Even in the event you’ve led a law-abiding life, you might need a good friend or member of the family who will get into critical bother and faces time in jail. That’s when you can be requested to jot down a letter on this liked one’s behalf, describing their good qualities within the hopes of persuading a choose to indicate mercy.
A-list celeb couple Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis discovered themselves in simply this example. Their longtime good friend and TV sitcom co-star Danny Masterson wanted them to jot down letters for him after he was convicted in Could of two counts of rape, for assaults that occurred within the early 2000s.
Because the world is aware of, Kutcher and Kunis significantly bungled this letter-writing project. After Masterson was sentenced to 30 years to life for the assaults, Kutcher and Kunis’ letters, that are a part of the general public document, have been disseminated by information organizations and picked aside.
Folks throughout social media pounced on Kutcher and Kunis for describing Masterson — a convicted rapist — as a “a task mannequin” and a giant brother determine with “glorious character.” Folks referred to as them privileged celebrities whose “tone deaf” letters perpetuated “rape tradition.” For Masterson’s accusers particularly, the letters have been “hurtful” and “retraumatizing,” with one, Chrissie Carnell Bixler, telling Kutcher that he was “as sick” as his “mentor.” It’s not identified how Los Angeles Superior Courtroom Choose Charlaine Alameda acquired the letters, however one authorized knowledgeable informed this information group that they have been “counterproductive.”
This damaging response raises many questions, amongst them: How may Kutcher and Kunis have written higher letters – ones that additionally didn’t end in an intense public backlash. It seems that the solutions to this query might be helpful to anybody who is named upon to jot down a letter of help for a good friend or member of the family who runs afoul of the legislation. Furthermore, this letter-writing recommendation from authorized specialists can apply to different conditions, together with if you might need to vouch for somebody at work or in your private life.
The aim of those letters…
These letters are widespread in prison instances and are introduced to a sentencing choose to stability out the “horrible” issues the choose has discovered concerning the defendant when studying the indictment or listening to testimony, stated Colleen McCormack-Maitland, the deputy director of authorized companies on the Authorized Motion Heart (LAC).
Folks writing these letters ought to by no means use them to re-litigate the defendant’s guilt, even when they staunchly imagine that the defendant has been handled unfairly by the system. The trial is over, the jury has rendered its verdict. “That’s not the discussion board for this,” stated McCormack-Maitland, a former public defender whose New York-based group works to revive job, housing and different alternatives for individuals who arrest or conviction information.
Do these letters even assist?
Whether or not the letters can be welcome by a choose depends upon a wide range of elements, McCormack-Maitland and different authorized specialists say, together with the character and seriousness of the crime and the person choose’s authorized philosophy and views on sentencing and punishment. Earlier than writing the letter, it’s typically useful to speak to the defendant’s legal professional, who can provide perception on the choose’s philosophy and temperament.
Judges have a number of most important concerns when sentencing defendants, in keeping with Los Angeles leisure legal professional Tre Lovell. They need to present justice to the victims and mete out acceptable punishment. Whereas they might be open to giving a defendant a second probability, particularly a first-time offender, additionally they must be aware about defending society. “Judges are pondering: Am I going to finish up (within the information) as anyone who let somebody out, after which they did one thing horrible?” McCormack-Maitland stated.
Judges are statutorily required to impose sure sentences for sure crimes, although they typically can function inside a spread of sentences, and that vary could be “large,” McCormack-Maitland stated. In sure conditions, character letters might help a choose see {that a} lesser sentence, together with probation, can be sufficient to show a defendant a lesson.
Lovell is skeptical that character letters assist a lot when the crime is “egregious,” corresponding to a rape or homicide. “The sufferer’s assertion could have a a lot higher influence,” Lovell stated. He can envision instances when the letters may bolster the concept that the crime was wildly out of character, or clarify how the defendant was below some excessive strain. Largely, Lovell sees the letters serving to in nonviolent crimes or when the defendant is a juvenile, when judges impose sentences that prioritize rehabilitation over punishment.
