Federal Judiciary

People v. Foley (Cal. Ct. App. - Oct. 23, 2020)

By Shaun Martin

Jeffrey Foley is the grandfather of identical twins.  He molests one of them, who immediately reports it, and he's tried and convicted and sentenced to three years in prison.

After that conviction, approximately two years later, the other identical twin reported that she too had been molested by her grandfather.  He's tried and convicted again and is sentenced to 60 years in prison.

It seems at least a bit anomalous that you get 3 years in prison if you've molested one person but 60 years if you've molested two.  In the normal circumstance, you'd generally think that such sentences would meet somewhere in the middle; either a longer sentence for the one molestation or a shorter sentence for two molestations.

I get that you want to punish repeated molesters more.  And, for good reason, criminal sentences aren't necessarily linear:  two offenses don't get you exactly twice the sentence.

Still, 3 and 60 is quite a gap.

Full post as published by California Appellate Report on October 23, 2020 (boomark / email).