Summary
A French court sentenced Dominique Pelicot, 72, to 20 years in prison for drugging and raping his ex-wife, Gisele Pelicot, and arranging for other men to rape her while unconscious over nearly a decade.
Of the 51 co-defendants, all were found guilty, with sentences ranging from less than 10 years to 20.
The trial, marked by shocking evidence, spurred national debate on rape culture and consent laws.
Gisèle’s courage in waiving anonymity has galvanized feminist movements, with campaigners calling her a national hero for sparking societal and legal reflection on sexual violence.
20 years seems like a wrist-slap, but given that the main perp is likely in his 70s, this is a death sentence. I think the younger rapists should get life in prison, what the fuck is this 10 years sentencing bull shit.
This would be close to the maximum possible sentence in Germany, I assume France has similar rules.
Interesting that there weren’t multiple charges of rape he was found guilty for, like would happen in the states. Each rape occurrence would have been a separate charge, and each one would have carried a 20 year maximum, so he’d be serving hundreds of years easy.
This is generally to ensure that even if he gets some of his years commuted for good behavior while inside prison, he’s still got hundreds of years left to go. Making it a death sentence.
With that said, the US prison system is archaic and punitive, so I might need to re-evaluate my views.
In Germany at least, jail time doesn’t scale linearly with the count of crimes or victims. Jail time isn’t primarily meant as revenge or punishment, but more as the time required to revisit the mistakes you did and to make you again a functional member of society.
It won’t necessarily make a difference if you murder one person or 10 or 100. Typically, the sentence will be 15 years. If the judge thinks you’re too dangerous to ever be released again they can order you to stay in prison after the 15 years end (“Sicherheitsverwahrung”) but also this decision will be revisited at some point.
In France, the punishments do not communicate. If one is found guilty of multiple charges, only the highest punishment is applied. Also the law specifies maximum punishments for the various crimes.
With that said, the US prison system is archaic and punitive, so I might need to re-evaluate my views.
In this instance, the US justice system wins out because it discourages continuing to do more crimes.
I think the body horror of a Warhammer 40k servitor where you are trapped in an unending waking nightmare forced to perform a menial task completely unable to move or talk by removing your humanity and agency to be an independent person by replacing body parts with crude machinery, and kept alive unable to sleep with drugs in constant unending pain and anguish, and unable to interact with people consistently for years due to being placed within a random distant cold industrial alcove, is the proper punishment for rapists.
Edit: unable to scream and forced to speak through an AI voice encoder, like these people. They all look the same, but its implied they are different people because the brutal process to create servitors strips an individual of their unique identity.
I like how the headline’s structure makes it sound as if “in France” was part of the punishment. Reminds me of “Fistful of Yen”.
Take him to Detroit France!
Gisèle - Person of the year
This is good, but the sentences should be ~2x as long. Still, a win in my book. Gisèle is a hero for this.
The dude is 72. He won’t even make it the full length of his current sentencing
That was fast.
The rapist kept videos and pictures I believe. There was tons of proof for everything he (and the others) did. I can see why this was relatively straightforward (in addition to have a big - deserved - amount of attention).
