Viciousness and Ignorance From the Bench Doesn't Mean One is Removed From the Bench

The verbatim (from the Latin "word for word") record that is made in most felony level criminal cases in the US can haunt everyone involved, including the judge. In the case of a remarkably vicious rapist named Matin Gurel from Orange County, California, a judge was apparently and justly haunted by remarks he made at a sentencing that spared the rapist a decade in prison.Gurel had threatened to mutilate his victim's face, and to burn her vagina with a heated screwdriver. The Orange County District Attorney's Office asked for 16 years. The judge, a man still on the bench named Derek G. Johnson, gave him six. His reasoning, in his words: "I’m not a gynecologist, but I can tell you something. If someone doesn’t want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down. The body will not permit that to happen unless a lot of damage in inflicted, and we heard nothing about that in this case. That tells me that the victim in this case, although she wasn’t necessarily willing, she didn’t put up a fight."Judge Johnson, we can agree on one thing. You are most definitely not a gynecologist. Nor are you fit to sit in legal judgment of a parking ticket. The California Commission on Judicial Performance was right to publicly admonish you, but their sanction falls far short of what you deserve, which is banishment from the honor of the robe and the power that comes with it.