A Louisiana man has been sentenced to decades in prison and physical castration after pleading guilty to raping a teenager, according to a news release from the region’s district attorney.
Glenn Sullivan Sr., 54, pled guilty to four counts of second-degree rape on April 17. Authorities began investigating Sullivan in July 2022, when a young woman told the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office that Sullivan had assaulted her multiple times when she was 14. The assaults resulted in pregnancy, and a DNA test confirmed that Sullivan was the father of the child, the district attorney’s office said. Sullivan had also groomed the victim and threatened her and her family to prevent her from coming forward.
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A 2008 Louisiana law says that men convicted of certain rape offenses may be sentenced to chemical castration. They can also elect to be physically castrated. Perrilloux said that Sullivan’s plea requires he be physically castrated. The process will be carried out by the state’s Department of Corrections, according to the law, but cannot be conducted more than a week before a person’s prison sentence ends. This means Sullivan wouldn’t be castrated until a week before the end of his 50-year sentence — when he would be more than 100 years old.
You know, I always used to say they ought to do this. But now, presented with the reality of it, I don’t like it at all.
I mean, when the state of Louisiana agrees, it’s only reasonable to wonder if you’re being the baddy.
If I’ve learned anything after coming back to the south south (for some dumb reason) if you find yourself agreeing with the state you’re definitely the baddy, with ☠️ and all.
They made my residential road a 25mph speed limit, and I’m really happy about it. I just learned that i’m a baddy. :(
This is because we can be of two minds about these things. You can have a personal response to heinous acts, but still think the government ought to be better.
If some guy murders the murderer of their kid, I can absolutely 100% understand why, and I could even admit that I might do the same in their position. But I still think that as a society we should not lower ourselves to this standard and I will always be against the death penalty (especially because the system will never be perfect and I will never think it’s worth killing even one innocent person by accident).
It’s why vigilante justice is so easily understood, but it’s still something we, as a society, shouldn’t accept.
Emotional reactions can cloud our minds to these things. But I absolutely agree with you. This is horrendous and barbarous. I can still somewhat understand the “he deserves it for what he did”-response, but I’m absolutely against this on a deeper level.
I don’t think it’s about having “Two minds” about it, for as you describe it doesn’t seem to fit the op, as he admitted that he wanted the state to do it.
Imo, this is about abstraction vs reality. In theory something might sound good, but when you are actually faced with the reality of it, it’s a huge turnoff.
I’m reminded of the reddit story where a guy got into scat porn. It became a fetish so he hired a prostitute to shit in his mouth. On the day of the deed, once the shit hit his mouth, as he described it, he was “just a guy on the floor with shit in his mouth.”
The shit is just hitting the OPs mouth right now.
Exactly right! I think we’re actually agreed on this.
I just meant that OP used to say they ought to do it, which was his ‘emotional’ response to it, which is easier when it’s in abstract. But in reality he doesn’t like it at all when his government actually does it.
I’d never heard about that reddit story, but I think it’s very apt, lol.
Yeah I get wanting it, but I don’t want a government that can do it. I also don’t think a reasonable interpretation of the bill of rights allows it. How is removing body parts not cruel and unusual punishment?
I suspect your downvotes might be from folks misunderstanding originalism.
“a legal philosophy that the words in documents and especially the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted as they were understood at the time they were written”
It’s like religion stating everything we ever needed to know was written thousands of years ago and we should just apply it like we were living in those times.
https://www.vox.com/21497317/originalism-amy-coney-barrett-constitution-supreme-court
Barrett is a self-proclaimed originalist, embracing a theory of the Constitution that is also shared by at least two other sitting justices: Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.
Any punishment with no possibility of back pedaling should never be given. The chances of permanently harming a potentially innocent person are far too great.
I’m usually on that side of the discussion, too, but this case doesn’t leave much room for the guy to be innocent. Beyond the “pleading guilty” part, which is sometimes done strategically, he’s the biological father of the kid a 14yo got. There is no shot at this being a mistake at this point.
I still agree though; if this should exist, it must require even stricter than the usual “beyond reasonable doubt” conditions or something.
He got her pregnant… His DNA. Not possible to be innocent. He plead guilty. He shouldn’t hit a prison cell, he should go directly to the chair.
Most likely this particular guy will never live to see it done. So the particulars of this case are moot.
I changed my mind about execution some 25 years ago, and while there there have been many people executed since then that I won’t defend or feel bad about dying, I still don’t think it’s right for the state to execute prisoners.
Same thing here. What this guy did was horrible. I wouldn’t even disagree that he deserves castration. But I still feel it’s not right to actually do it to anyone. It’s a dichotomy I’m confronting right now. There is what the guy deserves and then there’s a separate consideration of what justice I think is appropriate to mete out. And I thought those were one in the same, but it turns out they aren’t.
