In October 2015, John R.K. Howard lured his fellow black teammate, who has a mental disability, into a locker room by promising a hug. Instead of a hug, John R.K. Howard and some of his other teammates held the boy down, shoved a hanger into his rectum, and further kicked the hanger in multiple times. The attack was so brutal that the victim required treatment from a hospital.
John R.K Howard was originally being charged with sexual assault, but now he has pleaded guilty of a lesser charge of injury of a child. How does someone go from being charged with sexual assault to the lesser charge of injury of a child? Well, it’s all thanks to a plea agreement between his defense attorney and the Idaho Attorney General's Office. Deputy Attorney General Casey Hemmer even said prosecutors could have proved John R.K Howard assaulted his teammate. So why didn’t they? They didn’t believe Howard deserved the consequences of a sex offender.
“It was egregious behavior, it caused this victim a lot of suffering, but it is not in my view a sex crime, which is why the state has amended this charge,” Attorney General Casey Hemmer told the Idaho Statesmen. “We don’t believe it’s appropriate for Mr. Howard to suffer the consequences of a sex offender, but he still needs to be held accountable.”
Rape is defined by The United States Department of Justice as “The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” This case, therefore, can be categorized as rape, making John R.K Howard the rapist. Strange that we don’t consider a rapist someone who is deserving of the consequences of a sex offender -- or is it just young white privileged men “with a promising future” who we don’t consider deserving of the consequences of being charged of rape?
Brock Turner, a former Stanford swimmer charged with sexually assaulting a young woman, was given only six months in jail because the judge, Aaron Persky, was worried about the impact of prison on him. "A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him,” Persky said. "I think he will not be a danger to others.” The judge also received two letters -- one from the victim, describing the traumatic event that she went through, and the emotional, mental, and physical impact on her, and one from Turner’s dad, describing the rape as “20 minutes of action.”
What do these two cases have in common? They were both white athletes “who could have a future.” Judge Aaron Persky and Attorney General Casey Hemmer were both so worried about these boys' futures that they forgot about the victims' futures, about the brutal recovery they will have to go through, the traumatic memories they will have to ordeal. They forgot about justice, the one thing that might bring the victims some closure. All because these boys didn’t fit the archetype for a rapist. Maybe if Brock Turner and John R.K Howard weren’t athletes or young white privileged males, they would have been charged with a more severe felony. But the truth is there is not an archetype for a rapist. It comes down to two things: power and oppression.
Both of the boys had power over there victims: Brock Turner’s victim was severely intoxicated when he assaulted her -- she wasn’t able to fight back, she was powerless giving him all the power to brutally rape her. While John R.K Howard’s actions might be a little more racially driven, Howard had a history of calling the victim by racial slurs and taunted him with a KKK song. Racism is all about power and oppression, so what better way to make the victim feel powerless than holding him down and raping him? Not to mention the boy had a mental disability making him that much more vulnerable. Whatever John R.K Howard’s motives were, his actions deserved a lot more than a slap on the wrist and a few hours of community service.
If these brutal cases can teach us anything, it is that we need a complete makeover of our justice system and our attitudes towards sex crimes. We need to be teaching consent and understanding in school. Instead of telling people how not to be raped, we need to telling people to not rape. We need to stop blaming the victim. Instead, we need to put the blame the attacker and give them an un-biased, fair punishment for what they did, no matter their race, gender, sexual identity, financial standing, or even if “they have a promising future.”
If you want to help remove Judge Randy Stokes from the bench for his decision in John Howard's rape case, sign this petition.
