You might think that work at the Court of Appeal stops entirely during the holidays. Not so. It slows down, for sure. But opinions continue to be written and published. At least for a while.
Today's opinion addresses a variety of issues, but the particular one that caught my attention was this:
Does a prior sex offender have a right to possess . . . a penis pump and/or dildo?
Is that the most onerous parole condition in the universe? No. The other restrictions -- for example, on access to the Internet, etc. -- are far more substantial.
But the guy did get busted for having the pump and dildo, and ended up getting thrown in the pokey for 60 additional days as a result.
His defense was that he needed the pump to get an erection, and that the dildo was his girlfriend's -- the latter defense confirmed by the girlfriend herself, though apparently rejected by the trial court.
Do I want a child molester to get erections? I guess not. Though, at the same time, if he's got a girlfriend, isn't molesting children, and needs the thing (which, after 20 years in prison, he perhaps might), I'm not certain that I care all that much.
Do I care that he has a dildo? Again, as long as he's not using it on children -- and it doesn't seem like he ever did that before -- I'm not sure that I do. And, at least facially, it sounds fairly persuasive to me that it isn't his, but rather his girlfriend's. That it was -- as the Court of Appeal argues -- "not locked away or kept in a location in his residence beyond Perrot’s ability to access" doesn't seem all that persuasive to me. It's not a gun or drugs or anything like that. It's a dildo. If the girlfriends wants (or needs) one, I'm not sure I'm really going to insist that it be locked up, lest Mr. Perrot attempt to misuse it.
I don't know. The whole pump-and-dildo thing seems silly to me. Could you bust the guy for having the internet devices he's not supposed to have. (Oh no! A PlayStation!) Sure. I definitely do not want the guy communicating with minors.
But the marital aids? I'm just not sure that I really care -- or care enough to throw a guy back in prison for the stuff. (Even for 60 days.)
Though I understand that reasonable minds might perhaps differ on this.
Back to the main point, though:
The Court of Appeal rests not during the holidays. There's pump and dildo work remaining to be accomplished.