Yeah he did, don’t get me wrong this guy should go to jail. But imagine for a second he (or anyone else for that matter) was not actually guilty, and got convicted on a technicality or a judiciary error.
You would mutilate or kill someone and then absolve them of the crime if ever found out they were innocent, oh no you can’t, because what happened is utterly irreversible. I mean, it’s not like it ever happened before right?
The state having the power to do this is horrible. A victim doing this to their attacker with a butter knife on the other hand.
Only because the victim will be traumatized by what they did. Other than that, it’s a legitimate self-defense.
This falls squarely under no cruel and unusual punishment for me. Heinous as the crime was this is just inhuman.
Well, in Louisiana, it might be the only way to get gender affirming care
/s
So, first you relativise what counts as cruel and unusual punishment, then you demonize the person. That is the road to atrocities. Why do you want to go there?
Me saying that rape is a heinous crime but saying its still inhuman to castrate a convicted rapist is demonizing them?
I’ll take, “Laws that violate the 8th Amendment” for $100, Alex.
Nah see the 8th amendment no longer applies because he’s a criminal.
-Louisiana State Supreme Court
Probably
Making that poor old man sit in court for over 20 minutes is a violation of the 8th amendment if you listen to fox news.
What does physical or chemical castration even mean? And why is this a punishment when he is 100 years old?
Also, under current law there, no abortions are allowed unless life of mother is at risk, so they will castrate the rapist but force the mother to give birth?
What the actual fuck
Chemical castration is the lowering of hormones medically. Physical castration would by physical removal of the testes.
Welcome back to the dark ages. See you at next week’s drawing and quartering. It’s right after the hangings! Hopefully we get some real kickers!
Lowering hormones medically? Sounds like something Trans, and that’s illegal in the south.
Yee haw! What the fuck lol, if I was a hundred years old cutting off my balls would be kind of sexy lol,
What does physical or chemical castration even mean?
Physical castration is being neutered, aka what we routinely due to male animals we don’t intend to breed.
Chemical castration is essentially being chemically neutered - hormone blockers. Whenever you see someone anti-trans talk about pro-trans people wanting to chemically castrate children that’s why - it’s the same drugs being used to achieve the same effect - blocking sex hormones.
And why is this a punishment when he is 100 years old?
Because castration in LA is only performed in the final week of the prison sentence (presumably because it can’t be reversed so as to allow time for appeals), he was in his 50s when convicted and was sentenced to 50 years + castration. So by the time he’s in the final week of his prison sentence he would be over 100 should he live that long.
Damn. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone just went on a rampage after being released because the government cut their balls off.
It’s insane there are people in this thread cheering them on, but I don’t expect much rationality or maturity from this generation at this point.
Well, it’s because he’s an old fuck already so his heinous crimes result in him spending the rest of his worthless life in prison. If he’s lucky, he’ll die before he reaches 100.
Child rapists really test my principles regarding the death penalty and such, not going to lie.
physical castration is removing his dickballs.
chemical castration … is basically using medication to block hormones that cause sex drives. (edit for technical accuracy as was pointed out below. Either way they’re taking medically-approved bolt cutters to his junk. and that’s never right at any age.)
chemical castration … is basically using medication to block hormones that cause sex drives.
The fun part is that it doesn’t even do that. You can block all of your testosterone (as an XY male), and still desire sex, have erections, and achieve orgasms. It’s difficult, but still possible. And unless they’re going to do blood panels every month, it’s pretty easy to get around that shit, if you have the money for the black market drugs.
Not defending or saying it’s right. It’s far from it.
but that’s what they mean by physical and chemical castration
Why add the physical castration part to plea if it doesn’t take effect until he’s 100, seems so pointless.
The American legal system is so barbarically fucked up.
Maybe to have it as a required part of his sentence, so while time can be reduced, perhaps the castration can’t? I.e. he couldn’t be released early unless he went through with the castration.
I dunno, I’m not a lawyer, just my guess. Fucked up either way on all sides of this.
I suspect it’s a legal strategy he concocted with his lawyers: Chemical castration might have a different time period in which it is applied (because longer duration), maybe even starting right after the sentence becomes effective. As the summary here states, the physical version that he opted for himself(!) is not to be applied until a week before the sentence ends, which gives him a chance of a lot of things to happen before, laws to change etc & eventually get out of this without being castrated at all.
Barbaric and inhumane. Cruel and unusual.
We don’t mutilate and torture convicts. Rather, we aren’t supposed to but Louisiana is a shit hole.
