home confinement and multiple the rapy sessions.
Texas in general can be full of crazies.
But lest we paint with strokes too broad, I have to say that I lived in Austin, TX for two years and it was a truly wonderful place. Parts of Dallas, Ft Worth, San Antonio and other large cities in TX are also perfectly lovely.
While I wouldn't live in TX, I think it's unfair to the many lovely people in Austin and similar environs to simply write off the whole stat.
Okay I'm feeling really bad about asking about my evil-white-guy-makes-beautiful-girls question in this context.
Everything I read today is bad or worse, sorry if that attempt at levity offended anyone.
Can we please switch to trashing this asshole and travesty of justice specifically and quit with the Texas bashing? I don't think this is a very illuminating discussion thus far. Such generalizations are not helpful, and we Texans have enough to be ashamed of between bush, LBJ, and Dealy Plaza. Thanks.
a web-pillory? Asshole Crooked Law Enforcer of the Day site? Nah, better make that of the hour, there's so many it seems.
Just to add a little perspective, Texas is where Bill Hicks, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Roky Erickson, Janis Joplin, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Molly Ivins, The Mars Volta, Richard Linklater, Robert Rodriguez, Trey Gunn, Eric Johnson, Lightnin' Hopkins, T-Bone Walker, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Albert Collins, ZZ Top, Bob Wills, Freddie King, Leadbelly, The Butthole Surfers, Doug Sahm, Shawn Phillips, Buddy Holly, Johnny & Edgar Winter, Owen, Luke & Andrew Wilson, Wes Anderson, Matthew McConaughey, Mike Judge, and many more hail from. It ain't all bad.
i love austin. i loathe texas. sorry phike! nowadys, when i have to drive to the west coast, i take a more northerly route. every time i drive i-10, i get stopped in texas, have all my belongings scattered out into the shoulder of the road, and dogs brought into and around it. then, without so much as a how-do-u-do, the cops leave me there to deal with it and move on to their next 'suspicious-looking' motorist. no ticket, no citation, no sorry, nuttin but a mess on the roadside.
@20
It's pretty bad if you're proud of mathew mcconaughey. A man famous for living in a trailer and taking his shirt off.
This sort of thing is why I left Texas. The entire police department in my area acted like some kind of redneck/mafia crossT.
Phikus: Yeah and Warhol was from Pittsburgh.
Maybe these guys were suited for getting out of/coming from Texas....not going back to it.
pseudonym @8
It's y'all, not ya'll. It's a contraction of you and all, so the apostrophe takes the place of the ou in you.
Why don't all you trash talkers come down here to Texas and say that to my face.
I'd be happy to show you what a wonderful place this is, and how down right friendly we can be.
Have a Shiner beer. The BBQ will be ready in about an hour...
I say Texas is too big to fail, and we should nationalize it, break it up into smaller pieces, and make the pieces parts of neighboring states, or to Mexico.
Yes, I'm kidding.
Phikus, I think it's hearing about this so soon after hearing again about the Galveston thing. I think the same sentence is applicable here: he should be put in a max-sec prison IN TEXAS, with the word "POLICE" tattooed on his chest.
Sic semper everyone who uses copness to commit or get away with crimes.
of Mexico. Geez Xoph, learn to effin' proofread, willya?
What do you expect??? Justice???
I know, Phikus, but I was talking about the perception. Of course there are more good than bad people there, as with everywhere else; but it's an image problem, and it wasn't always that way. I can remember, fifty years ago, when Texas actually had a positive national image. My question/musing was ... Wha' happen?
Dorkhero, why do I sense that your comment at 24 was not the first draft? :-)
I've been to Texas, actually. Houston. I nearly died from the relentless, brutal heat. This was in October. How you folks survive July I can NOT imagine. The AC is nice, but you have to get from your house to your car somehow without bursting into flames.
