The Scoop: Did Rogers get enough jail time?
I must admit I was surprised when hearing District Attorney Dale Potter announce the terms of Pamela Rogers’ plea agreement yesterday in court.
The deal is for 270 days in jail with the added bonus that Rogers can have up to eight days a month subtracted for good behavior. Using the powers of math given to me by my trusty calculator, I determined Rogers can get out of jail in just under 200 days.
That’s not a sentence that sends a message we’re tough on crime here in Warren County, especially on a high-profile case the whole nation is watching. I figured the plea bargain would have Rogers serving more time in jail. Even Potter didn’t talk about the agreement in glowing terms.
“It’s not a sentence I care about myself,” Potter said. “People in position of authority should be held to higher standards. It’s sort of like vehicular homicide, which is one of those crimes that doesn’t have a tough enough penalty. But you have to base it on what the law allows.”
The most obvious thing that screams out at me is Rogers got a light sentence because she’s a woman and her victim is a boy. If it was a man having sex with a 13-year-old girl, most people would want him shot at least one time.
But Potter said that didn’t factor too much into the equation.
“You make your plea offer not based on gender but on the facts of the case and the victim,” said Potter. “We didn’t look at this and say she’s female, she’s blonde and she’s cute.”
A funny thing happened as I spent a good part of yesterday thinking about Rogers’ plea bargain. I began to change my mind and think it wasn’t such a bad deal after all.
For starters, prosecutors did get a conviction. Rogers must register as a sex offender, must forfeit her teaching license, and abide by about a dozen more stipulations that will affect her for years to come. That includes eight years of probation where she could return to jail if she slips up.
The real clincher, however, is the fact nothing — absolutely nothing — is guaranteed by a jury trial. Sure, Rogers could have been found guilty and received a much harsher sentence. But she also could have been found not guilty and sent free without a scratch. There’s a pretty good chance that could have happened and I’ll tell you why.
With any jury that was assembled, Rogers would have most likely been a sitting duck with female jurors, especially those women with children. They would have been assets to the prosecution.
But let’s not forget roughly half the jury pool is composed of men. And as I previously hinted, there’s somewhat of an “atta boy” mentality when it comes to cases like this. Some male jurors couldn’t bring themselves to see a 13-year-old as a “victim” for getting to have sex with such an attractive woman. Even our own reporter Duane Sherrill (whose intelligence has been debated) made such remarks in a column shortly after Rogers was arrested.
There was the possibility that a few stubborn men could have refused to find Rogers guilty for that reason, even if the evidence clearly supported a guilty verdict. That’s why many people boldly predicted Rogers would never serve a day in jail. There would be no way, they said, to get a 12-member jury in this county to convict her.
Given a day to mull over the sentence and all things considered, I think the Rogers plea bargain was a sensible compromise. It’s certainly not an ideal sentence, but no one has every accused us of living in a perfect world.
James Clark is editor of the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].