Local judge getting national attention for incest ruling

A retiring north-central Montana judge is getting national attention for giving a man who admitted to molesting his 12-year-old daughter a 60-day jail sentence with 30 years of probation.

A Change.org petition to have District Judge John C. McKeon impeached is gathering signatures, with more than 67,000 signatures on the national internet petition this morning.

"It is time to start punishing the judges who let these monsters walk our streets," the petition says.

Among the outlets that have picked up the story are the New York Times, CNN, Fox News, Washington Post, NPR and New York Magazine.

McKeon was not available for comment Thursday or this morning.

The judge wrote in his Oct. 17 judgment that his decision might cause backlash.

"The sentence may not be a popular decision by certain members of the general public but it is a just and proper decision given the record before the Court and the law the Court is sworn to uphold," the judgment says.

Valley County Attorney Dylan Jensen, who prosecuted the case, said Thursday that he had no comment on the ruling and referred to his statement to the Glasgow Courier.

"I was shocked and disappointed, but I respect the judge's decision," Jensen told the Courier.

Court documents say Jensen recommended 100 years with 75 suspended for the defendant for one felony count of incest, which was pursuant to a plea agreement that dismissed two additional counts of incest. The defendant's attorney recommended community-based supervision for 25 years.

The Havre Daily will not name the defendant to avoid identifying the victim.

Among the reasons McKeon listed for his decision are that the defendant is employed and had no prior felony history, it would provide a better way to rehabilitate him, and it is supported by the psychosexual evaluation.

Michael D. Sullivan, a member of the Montana Sex Offender Treatment Association, did the psychosexual evaluation. Documents say he testified that the perpetrator "could be safely treated and supervised as a sex offender in the community."

McKeon, in a statement released Oct. 14, noted that the Valley County prosecutor did not contest the psychosexual evaluation and that the prosecution's recommended sentence included a sentence less than 25 years in prison if the evaluation recommended it. State law allows such an exception.

The Montana state Commission on Sentencing is recommending that lawmakers close the loophole in child sex abuse sentencing laws. State prosecutor Dan Guzynski proposed Wednesday getting rid of the exception to a mandatory minimum 25-year prison sentence for offenders convicted of rape, incest or sexual abuse if the victim is 12 or younger.

Documents say the victim's mother did not want the molestor to go to prison and that also was listed as support for the decision - "the input from victim's mother and maternal grandmother showing an entire family actually victimized by the offense and their support for a community-based treatment would allow them to heal as a family."

"I would like to see my children have an opportunity to heal the relationship with their father. ... He is not a monster, just a man that really screwed up and has been paying in many ways since and will continue to have to pay through this justice system and with the loss of family and friends and his own conscience," a letter says.

The sentence, the document says, "includes provisions for restitution, reparation and restoration for all the family victims of the offense."

The conditions of his probation include preventing the defendant from being around anyone younger than 18 who is not accompanied by an adult and from being anywhere that children gather. He is not allowed internet access unless rating control software is installed and random searches of the hard drive are conducted. He cannot drink alcohol or go into bars or casinos. He cannot communicate "by any manner" with the victim. The conditions also impose restrictions on the kind of movies he can watch.

McKeon has been the judge for Montana's Judicial District 22, comprising Blaine, Phillips and Valley counties, for the last 22 years. In an interview with Havre Daily in September, McKeon discussed his upcoming retirement in November and how he approaches hard decisions after he's made a ruling.

"A lot of these cases are emotional cases, cases that carry with them a certain amount of stress. ... There's something that might weigh with you for some time, until you might make a ruling," McKeon said, speaking in general.

McKeon said that some cases had certainly come home with him, and that he had thought about them, but a judge must also move on - the ruminating must come to an end.

"Once I make a decision, I've got to move on. That's what the appellate courts are for," he had said.