I liked the trees though. Never seen so many oaks.
mmm, would it be possible to divide Texas? Good Texas and Evil Ignorant Redneck Racist Texas? Is there some natural boundary or something?
Canuck: Many of them have stayed on, too, unlike Warhol. More on that list than those who have left (of those still alive.) I run into Quentin Tarantino here all the time down at Guero's. He must have a place down here. (-Just sayin'.)
Minty / Xopher: Ok, then let's leave it at Texas law enforcement folks and I am in total agreement with you. They put the state to shame.
Buddy: An argument could easily be made that the state and the whole country began to really enter the downward spiral after Dealy Plaza, despite NASA being headquartered in Houston. Led Zeppelin wrote their song, Hot Dog, after someone shot a gun at them on stage when they played down here (in Dallas, I believe.) They vowed never to come back. (Hence the line: And I'll never go to Texas anymore...) Fortunately the surviving members have many times since, but never again as LZ.
Now about that judge and sheriff: Any way we can ship them to Galveston and dress them like prostitutes and make them hang out by the fuse-box for a spell? I know a Panda with an attitude ;D
Takuan: Yeah, just build a wall around Austin... =D
Actually, upon annexation Texas reserved the right to split itself into five states later, if it so desired. North/South/East/West/Central Texas would be an intuitive and clean split, leaving each region with a large city and a fairly homogeneous makeup:
North Texas - Dallas/FW. Prairie. Not much else.
South Texas - San Antonio. King Ranch. Semi-arid brush country.
East Texas - Houston. Racist fucks. Louisiana lite.
West Texas - El Paso. Cowboys. Oil. Mountains.
Central Texas - Austin. Yuppies. Hill country.
Texas is okay. The metroplex is good, Austin is lovely, San Antonio is okay, Houston is unpleasant, but little towns in the backwoods are god-awful. Just like they are all over the US.
I plan to get out of here solely because of the weather. I've never had a problem with the people, at least not in the civilized bits.
That said, this is effing ridiculous, but less on the part of the rapist and more on the part of the sentencing. Rapist is bad enough, but it's a whole 'nother ball game when the corruption runs so deep that a FORMER sheriff is given such leeway after such a convicted crime.
I'm tempted to start a Tenn-Aid Benefit, move our innocent to Austin! (if only I had some talent..)
@31
That suggestion almost sounds like a suitable decent punishment.
But when I think into it, it is sad that the premise of the punishment is that because he is a transvestite in a jail in Galveston, TX he will be subject to especially intense and grotesque mistreatment. This is true of many more places than Galveston, to be sure. All of Texas, most likely. All of the USA, maybe. Doesn't matter. Still sad.
I'm sorry that you feel you have to apologize for all the bad stuff that is attributed to your state. I've had good times in TX, and my only living cousins won't leave the place. That doesn't stop me from feeling slightly nauseated by the blatant bigotry that is just tossed around like it's the only sensible way to think. And whether you like it or not, the liberal cool folks are a total minority in TX and so the state character as a whole is much more like the folks who's mere numbers makes public bigotry not only acceptable but sociable or the picture you see of this evil bastard at the top of the page than... Janis Joplin or any of the other (awesome) folks you mentioned. My state of PA is not much better in a lot of ways. Doesn't mean I have to apologize for it or tell people to stop critiquing it when the reality is racists and bigots suck. If (r+b) > ~(r+b) then FAIL.
Personally I like the idea of him being intensely and grotesquely mistreated because he is a dirty lying rapist cop much better.
pseudonym, Bush is from Connecticut and is no more Texan that any one else dressing up as a "cowboy" for Halloween.
Dmnt. I need to only have one of these tabs open at a time. That post should begin That suggestion almost sounds like a suitably (in)decent punishment.
Well Texas is a big place, so there's room for all kinds of people, kinda like Canada.
Now if only people would have more room in their hearts, for all kinds of people.
