Justin Schneider, 34, pleaded guilty to strangling a woman and masturbating on her in Aug. 2017.
According to police reports in Alaska, Schneider, 34, lured a woman into his car, strangled her to the point of unconsciousness, masturbated on her, and insisted that he only threatened to kill her so he could be “sexually fulfilled.” In spite of all that, he will not serve one day in jail, and will get time served for the year he spent under house arrest with his wife and children wearing a tether.
Schneider pled guilty last Wednesday to felony assault. In return, prosecutors dropped the remaining charges. A grand jury had indicted Schneider for assault, kidnapping, and misdemeanor harassment I (offensive contact with fluids). Third Judicial District Judge Michael Corey sentenced him to two years with one year suspended, and three years of probation. The victim didn’t appear in court nor did Schneider mention the effects his actions had on her. Instead, he centered himself.
“This can never happen again,” Corey told Schneider as he rapped his knuckles on his bench for emphasis of each word.
The prosecution argued that he was already facing a “life sentence” after losing his job as an air traffic controller. And because they determined that he wouldn’t be likely to commit a crime again, he was given leniency. The Assistant District Attorney alluded to the incredulous sentence as Schneider’s “one pass.”
This highlights the inequities in the American justice system. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, nearly half of the 2,000 people exonerated of crimes since 1989 are Black. Over that period, exonerations were most common for murder, sexual assault and drug crimes with sexual assault leading the pack on wrongfully convicted persons. This also includes hiding or sabotaging evidence and obtaining false confessions.
The registry also found an incredulous number of eyewitness errors in 79 percent of sexual assault cases involving wrongfully convicted Black defendants, compared with 51 percent in cases with exonerated white defendants.
Mark Denny, a Black man, served almost three decades in jail for a rape and robbery he did not commit. He was only sixteen at the time he was sentenced. And although he was finally exonerated after an investigation by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office who determined he had nothing to do with the crime. He can’t get that time back.
“Prison was an ugly experience for me. I almost lost myself. Now I’m a free man,” Denny said in Brooklyn Supreme Court after his conviction was dismissed by Justice Matthew D’Emic. “This type of justice is needed, I appreciate everything that everyone has done.”
His case isn’t the only one. Malcolm Alexander of Louisiana was exonerated after a reinvestigation by the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office. A district court judge dismissed the indictment and ordered the immediate release of Malcolm Alexander who wrongly served nearly 40 years for a rape that DNA evidence proves he didn’t commit.
He was arrested for the 1979 crime based on an unreliable identification procedure. His non court-appointed attorney who was subsequently disbarred after complaints of neglect and abandonment were filed against him in connection with dozens of other cases failed to protect an innocent man. He was 21 at the time of his sentencing.
There are innocent men who go to jail for crimes they didn’t commit and often times the sentencing is harsh because the victim’s pain and suffering is taken into consideration.
Evidently, a victim’s suffering is only examined when the defendants are Black. Justin Schneider and the Alaskan judicial system are jokes. This man has never been away from his family or actually had to pay for his crime. Unfortunately, justice was not served in this case.
I only hope that the victim files a civil suit and sues him for punitive damages. It cannot replace the trauma of her ordeal but if the only way to make Schneider suffer is to make him lose everything, so be it.
