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Lincoln jailer says sex abuse of prisoners should be a felony

April 19, 2007|BOBBIE CURD

STANFORD - Lincoln County Jailer David Gooch was shocked that the second-degree sexual abuse charge against former employee Chuck Girdler was only a misdemeanor.

"To be honest with you, I was surprised. I was really flabbergasted," Gooch said.

Girdler was accused of having sex with a female inmate while on duty.

Gooch said even though the sex may have been consensual, he still considers it sexual abuse. Gooch, who sits on the board of directors for the Kentucky Jailers Association, said he and fellow jailers have been discussing sponsoring a bill to get these types of crimes turned into felonies.

Gooch said a prisoner should not be able to consent.

"That's the spirit behind making it criminal. If you're under 16, we presume by law that you can't consent. But I think that if someone has a position of authority over the other person, the other person as a matter of law cannot consent."

As examples, Gooch used a corrections officer and prisoner, teacher and student, or doctor and patient.

"To me, it doesn't seem morally proper. I don't think it should be legally proper, and in the corrections setting it should be the same," Gooch said. "It wasn't defined as statutory rape, but I think it's more serious than that."

The jailers association has worked on a bill to change the law in a previous legislative session.

However, its focus more recently was on getting the state to reimburse county jails for state prisoners for time served prior to their convictions.

"We didn't want to put too much out there and focused more on that," Gooch said.

Gooch hopes, though, that the association will continue to work on getting sexual abuse charges turned into felonies.

"Once I started the investigation on this case ... I started pushing for us to do more work on sponsoring a bill for this," Gooch said. "In the future, I hope charges like this are considered more seriously."

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