Texas has been "bad-ass" at least since the Lone Ranger, a reputation which found its collective apex with Walker, Texas Ranger, and one has recently been on the decline due to the former owner of the Texas Rangers.
I miss Molly Ivins, y'all got another like her?
I think Walker is more an example of the bad (as opposed to badass) bits of Texas.
As #39 pointed out - Bush is not Texan and even most of the die-hard rednecks resent his Connecticut impostering.
As for ya'll v y'all - in Texas they tend towards ya'll (note the Fuck Ya'll We're from Texas shirts) so that is considered appropriate usage but still confuses the hell out of me as a transplant since it doesn't seem to ake sense by the usual rules of contractions. Even the native grammar nazis abide by it but they don't have a justification that I have heard beyond simply that's how we do it here.
Umm, are you sure he is a RAPIST? He did plead guilty to sexual assault, not rape. Are you sure he is a danger to anyone who is not a prisoner? (who he will not be having any contact with?)
That said, I hope he gets at least 10 years.
Meh, he's not that hardcore, why just today in the grand ole land of OZ, we had a taxi driver who pleaded guilty to raping 3 women go free: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/12/2489533.htm
LizardMan, that would be an example of their prideful ignorance.
#2, buddy66:
1974.
For those interested in the technicalities, the US Code lists offences for which bail should not be granted (except when a retrial is likely); 'crimes of violence' is the most prominent. Is sexual assault legally considered a 'crime of violence'?
I apologize for my typing, as I typed my post in a car. Most of Texas and I don't consider Bush to be an actual Texan, but his detractors seem to shove his self-identification in our faces.
hey Bush's officially from Texas - that's the residence stated on his nominating papers, etc. and this prevented Cheney from claiming Texas as his residence, IIRC....no good trying to dodge it now, Texans were proud of Bush when he was popular (just after many Americans died by violence - come to think of it, Bush's popularity mirrored the number of people getting killed, either at home or under American guns)...and Bush certainly played "Texan" with that "Wanted Dead or Alive" 18th-Century garbage he was spouting for the TV cameras...
Bush is what Texans used to call "all hat and no cattle." (Check out "Texas Crude," a collection of Texas expressions collected by Ken Weaver, formerly of the Fugs, and illustrated by Robert Crumb.
For what it's worth, the Montague Co. DA wants a piece of the sheriff too. Maybe the federal judg expects the ex-sheriff to honorablly do the thing traditionally associated with cops.
WOW,
I was born in Montague county and consider myself a Texan expatriate. I have never seen a place so foreign and I am never going back.
I find it sad that I have to come to BoingBoing to learn about the real atrocities that happen in America. Why can't the national news organizations pick up these stories?
Beanolini 47: Is sexual assault legally considered a 'crime of violence'?
Yes, absolutely. A violation of your body is violence, whether it's done with a knife, a bullet, or a human body part. In fact the threat of violence is usually considered equivalent to violence; so pointing a gun at someone and telling them "open that safe" is violent, even if you don't hit them or shoot them.
IANAL and the above is not legal advice; moreover the Texas legal code is so bizarre (and to my mind barbaric—there are circumstances where it's lawful for a civilian to shoot a fleeing person in the back!) that I could be totally wrong. I'll defer to any lawyer, especially one admitted to the bar in Texas.
My overly long comment seems to have been lost to the ether. Short version:
-4 out of 9 Texas voters went with Obama. Not so bad for all you haters.
-East Texas is basically the South, for good and for ill.
-Texas is huge, constituting almost 1/3 of the non-Florida former Confederate states, so it may seem worse here than it is.
-Texans have no duty to retreat under Texas Criminal law, and a lot of us like it. (I passed the Texas Bar and practiced civil law in Texas for over two years. Glad to be out of that racket.)
-Bill Keating should be shivved in prison.
-I love Texas.
I should clarify: the POPULATION of Texas amounts to 1/3 of the total of all non-Florida states of the former Confederacy.