Expressing regret might help defendants
When defendants take duty for his or her crime, they’re in a greater place to indicate a capability for change, which signifies to judges that they’re much less prone to re-offend. “If by the point of sentencing, in the event that they’re nonetheless denying it, they’re executed,” Lovell stated. “In case you’re not accepting duty, judges assume you might have the potential of doing it once more.”
Masterson’s lack of regret was a problem with Kutcher and Kunis’s letters
Masterson vehemently denied the costs at his retrial (the primary resulted in a hung jury) and insisted he had consensual intercourse along with his accusers. His legal professional, Shawn Holley, stated his authorized group will file an enchantment.
Masterson’s place created challenges for the greater than 50 folks writing letters on his behalf, together with Kutcher and Kunis. It’s doable that the couple believed in Masterson’s innocence, but it surely’s evident they didn’t need to say something of their letters that undermined their good friend’s place.
However the result’s that their letters didn’t acknowledge that Masterson was convicted of significant, violent felonies, Lovell and McCormack-Maitland stated. Nonetheless, pals who imagine in a defendant’s innocence can nonetheless write an efficient letter. Once more, they need to not use the letter to retry the case. However they’ll specific concern concerning the seriousness of the crimes, then pivot and graciously provide to inform the choose concerning the individual they know, McCormack-Maitland stated.
Kutcher and Kunis’ letters basically brushed apart the life-altering ache suffered by the victims, the attorneys stated. As a substitute, they devoted paragraphs to what a fantastic individual Masterson was, praising his “innate goodness” and “caring nature.” Within the context of Masterson’s crimes, this reward made elements of Kutcher and Kunis come throughout as “out of contact.” McCormack-Maitland stated.
She acknowledged that the letters have been efficient when Kutcher and Kunis wrote concerning the influence an extended jail sentence would have on Masterson’s 9-year-old daughter, provided that it’s well-documented that kids can endure life-long trauma when a guardian is incarcerated. However aside from that, McCormack-Maitland stated that the letters have been “counter-productive.”
Kutcher and Kunis “trivialized” Masterson’s crimes
Essentially the most questionable elements of Kutcher and Kunis’s letters got here after they praised Masterson’s “steadfast” dedication to “selling a drug-free life-style.” McCormack-Maitland stated the couple got here off as villainizing drug customers, when substance abuse now not is essentially seen as a “ethical failing.” In the meantime, they held up Masterson’s a “nice man” as a result of he doesn’t use medicine.
“To place Masterson on a pedestal as a result of he doesn’t use medicine, when he’s simply been convicted of rape, appears fairly out of contact for my part,” McCormack-Maitland stated. “It makes it appear that they don’t perceive the problems, and it trivialized what he was accused of doing, which was critical.”
Different critics noticed the couple’s emphasis on Masterson’s anti-drug life-style as an effort to undermine the victims’ testimony after prosecutors alleged that the actor of plying his victims with medicine earlier than raping them.
Different methods to jot down higher character letters than Kutcher and Kunis
To McCormack-Maitland, it appeared that Kutcher and Kunis largely wrote about their reminiscences of the individual they knew 20 years in the past — after they have been all working collectively on “That 70s Present.” That’s additionally across the time that the assaults occurred, she famous
To Lovell, the letters lacked specificity and failed to supply “distinctive” particulars that illuminated the individual Masterson is now, particularly whether or not he’s discovered something or modified for the higher for the reason that crimes occurred. That’s why it’s helpful when defendants take duty: Their pals, for instance, can write about how the defendants used their time, awaiting trial and sentencing, to enter remedy. Or, they’ll bolster defendants’ accounts about how they’ve already begun to take steps to amend for the crimes and to proceed to contribute to society.
It additionally helps when pals can clarify how they may proceed to help the defendant, whereas the defendant is serving time or when the defendant is launched from jail.
“The choose desires to know that the defendant gained’t proceed to be a danger to society, and that if he will get out earlier, that he’ll have individuals who will help him, serving to him discover work or housing, and can give him incentives to not commit anymore crimes,” Lovell stated.
