Since his defense strategy, claiming that a 16-year-old rape victim wasn’t “so” drunk, has failed, the lawyer for one of the two Steubenville football players convicted of rape plans to appeal a guilty verdict, and is now claiming that the 16-year-old rapist’s brain wasn’t “developed” enough and his client should not have to be on a sex offenders list for life. Walter Madison, the attorney for Ma’lik Richmond, went on Piers Morgan Tonight on Tuesday, explaining why he would appeal Sunday’s verdict by 37-year juvenile court judge Thomas Lipps, and especially his sentencing of Richmond to at least one year in a rehabilitation center and the requirement to register as a sex offender. You can watch the video below, but here’s the key “logic” from Madison:
I don’t believe that a person at 75 years old should have to explain for something they did at 16when scientific evidence would support your brain isn’t fully developed … when evidence in the case would suggest that you were under the influence.
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“We have the right to appeal and that is a right we will be exercising,” said Walter Madison, Richmond’s attorney.
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To review: Madison is arguing that a 16-year-old’s brain is not fully functional enough to determine whether raping an unconscious girl is a bad decision. This comes after Madison made news during his last media tour, when he insisted before last week’s rape trial that the Jane Doe victim’s silence and unconsciousness amounted to consent. He said before the trial that the girl “made a decision to excessively drink… and leave with the boys,” and that an Instagram photo of the girl being dragged by the then-suspects “doesn’t suggest that a person is substantially impaired.” The defense team for Richmond and Trent Mays then went on to argue in court that the girl’s level of drunkenness should determine consent. SOURCE
