September 8, 1977: Community organizers lead effort to recall judge who blamed rape victim for being "sex object"
According to Tim Magazine’s account, Simonson “announced that ‘whether women like it or not, they are sex objects’ as he set free on a probated sentence a 15-year-old youth who had raped a 16-year-old coed in a high school stairwell. Simonson explained the soft sentence as a message to women to ‘stop teasing.’ It was time, he added, for ‘a restoration of modesty in dress and elimination from the community of sexual-gratification businesses.’”
Not that it should make any difference how she was dressed, but the victim was not “provocatively dressed.” She was wearing jeans and a loose-fitting sweatshirt.
The National Organization for Women asked him to apologize or resign. He refused, and the outraged community mobilized by forming “The Committee to Recall Archie Simonson’ within 24 hours.
Community organizers, led by NOW, got 35,000 signatures calling for Judge Simonson’s recall.
In his “defense,” Simonson added fuel to the fire by asking “Are we supposed to take an impressionable person 15 or 16 years of age who can respond to something like that and punish that person severely because they react to it normally?”
He further outraged Madison and the nation when he claimed he was being “gang-raped” by the media. (He later sued the United Press International for their role. Details in the link below.)
On September 8, 1977 he was defeated by Moira Krueger 21,244 to 18,435.
More details and Simonson’s own words at:
http://www.altlaw.org/v1/cases/489516
