What's With Judge Baddour & Sexual Predators?

In our November article entitled "Judge Allen Baddour is a Sexual Predator's Get Out of Jail Free Card" we raised the issue that Baddour's decision to allow sexual predators to have unrestricted access to churches with on-site daycare. We questioned his myopic decision making ability, in that he focused on the sexual predator's right to worship, but did not consider the simple solution of saying they could worship at the overwhelming number of houses of worship without on-site childcare.

Now, we have discovered that he also ruled that because a Chatham County man was convicted of sex offenses before the state adopted a monitoring law, he does not have to wear a satellite tracking monitor.

Judge Baddour's decision was yet another setback for North Carolina's attempts to track sex offenders who have finished their sentences.

Guy Reeves was convicted in January 2006 of taking indecent liberties with a 7-year-old, his third (emphasis added) sex-offense conviction. He left jail in May 2007.

The General Assembly passed laws on sex-offender monitoring in 2006 and added specific procedures for the program last December.

Assistant Chatham County District Attorney Marci Trageser argued that lawmakers intended the statute to be retroactive as a safety measure for the public and that made tracking part of the original sentence, not additional punishment. "It clearly specifies in the session law that this is also to apply to any person released from prison," Trageser said.

Baddour's rejection of that argument made Reeves the 29th convicted sex offender in North Carolina to get a tracking device removed.

What is it with this judge? He has a questionable record of violating people's civil rights (usually persons of color), but he seems to bend over backward to let sexual predators run free. We are looking into his pre-judicial history and associations to see if there is some personal associations or history with these types of criminals, in hopes we can shed light on his curious rulings.

In the mean time, maybe we should take up a collection to build a half-way house on West Street in Pittsboro so he can be close to his favored constituents.