Family Values
By Elizabeth Kim
Originally published in The Recorder, June 7, 2002
Arguments before the state Supreme Court last week should raise more eyebrows over the original law they cited than about the current case being heard by the justices.
In People v. Wutzke, SO92179, Wutzke was found guilty of molesting four—yes, four—granddaughters of the woman he'd lived with for nearly 20 years.
The issue before the justices was whether Wutzke's longstanding, quasi-familial relationship with the girls, who called him by such affectionate names as "Grandpa" and "Papa Jim," qualified him for a lighter sentence.
In 1981 the state Legislature passed a law that should rank high in a legal Hall of Shame, granting probation for people who molest children within their own families.
The idea in those legislators' minds 20 years ago was that a family should stay together, and that packing a parent off to prison wasn't in the child's best interests.
What the justices are now considering is whether Wutzke meets the standard legislators had in mind when they set down the vague definition of a "relative or member of the victim's household."
Prosecutors want the definition to exclude people who are not related by blood; defense attorneys want a more inclusive view that accommodates the fluid lines defining today's families.
What's the correct answer? Neither one. In fact, one wonders what on earth those legislators could have been thinking. If anything, the scales should be tipped toward heavier punishment of molesters within a family than those without.
Of course, two decades ago the public's consciousness was not as sensitive to the issue of child molestation, nor were the horrific ramifications of the crime taken as much into consideration.
Andrew Vachss, a New York attorney who represents children and writes books focusing on child abuse, commented on the cruel irony of the law: "In other words, you're a lot better off if you grow your own victim."
People who work with victims of child molestation know that the closer the molester is to the child, the greater the damage.
So a parent, or grandparent—or 20-year boyfriend of a grandmother—can inflict lifelong psychological wounds on a child far beyond those created by a stranger.
Anyone in a position of trust who molests destroys not only the child's sense of physical safety, but also the ability to feel safe with those nearest and dearest—and for a child, that means there is no safety in the world at all.
The justices could use Wutzke's case to shine a spotlight on a very dark corner of the law. The question people should be asking is not whether Wutzke meets enough of the family member standard to get a break on his crime, but why that misguided law must still be considered by justices in deciding the fate of such a predator.
Whatever they decide about Wutzke's fate, the justices should, as they sometimes do, conclude by urging the Legislature to take another look at the law.
The tired old argument that families should be kept together is ludicrous. Molesters—with rare exceptions—aren't good candidates for rehabilitation.
With the law as it stands, a child trapped in a family like that has nothing to look forward to but years of torment, and then an adulthood in which the patterns learned in childhood will probably repeat themselves.
In trying to sort out where Wutzke falls in the law's boundaries, Justice Joyce Kennard commented that "Buying toys and taking kids to an amusement park does not a relative make. Anyone can do that."
Very true. And anyone can be a molester. But when the molester and the relative are one in the same, the primary concern of the Legislature and the courts should be to get that person away from the victim—and keep him away as long as possible.
