Montana Appeals Former Teacher's One-Month Sentence for Rape of Teen

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/314-18/20707-montana-appeals-former-teachers-one-month-sentence-for-rape-of-teen

Montana is fighting to get a former teacher back behind bars after he served only a month for raping a 14-year-old girl.

Prosecutors filed an appeal Friday questioning the controversial 31-day sentence imposed on Stacey Dean Rambold, whose victim took her own life.

Rambold, a former high school teacher, pleaded guilty to the rape. He was sentenced in August and released from a Montana prison on probation the next month.

The case drew criticism and a firestorm of media attention. So did the judge who sentenced Rambold.

When District Judge G. Todd Baugh imposed the sentence, he said the teen victim "seemed older than her chronological age."

That statement was mentioned in Friday's appeal filing by prosecutors.

The filing by the Montana Attorney General's Office said the sentencing by the district court did not meet the state's mandatory minimum sentence.

"The circumstance of a 47-year-old teacher having sexual intercourse with his 14-year-old student is precisely such a circumstance warranting a mandatory minimum sentence," the court document said.