Was justice served by Dennis Hastert getting a sentence of 15 months for molesting children?

Well… technically, he pleaded guilty to and was convicted for “one count of illegally structuring $950,000 in bank withdrawals to avoid reporting requirements. He admitted in a plea agreement with prosecutors he was making the withdrawals to pay a longtime acquaintance — identified in court records only as Individual A — to hide wrongdoing from his past.”

The statute of limitations had run out on the child molestation charges, which as far as I know are fairly recent. (And which are, of course, the “wrongdoing from his past” that he was attempting to cover up.)

But to answer your question more directly, justice is almost never served in our courts, and if it is, then it’s just a coincidence. Since it seems more likely than not – if his current appearance is any indicator of his actual health – that he will die in prison before the sentence is completed, perhaps that will be a measure of justice for those who believe that punishment is ever appropriate justice.

The incidents were so far in the past that he actually was beyond the statute of limitations. There is justice in the fact that he was convicted of other crimes involved with his attempts to wiggle out of the consequences resulting from abusing boys. I’m happy with his prolonged disgrace and financial ruination.

He deserves to die in prison.

It’s not justice based on his own values. In 2003, he said :Put repeat child molesters into jail for the rest of their lives.

I’m not going to pretend to be PC here, nope, sorry, child molesters need to be set atop a big stout horse with a strong rope dangling from a big oak tree. There, I said it, so shoot me.

Some retired cop or journalist should sift through every bit of his past, get the evidence, and publish it. It would make a nice hobby, I think. Most child molesters don’t just do it once, they are lifers and they start early. I would bet good money that he has a lot of little boys in his closet.

A great question to ask his victims, who will have to live with his heinous actions for the rest of their lives.

Justice will never be served in this case. The young man that took his own life may have been a totally different man than he turned out to be. His actions hurt many people and the fact that he went on to become such a powerful man just made him even harder to prosecute. It probably made him able to justify his actions to himself, too.

@Espiritus_Corvus Yes, there were at least three cases that came forth in this case and it seems there were many more.

The judge gave him a harsher sentence than the prosecution was going for so that’s good in my opinion.

I didn’t see anything about restitution in the article provided. Was that even a consideration?

@chyna Since he wasn’t actually on trial for the molestation probably couldn’t be. Which engenders another question.

@trolltoll “He deserves to die in prison.”

He just might do that. This is a man in his 70s who’d been overweight for much of his adult life. He also had a stroke recently. If you saw the photos of him arriving for his sentencing, he was in a wheelchair and looked emaciated.

He wasn’t convicted of child molestation. So pretty much by definition, justice wasn’t served for that. Guys like Hastert never see justice. But considering how much they value their ego and their reputation, this is probably the next best thing.

And come on guys, the wheelchair is for show. He had his stroke ages ago, and there was no mention of it until shortly before his first court appearance. It’s a sympathy ploy from a serial manipulator. And it worked: the judge recommended that Hastert serve out his term in a medical facility.

@Love_my_doggie Good. Fuck him.

^^^ My feelings about Mr. Hastert are comparable to my grief over Antonin Scalia’s passing.

@Irukandji When I saw Hastert in the wheelchair, my initial thought was, “Yeah, sure. Way to look helpless.” Unless the man’s been doing some drastic Weight Watchers or Jennie Craig, however, he really does seem sick. He’s about half his former size. I’m not expressing any sympathy, but just saying that he looks awful.

Karma’s a bitch.

At least they convicted him on something because people in powerful positions such as him, usually skate by.

Is it truly justice? No. But at least it’s something.

@Love_my_doggie

In all fairness to Scalia, comparing your feelings about him in any way to Hastert is a bit much, don’t you think?

Yes, Scalia was a right winger with many distasteful political points of view, but that’s politics for you. By all accounts he was not a hypocritical fraud like Hastert. Scalia was, by all accounts, a decent person simply voting his conscience on issues that he felt strongly about.

He was close friends with Ruth Bader Ginsburg who couldn’t be more opposite to him, politically speaking, yet she found admirable qualities in him as a person (aside from his politics) enough to consider him a valued friend of longstanding.

If she could cut him some slack, I think the rest of us can manage a little common decency as well. Just because someone is a real right winger, doesn’t mean they’re a hateful person. Some are; some aren’t.

Given his RC upbringing by immigrant parents with strong moral compunctions, I don’t find his views that surprising. He was the product of his times and the conservative (not hateful ) honorable family in which he was raised.

He is miles apart from a hypocritical scumbag like Hastert and doesn’t deserve being mentioned in the same breath.

^^^ As a liberal and an educated, informed person, I never loved to hate Scalia. He wrote cruel, demeaning things about entire groups of Americans. He was the 5th vote on many towering historic injustices, from Bush v. Gore to Citizens United. His opinions were often cartoonish parodies of conservatism.

Yes, Scalia was a fine husband and father. I know this because I’m friends with one of his sons and met the man many times. My friend loved his father, but thinks he was a bad Circuit Court judge followed by an embarrassment on the Supreme Court. Please don’t lecture me about what kind of a man Scalia was.

I felt no special glee when Scalia passed, but I had a sense of relief – no grief or sadness. I’m hoping to see someone less ideological and more moderate take his place. I’m all for rational diversity.

@Love_my_doggie I agree about the weight loss. Nobody escapes having a stroke without suffering at least some consequences. But he’s still playing it up for show (which I think we agree on).

Time in prison only affords a place for Denny to hide from the added public shame and humiliation that awaits him. In the meantime I am sure he is getting a new appreciation for the meaning of brotherly love while in prison.

The fact that he’s not actually in prison, to me, means justice isn’t being served.