ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 8, 1992                   TAG: 9203090239
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: HOUSTON                                LENGTH: Medium

ACLU: CHANGE OF CASTRATION RULING UNLIKELY

There's little that can be done to appeal a judge's decision to let a child molester undergo castration because the defendant agreed to the procedure, an American Civil Liberties Union leader said Saturday.

"I don't think anybody has the legal standing to object but the defendant, although somebody may try," said Ira Glasser, the ACLU's national executive director.

On Friday, state District Judge Mike McSpadden approved Steven Allen Butler's request to be surgically castrated rather than go to trial on a charge of aggravated sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl.

McSpadden said Butler, 28, will be placed on a form of probation for 10 years after he undergoes castration..

The judge's decision immediately came under fire from critics who called it a barbaric act that did nothing to address the issue of rape.

Glasser said by telephone from New York that there is little legal recourse since Butler volunteered.

"The problem is, who is to say who should make the choice between life in prison and this sort of penalty, if it isn't the person who is affected by it?"

T. Gerald Treece, a constitutional law professor at South Texas College of Law in Houston, said it might be possible to challenge the castration as cruel and unuusal punishment. But he said it would be difficult for an outside party to find legal standing to appeal since there is consent.

Butler, a married father of one, has been in jail without bond since April, when the girl went to police. He volunteered for the procedure after reading about McSpadden's support of castration for some sex offenders.

The date for the operation wasn't announced, and McSpadden wouldn't divulge the name of the doctor who has agreed to perform the procedure.

The irreversible procedure Butler will undergo is orchiectomy, the surgical removal of both testicles.

SCHOOL AROUND THE WORLD\ LENGTH OF ACADEMIC YEAR IN DAYS\ \ Britain 192\ \ France 185\ \ Japan 243\ \ Scotland 200\ \ Soviet Union 210\ \ Sweden 180\ \ Thailand 200\ \ United States 180\ \ West Germany 210\ \ South Korea 220 


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