Bodenweiser charged for refusing polygraph, therapy

6-29-15 Delaware:

When former state Senate hopeful Eric R. Bodenweiser testified at his child rape trial last year, he swore he did not force a youngster to repeatedly have sex with him more than a quarter-century ago. The trial ended in a hung jury.

When he pleaded “no contest” in March to two counts of unlawful sexual contact and was put on probation, Bodenweiser didn’t admit to sex crimes, only that he would not fight the state’s accusations.

Authorities have since charged him with violating probation because he has refused to to speak candidly about his crime, both in a lie detector test and group therapy sessions ordered by corrections officials.

Bodenweiser, on his lawyer’s advice, has asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination because he fears being charged with perjury over his trial denials. Bodenweiser’s stance has set up a legal battle with constitutional implications for Delaware.

Bodenweiser, now 56, “made a very conscious decision at trial to perjure himself,” prosecutor David Hume IV wrote in an email this month to defense attorney Joseph A. Hurley. He “created this situation and he will have to deal with the consequences.”

Hurley has since argued in a 12-page motion that decisions in other state and federal courts have consistently upheld the right of criminals and suspects, even convicted sex offenders, to remain silent about potentially incriminating information.

Net-Widening in Delaware: The Costs of Punishing Kids Like Adults When They Commit Sex Offenses

February 2010:

Abstract:
This article examines recent legislative and judicial changes to Delaware’s approach to children who have sexually offended. Since the early 1990s, laws related to sex offender registration, penalties for sex offenses, and waiver of children to adult court have all hardened considerably, while both general and sexual recidivism rates for kids released from detention in Delaware have decreased. Recent research into the children targeted by these laws demonstrates that they are not comparable to children who have sexually offended in other states. Delaware’s aggressive legislative approach, although softened by judges in practice, has apparently led to net-widening. Placing children who are at low risk for re-offense in detention and residential treatment, and in public registries, costs the state millions of dollars and actually increases the likelihood of future criminal offending. Many of these children would have been more properly treated in the community.

For the remainder of this paper: by Chrysanthi S. Leon, University of Delaware - Sociology and Criminal Justice -and- David L. Burton, Smith College -and- Dana Alvare, University of Delaware - Sociology and Criminal Justice