Cowtown, what's a duty to retreat? I'm unfamiliar with the term.
@44 The Lizardman
Don't know where you get that from. I'm in Texas, been here since I was born, and I write it y'all and don't know anyone who doesn't. I have seen it spelled wrong on t-shirts before, and a few times have complained to the stores selling them. I was told then that the shop doing the printing "corrected" their mistake. And they were mainly selling to tourists from out of state anyway, so why eat the cost of a bad run?
@53 Xopher
So if Some Dude has just shot two people and then turns around and walks or runs away we're _not_ supposed to shoot his murdering ass? WTF? Just because he is turned with his back to me? Nope, sorry. Don't like it? Then don't commit crime in our fair state. :)
@54 Cowtown
Bill Keating probably will be shived in prison. He should know that, and he'll probably shoot himself here sometime soon. It'll save us time and money, and get rid of another scumbag, so I sure hope he hurries up.
@56 Xopher
Duty of retreat means that you have to run away from the threat and they have to chase after you and corner you before you can turn around and fire at them. Or something like that.
A friend of the family's son in law came to one night in a pool of blood to find a dude raping his wife. He'd been hit in the head with a baseball bat or golf club, I can't remember which now, several times while he was sleeping. The rapist presumably thought he'd killed him. Anyway, he comes to and gets his pistol and shoot the son of a bitch. And the son in law ends up going to prison for a while because he did not retreat first, and because the guy had dropped the weapon while he raped the wife. So he was "unarmed" at the time. Oh, and the dead rapist also had mental problems, and wouldn't hurt a fly and all that, so you know, he should have just run away and called the cops or some crap. This was out in California if I remember correctly. ugh. In Texas the son in law would've gotten a parade because we like our citizen to be alive and our violent criminals to be dead.
Gandalf23, the way I heard it, if an UNARMED person steals something of yours, say your wallet, and is running away from you faster than you can catch up, Texas law allows you to shoot them in the back to recover your property. If that's true, it is barbaric; it overvalues property and/or undervalues human life.
If the facts of the case are as you described them, the SIL had a crappy lawyer. IANAL and even I can think of several ways the SIL should have gotten off.
@57
I am in Texas too but only for the last eight years (living in Austin, frequenting Dallas, touring the whole state) and I see plenty of ya'll on shirts, tattoos, etc. Far too much and widespread to be just a single bad run. Sure, I know people who use y'all and say ya'll is wrong too but I still get plenty of ya'll defenders as previsouly posted
let's pick on Fresno for a while
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfXsY1V0d4U
#53, Xopher:
You miss my point. I think that most people would agree with your opinion that sexual assualt is violence; the reason I used the word 'legally' was that I'm interested to know if US law has defined it as such.
If so, the magistrate has clearly acted contrary to federal law.
Xopher,
I am not a lawyer or a cop, but my understanding of the law is that at night you can shoot someone who is stealing your property and is on your soil. Once they hit the sidewalk (the city owns 10 feet in from the street and the outer edge of the sidewalk is usually there) you can't shoot them unless they are posing a threat.
The thinking behind it is that at night you may not be able to see the weapon but that does not mean that there is not one there, and it's better to err on the side of the law abiding citizen than the law breaking criminal. Why give the criminal the advantage?
During the day you can not shoot someone just for stealing your property unless they are armed or pose a threat.
The facts were relayed as I remember them, but it's been 20 something years and I very well could be wrong.
"night burglary"?
I understand the reasoning behind the law, but I think that a society that allows citizens to shoot someone to prevent the theft of property is barbaric.
@65 Letting the police shoot them is better? I trust most citizens with the judgement of how far to take defending their property more than I trust police self-restraint. And if not shoot, how about tackle and smack around? As much as I see your point, I can't accept the fact that he was peacefully running away with my food as a reason for not attempting to physically stop a theft. Are you against the capital nature of such defense or just saying that shooting is excessive force for the crime?