lakewacotriplemurder.blog Posted on December 13, 2018 by harrystorm
https://lakewacotriplemurder.blog/2018/12/13/strother-sucks-petition-hits-18000/Thousands have signed a petition calling for the judge in an ex-Baylor frat president’s rape case to resign or be removed from office after he accepted a plea deal that involved no jail time.
On Monday, Judge Ralph Strother accepted the plea agreement for Jacob W. Anderson, a former Baylor student who was accused of raping a woman referred to as Donna Doe in 2016. As part of the deal, Anderson agreed to plea to a lesser charge of unlawful restraint and will not have to register as a sex offender.
Strother and Assistant District Attorney Hilary LaBorde, who prosecuted the case, were not immediately available for comment Thursday afternoon.
The petition, titled “Request the Resignation of Judge Ralph Strother,†had more than 18,000 signatures on the Care2 Petitions website early Thursday afternoon. The petition attacks both Strother and LaBorde, who agreed to the plea deal .
Donna Doe’s family said LaBorde blindsided them with the plea deal after reassuring them that Anderson would be convicted. In emails between LaBorde and Doe’s family, LaBorde said she thought a plea deal would be best because she had just tried a rape case similar to Doe’s in which the accused rapist was not convicted.
Some of the reasons listed in the petition for Strother’s removal were:
“The sixth amendment guaranteeing the right to a speedy and public trial was not honored.
A system created by wealthy white men protects wealthy white men.
When judges on benches see themselves reflected in the face of a perpetrator and recuse him of all responsibility, they will not feel a modicum of remorse due to their privilege of race and class.
A prior case lost by LaBorde is not a reasonable basis for LaBorde’s lack of attempt to bring this one to trial.
LaBorde’s unwillingness to allow Mary her day in court betrays fundamental basic human rights and perpetuates a climate in which future victims will continue to report sex crimes at an alarmingly low rate.â€
Strother told KWKT he has also received death threats via email in response to the plea deal.
After the plea deal was accepted Monday, LaBorde issued a statement in defense of the deal.
“Given the claims made publicly, I understand why people are upset,†she wrote. “However, all of the facts must be considered and there are many facts that the public does not have. In approving this agreement, Judge Strother had access to all the statements that have ever been made by all people involved and agreed that the plea agreement offered was appropriate in this case.â€
Strother, the 19th State District Judge in McLennan County, ran unopposed in the GOP primary in 2016, according to the Waco Tribune-Herald. Archived news articles from The Baylor Lariat, the university’s newspaper, state that Strother was appointed to the post in 1999 by then Gov. George W. Bush. He served as first assistant district attorney for McLennan County before his appointment.
Strother is listed as a prominent alumni by Baylor University.
In 2017, Strother sentenced a man who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a Baylor student in 2013 to deferred adjudication probation and ordered him to pay for the woman’s counseling, according to the Waco Tribune.
Earlier this year, Strother allowed a man convicted of sexual assault to serve jail time on the weekends. The man was a former Baylor student and was given 30 days in days, AP reported.
Politicians also voiced their criticism of Strother, such as Jana Lynn Sanchez, a Democrat who recently lost a bid for U.S. Congress.