A one-year jail sentence for a man who knowingly made a 12-year-old girl pregnant is nothing more than a slap on the wrist. But that’s virtually all the punishment that Wade K. Asing, 29, received last week from Circuit Court
A one-year jail sentence for a man who knowingly made a 12-year-old girl
pregnant is nothing more than a slap on the wrist. But that’s virtually all the
punishment that Wade K. Asing, 29, received last week from Circuit Court Judge
Clifford Nakea, and that’s just wrong.
Asing, an Oahu resident, was
convicted of second-degree sexual assault in connection with his repeated
sexual intercourse with the Kaua’i girl. He ended up fathering a child with her
before she was a teenager.
Kaua’i County authorities wanted a 10-year jail
sentence for Asing on the grounds that he knew his victim was younger than 14,
Hawaii’s legal age for consensual sexual relations. Deputy prosecutor Shaylene
Iseri-Carvalho also argued correctly that simply because Asing has been
fulfilling the role of a father since he became one with the girl is no reason
to give him a lighter sentence.
But that’s what Nakea did. He ordered one
year in jail and five years of probation for a crime that amounts to child
molestation.
Hawai’i already has 14 as its ludicrously low legal age of
consensual sex. That’s embarassing enough. The sentence given by Nakea to Asing
adds to the shame.
