A curious legal case from New York raises some interesting issues:
Court Rejects Judge’s Assertion of a Child Pornography Gene
According to the NYT:
A federal appeals court in Manhattan overturned a 6.5 year sentence in a child pornography case on Friday, saying the judge who imposed it improperly found that the defendant would return to viewing child pornography "because of an as-of-yet undiscovered gene."
The judge, Gary L. Sharpe, was quoted as saying, "It is a gene you were born with. And it’s not a gene you can get rid of," before he sentenced the defendant...
A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said in ruling on the defendant’s appeal, "It would be impermissible for the court to base its decision of recidivism on its unsupported theory of genetics."Now I think we can all agree that judges shouldn't be handing down sentences ...
