The 2ID solider convicted of raping a 66-year old grandmother [Marmot's Hole post] in Mapo-gu in January has been sentenced to four years in prison [Yonhap News, Korean]. If you ask me, he got off light, but the GI’s lawyer said he would appeal anyway.
Granny-raping GI gets 4 years in the pen
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If this soldier is indeed guilty then four years is too light a sentence. He claimed earlier that he was too drunk to remember what he did. Just so young and foolish – just senseless.
Being drunk gets you off light in Corean court.
Be it this 4-year sentence or the one the taxi driver eventually got for raping the GI, rape sentences here seem pretty light. As the Camp Jackson example suggests, a guilty verdict in the Hongdae case would have resulted in a far harsher sentence in a military court. (I also recall not being all that impressed at the Korean court’s sentence for the GI who strangled the woman at the Tiger Tavern a few years back.)
At the other extreme, there have been statutory rape cases in the US – high school couples, etc. – and outdated sodomy laws in some states that have produced – and continue to produce – some extremely severe sentences, disproportionate to the crimes involved. I’m not talking Iran/Saudi Arabia-type severity, but still pretty out there.
Finally – and I noticed this lately with a few guys in the news here being accused of groping women in bars or on the street – being hammered is no longer quite as valid an excuse for committing crimes as it used to be. A long way left to go, but I think things are slowly moving in the right direction on that front.
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