After 30 years as a criminal defense lawyer, I’ve defended everyone you can imagine, charged with every kind of crime you can imagine.  Still, I have to say that sex offenders are in a category all their own when it comes to criminals.

I think the biggest difference comes from the fact that sexual assault is an “intimate” crime–not that the perpetrator wants “intimacy” with the victim as most of us would consider it.  Almost every other crime I can think of–robbery, theft of a car, assault, and even murder doesn’t involve such close contact with the victim.

Sexual assault is really “up close and personal.”  It takes a different type of criminal to commit this kind of crime.

I’m not a psychologist, but in my experience most sex offenders aren’t really turned on by the sexual act.  Instead, it’s the power and dominance they have for a brief time.  Around men, quite often, sex offenders are losers and unable to hang with men in easy relationships.  Most sex offenders I’ve worked with are loners, misfits, or outcasts.  By assaulting women, they “prove” to themselves they are studs and attractive.

One particularly dangerous offender I represented years ago, before his sentencing for several rape convictions, bragged to  the probation officer he’d had sex with 100 women.  That statement showed up in the pre-sentence report to the judge.  At his sentencing, the defendant corrected the report to say he really had sex with over 200 women!!  (If true, I hope they weren’t rapes…)

Almost every sex offender I’ve represented has denied the act and blamed everything on the woman.  Often, they use force.  When the victim fights back, the offender can accuse the woman of “starting it.”  Even after the victims come into court and testify against the offenders and juries find them guilty, many still deny their guilt.

Guys who are “kiddie twiddlers,” who sexually assault children, are the hardest to work with.  The usual reaction I get is, “I know I didn’t do it.”  Then, even after I confront them with evidence through statements of the victims, forensic proof, and other witness’ statements, the offenders still deny everything.

At first, I assumed this was simply the usual human response to deny or minimize our guilt for acts we’ve done.  Now, I realize something more subtle is at work.

These men who assault kids find the act inexcusable, like  normal people do.  They think it’s so horrible that they, the sex offenders, could never possibly have done it because…well, because  “I could never do anything so horrible and gross.”  They block any memory of the act from their conscious minds–which is why they think they’re being honest when they say, “I didn’t do it.”

Any thoughts from you?

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But there are odd things about this neighborhood that you learn after you’ve moved in. For one thing, your next door neighbor is a sausage making plant, zoned in the middle of single family homes and a duplex. Many people are unemployed. Some homes are abandoned except for the scavengers who steal the copper pipe out of the buildings. A few drug dealers operate on the edges of the neighborhood.

You’ve even seen the guy next door laying naked on top of a woman in the bushes at the side of his house, during the day. Your neighbor, standing beside you, asked him what he was doing. The man apologized and disappeared indoors with the woman. This same man has a lot of women over to his home. They come and go regularly.

Then, there’s the strange odor.

You and your neighbors assume it’s the sausage making plant on the corner. You call the city, who checks things out. The plant cleans every piece of their equipment and even cleans out the sewer leading from their plant to the street. Still, the odor persists.

It smells like a dead dog, like sewage, or rotting flesh. Yet, the smell goes on for years as you live there. Once again, the city investigates the sausage plant and forces them to do another cleaning of all their equipment. Still, the smell persists.

One day, the police receive a tip about Anthony Sowell’s house–the guy who was naked in the bushes with the woman. They investigate the registered sex offender’s home and start to find dead bodies–eleven of them in total–in various states of decay.

Can you imagine? Living in this neighborhood?

How could this happen without anyone knowing? If your neighborhood is like mine, the people are friendly and even get together a few times a year for a block party where we close off the street and drink beer outside. We ask how things are going but there’s always a line beyond which most people won’t cross–we don’t want to be too snoopy. Most of all, we don’t want to cause any friction on the block by calling the police on someone else.

In my experience, a couple two doors away (years ago) had obvious marital problems. Many of us on the block suspected the husband of abusing his wife, perhaps even physically. In private conversations with her on the front lawn, we made vague offers of help. But none of us went any further. The verbal fights and smashing sounds traveled down the street on hot summer nights. They moved and I hope the wife is all right.

The point is, none of us ever called the police. What would we say to the cops? What hard evidence did we have? Shouting and yelling? Many couples do that without crossing the line into abuse.

Even with the putrid smell, maybe that’s what happened on the unusual street in Cleveland, Ohio. What do you think? How could the alleged murderer get away with eleven dead, rotting bodies on his property? Let me know what you think.

Next post, I’ll talk about what it’s like to defend serial rapists in trials…

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