Justice? Not This Week

It is officially the New Year. I rang my New Year in at the bowling alley with my husband's family and my Beloveds. It's official.... I am the worst bowler evah! Of course I took total pride in the fact, because if I'm going to fail, I'm going to do it brilliantly! I had a beer and a half and a lot of smiles. That doesn't mean the PTSD shadow wasn't there. The bowling alley was packed. Being in such a large group made me feel very claustrophobic. They had the regular lights turned off, the black lights and disco ball turned on. This made for an interesting array of shadows that made it difficult to concentrate. The other stresser was that my Beloveds were in a room playing with there cousins in the back near the food court. I found myself going back there every couple of frames. My mother in law went a few times too. Then my sister-in-law said I could see them if I looked through the snack bar window.

I tried to have "fun" and I did have some, but I was also very stressed out. Just an average day in my world though.

The Beloveds were to return to school on Tuesday, but we stayed at my mother-in-laws house another day because my father-in-law was supposed to be sentenced Tuesday morning. My husband decided he would go to the sentencing. Now remember, he hadn't seen his father since Christmas a year ago, before the truth came to light. He also avoided all conversation regarding his father with EVERYONE. (Yeah I get it's difficult, but I have a child molesting father too! If anyone understands it's ME!)

Anyway.... my mother-in-law, my husband, and myself all made it through security. (Security that actually boggles my mind. I mean the TSA gets to see naked pictures of you and molest you violating our constitutional rights in THE NAME OF SECURITY, but the court house just sends you and your stuff through a metal detector. If you set it off they ask you to pull up your pant legs then send you off. They never actually touch you. Quite frankly if I were to scheme to kill someone, it would totally be at the court house. Just say'in.)

I'm leading the way up the stairs when we leave security, (thanks to this event I have become an expert at locations in this particular court house.) As I round the corner I see my father in law sitting in a wheelchair in front of me. I suck in some air and freeze.

I hadn't prepared for this.

The rest of the party ran into me until they saw who I was staring at. My senses came back to me, I turned on my heels and promptly walked back down the stairs. Everyone followed. The town is pretty small and my mother in law knew one of the sheriffs who was working front door security. At my bidding she asked him if he knew what had happened. The deputy said that the father-in-law was in an "altercation" with a younger inmate. His jaw was broken. He was taken to Mercy for surgery to have it wired shut. He's fine.

Soon my sister-in-law and her mother came through security. We told them what happened. Of course my sister-in-law was pleased. I can't really blame her for finding some satisfaction in that. After all, I know in detail what he did to her daughter. What he did with his mouth, so the thought of it broken, well that is a bit satisfying.

Soon we were all seated in the court room. The Prosecutor's office would read the Victim Impact Statement from one of the girls. My sister-in-law had written her own statement that she planned on reading. The hope is that the judge would take their suffering to heart and deal a stiff punishment.

Soon the word came down that his lawyer was going to ask for yet ANOTHER continuance because he was too drugged up to understand the proceedings. The man was on vicodin not morphine! We were all angery. I mean the man plead guilty! He's going to jail, how does him having vicodin in his system change that? It could be argued that he has rights, well I could argue that when he stole those girls childhoods and damaged parts of them that he didn't give them drugs to help dull any of it... so he should consider himself lucky he could have had a less painful sentencing. Grrrrrr

The judge ended up giving him his continuance until next Monday. He said that if he were to request another continuance next Monday, he better have some proof of his mental incapacity for the court. This gives me little comfort. I feel as if this chapter will never end. That he gets to stir up and disrupt our lives with his constant continuances. Do you have any idea how emotionally difficult it is to know a court date is looming, constantly throwing pros and cons of why you should go? Do you know how much courage it takes to sit in the same room with his smug ass that thinks (and I'm going to quote here) "What I did wasn't really all that bad. I mean she asked for it. She wanted me." *Puke

Yeah, cause all 5 year olds "want it" from an authority figure who's job it is, is to love and protect them! And this guy can't even try the excuse that it only happened once because it happened multiple times with multiple girls over several years! And I'm not completely convinced he didn't harm my Beloveds either, but that would make him "a dirty homosexual" (his words) so he'd never admit to that.

Obviously he's sick in the head. He confessed to EVERYTHING including additional he wasn't even accused of, and he plead guilty... so why do I feel like he's winning because even after all of that he's still not in prison?

I need him to go to prison. I need to see that sometimes, justice does work. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that's not how it's going to go down. Will justice be served? Will I get to see it? Will I feel better?