Privilege
By Albert B. Kelly
Even if you’ve been only semiconscious the last few years,
you can’t help but notice how divided we are as country whether in our
politics, culture, entertainment, or athletics. These divisions touch almost
every aspect of American life. There are many ways the fault lines get
characterized and one way that quickly comes to mind is the idea of
“privilege”.
Privilege assumes that certain groups, whether defined by
race, gender, or income get breaks that others shouldn’t get. Privilege ensures
that the privileged group gets accommodations not available to others whether
in the form of opportunities or simply getting the benefit of the doubt. It can
be tiring as a topic because every group thinks they’re getting the short end
of the stick. But every now and again, you come across an example of privilege
that you simply can’t ignore.
If you doubt that, consider Monmouth County Family Court
Judge James Troiano and how he handled the case of a 16-year-old boy who raped (and
filmed) a very intoxicated and vulnerable 16 year-old girl at a party. At some
point on the night in question, wondering away from other teens at the party, the
intoxicated girl ended up in a remote part of the basement where she was
forcibly penetrated from behind by this 16 year old young man. He filmed the
crime on his cell phone and then circulated the clip to his circle of friends
bragging about what he had done- allegedly.
Because of her level of intoxication, the girl basically
blacked out and only had a vague sense that something of a sexual nature had occurred
the night before. If nothing else, seeing her torn clothes covering multiple
bruise marks on her body the next morning suggested that whatever happened, it
was not good. Whatever doubt she had over the ensuing weeks and months as to
what happened, it disappeared when she learned that the young man’s video was
making the rounds on social media. With that, the victim along with her
parents, decided to pursue criminal charges.
As for this idea of privilege I’m referring to, it could come
in so many forms but in this instance, it came in the form of a decision by Monmouth
County Family Court Judge James Troiano to deny the County prosecutor’s request
to try the case in adult court even though the prosecutor found that the 16
year-old young man’s actions constituted a sexual assault that was
“sophisticated and predatory”.
In denying the request, Judge Troiano justified this by
pointing out that in his mind, there was a difference between sexual assault
and rape. According to him, rape should generally involve “two or more males”,
weapons, a little “manhandling”, maybe a beating, in an abandoned house or shed
in contrast to his idea of a garden variety sexual assault. Forget consent, for
him it’s about the setting.
In his denial, the judge calls the victim “alleged” and then
proceeds to highlight how much she drank. Unfortunately, the video that was
circulating was deleted after an investigating officer suggested to the 16
year-old accused that it be done and then the judge questions why the family
waited until after the video was deleted to file charges. Go figure. So it’s no
surprise that the judge dismissed sexually explicit text messages between the accused
and his friends as kids saying “stupid crap”.
The upshot for the judge is that our alleged young perp;
“comes from a good family who put him into an excellent school where he was
doing extremely well…He is clearly a candidate for not just college but
probably for a good college. His scores for college entry were very high.” The
judge couldn’t bear to mess that up. And that is the essence of privilege. Not
a thought for the victim or her future and not a thought for the young women on
whichever college campus our alleged young perp might end up on.
For the record, according to the NJ Administrative Office of
the Courts no such privilege existed for the 692 juveniles tried as adults (out
of 1,251 attempted) between July 2011 and May 2016 of whom 87% were black and
Hispanic. I’m just saying.
Fortunately, it appears that a higher court sees things as
the Monmouth County prosecutor does and this case may well end up back before a
grand jury and then on to adult court where justice, as opposed to privilege,
might finally be what emerges.