Dem pledges: I'll 'rip apart' child-rape victims on the stand and destroy their lives if they testify against a rapist.

Dem pledges: I'll 'rip apart' child-rape victims on stand
'I'm going to make sure rest of their life is ruined'


Massachusetts politician and defense attorney Rep. James Fagan is under intense public scrutiny after he promised to "rip apart" child victims of rape who testify if the state imposes strict sentences for sex offenders.

Fagan, a Democrat, made his controversial remarks on the state House floor, Fox News reported.

"I'm gonna rip them apart," Fagan said of child victims. "I'm going to make sure that the rest of their life is ruined, that when they're 8 years old, they throw up; when they're 12 years old, they won't sleep; when they're 19 years old, they'll have nightmares and they'll never have a relationship with anybody."

As a defense attorney, Fagan said he would prevent accused child sex offenders from experiencing a "mandatory sentence of those draconian proportions."

According to the report, his statements angered both colleagues and activists.

"I thought his comments were over the top and unnecessary," said Bradley Jones, Massachusetts House minority leader. "I appreciate that he's a defense attorney, and felt he had a point to make, but I think it was unnecessary. It was excessive."

Mark Lunsford, a Florida father who lost his 9-year-old daughter after she was kidnapped, wrapped in a trash bag and buried alive by a sex offender in 2005, said he was shocked by Fagan's remarks. He told the Boston Herald that Fagan should have more respect for the rights of sexually abused children.

"Why doesn't he figure out a way to defend that child and put these kind of people away instead of trying to figure ways for defense attorneys to get around Jessica's Law?" Lunsford asked. "These are very serious crimes that nobody wants to take serious. What about the rights of these children?"

The bill Fagan was so strongly opposed to designates mandatory minimum sentences of 10 to 15 years for crimes against children. It has passed in the House and made its way to the Senate.

According to Fox News, law professor Phyllis Goldfarb said Fagan comments were somewhat truthful in that they describe a defense attorney's obligation to find holes in the prosecutor's case when a person accused of sexually abusing a child faces mandatory sentencing.

"It is fundamentally true … if the proof is coming almost exclusively through a child witness you may have to find a way to test it," Goldfarb said. "That's the attorney-client obligation there."

Goldfarb said Fagan's language might have been dramatic, but she said he was just describing his profession.

"You do have to challenge a witness," she told Fox News. "Some people find ways of doing that that are loyal to their role as defense attorneys – testing the proof (in ways) that aren't abusive to a witness, but it's very hard. And I think being put in that hard position is what he seems to be railing against here, using language that's probably a little bit hyperbolic."

According to Boston Herald reports, Lunsford plans to appear before the Massachusetts Senate to convince lawmakers to incorporate fixed prison sentences into the state's final version of Jessica's Law.