[Vision2020] Our Wonderful Latah County Justice System

[Art Deco]

The following appeared in the Daily News Public Records section on Saturday:

Sentencings

Monday -- Hunter Marsh Hursh, 21, of Moscow was convicted of rape.  He was fined $305 and sentenced to five years of probation and 30 days of discretionary jail time, and he cannot contact the victim for five years.

Missing from this report is the fact that Hursh (with an extensive criminal history) also received a withheld judgment for this rape.


WTF?

A $305 fine and 30 days discretionary jail time? And a withheld judgment?  For rape?  A felony?

Hursh is no stranger to the criminal justice system.  And since the crime of rape [04-28-2009], he has been convicted of other crimes for which he also received probation.  Hursh will soon, if not now, be out in our community, free to pursue his habitual ways.  Who will be his next victims?  Is this what we want to happen in our community?  Do we not care enough about each other to take some time and effort to prevent this kind of public endangering infamy by the prosecutor and court?


Read Hursh's criminal history and the bumblings of the prosecutor and judges here (Have a barf bag at the ready!):  
https://www.idcourts.us/repository/caseHistory.do?roaDetail=yes&schema=LATAH&county=Latah&partySeq=87230&displayName=Hursh%2C+Hunter+Martin

Also you can do a search in the online Daily News [sorted by date] for more information.


What's going on in Latah County?

Besides inept, public disinterested prosecution and lazy, soft-headed judges, where is the intensive media attention that allows this kind of outrage to escape public attention?  

Is the Daily News deliberately shielding the horrible ineptitude of the prosecutor's office and the lack of judgment of certain judges, or is the Daily News also practitioners of lassitude and ineptitude?  How can the public respond to this continued kind of ineptness and poor judgment in the criminal justice system if the media does not cover and comment upon it?  Without competent reporting and comment are we doomed to continue to experience these kinds of outrages ad nauseam?  

And without intensive media coverage where is the general deterrence that is allegedly part of the goals of criminal sentencing?  How do law enforcement personnel feel when they spend much time and effort working up a case only to find it handled in such a horrendously nonchalant manner by the prosecutor and the courts?  Over the long term wouldn't this kind of event be likely to demotivate law enforcement?

We need competent, public interest motivated reporting, and we need to somehow motivate the prosecutor and court to serve the public interest or change the inept and lazy out, by recall if necessary.  

And if the local media are not willing to act responsibly, perhaps it is time to start talking to their advertising clients who bear some responsibility for supporting this fifth-rate media arrogance and careless ineptitude about serious crimes taking place and adversely effecting member of our community.


Wayne A. Fox
1009 Karen Lane
PO Box 9421
Moscow, ID  83843

waf at moscow.com
208 882-7975
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