Montana judge under fire for sentencing rapist of 14-year-old to 30 days in jail

Stacey Rambold was sentenced to 30 days in jail Monday for the 2008 rape of a 14-year-old girl who later committed suicide, a verdict that has made national news and sparked outrage across the country.

Rambold, a former high school teacher, was 49 when he had a sexual relationship with one of his students. When school officials learned of the incident, Rambold was charged with three counts of sexual intercourse without consent.

Auliea Hanlon, of Billings, Mont., told CNN Wednesday that Rambold's relationship with her daughter directly contributed to her suicide three years later.

"I think this sentence is a joke, a travesty," she said after the sentencing. "People will lose faith in our justice system. I have."

Many observers, including Hanlon, felt that Baugh's made comments about the girl that were inappropriate and misleading.

In Montana, children under 16 cannot consent to sexual relationships, which is why Baugh was charged with rape. But Baugh said during the sentencing that the girl was troubled seemed “older than her chronological age.” He also said she was “as much in control of the situation” as Rambold.

“She wasn’t even old enough to get a driver’s license," Hanlon said in a statement. "But Judge Baugh, who never met our daughter, justified the paltry sentence saying she was older than her chronological age. I guess somehow it makes a rape more acceptable if you blame the victim, even if she was only 14.”

An online petition has called for Baugh's resignation, saying that he "engaged in the worst kind of victim shaming, while increasing the possibility that more child predators, relying on the laxity of a judge who more readily sympathizes with the abuser than the abused, will prey on other children in the future."

Opponents of the decision have planned a Thursday protest in a park near Billings' Yellowstone County Courthouse.

“What angered me is that the judge said the victim was older than her chronological age,” protest organizer Sheena Rice told the Gazette. “I don’t care if she wore makeup. I don’t care if she dressed provocatively. She was a 14-year-old and he was in a position of power.”

Though Baugh admitted that he had not made the "best choice of words," he stood behind his ruling.

Rambold's initially received a sentence of 15 years, though all but a month of that time was suspended because he had agreed to treatment and because Baugh didn't believe he would re-offend.

“Obviously, a 14-year-old can’t consent. I think that people have in mind that this was some violent, forcible, horrible rape,” he said. “It was horrible enough as it is just given her age, but it wasn’t this forcible beat-up rape.”