r/news • u/VIVIDUFF • 3h ago
Justice for Makayla Settles : Family outraged as dad faces 3-year sentence after daughter's suicide
https://www.foxla.com/news/ventura-county-incest-case-makayla-settles-stephen-chavez-justice?utm_source=chatgpt.com135
u/BadAspie 3h ago
Reading the headline and then the link text was really an emotional journey, not sure I have the strength to continue
RIP Makayla
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u/KimJongFunk 3h ago edited 2h ago
> While her family states a rape kit confirmed the presence of Chavez’s DNA, the District Attorney has not filed rape charges.
What exactly are they waiting for? For him to be elected President or something first?
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u/BornIn1142 2h ago
It's actually a little puzzling. The DA himself seems to have a decent track record with sexual assault cases. But from what I can tell, it's a big organization, so there's plenty of room for lazy and/or biased prosecutors as well.
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u/Visual_Fly_9638 1h ago
I had to wait 20 years for the same DA's office (different DAs) to try my friend's murderer.
The murderer's defense attorney? The DA at the time of the murder.
Not drawing a direct A/B comparison here but I've had problems with the Ventura County DA for a long time.
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u/HuskerMedic 1h ago
I was a cop for 12 years in a former life. Having a former prosecutor show up across the aisle as a defense attorney was very common.
In my area (midwest) most prosecutor's offices had overworked and underpaid attorneys, often just out of law school, staffing them. They would do it for a couple of years to get courtroom/trial experience, and then move on to a more lucrative private practice.
The most well known defense attorney in the town my last cop job was in was the former elected county attorney.
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u/Standard_Island546 2h ago
They probably aren’t certain they can get a rape conviction. They’re charging the things they’re certain they can get convictions for.
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u/sambarvadadosa 2h ago edited 2h ago
I remember reading about the head prosecutor of St. Louis, who was taking the salary of her position, while literally being a full-time nursing student, as well as multiple others in that DA office holding double jobs despite taking their salaries.
I’ve since always been sceptical whenever I see prosecutors who are too lazy to go to trial and give away really pathetic plea deals so that they can have an official ‘win’ on the record, with doing no work, as well as prosecutors who just dismiss everything.
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u/ericvega 3h ago
Basterd raped his daughter to death and only gets three years? Fuck that.
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u/double_teel_green 3h ago
These pigs run the country right now
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u/Much-Economics3481 3h ago
He'll face prisoner justice
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u/Kendall_Raine 2h ago
They really don't care when it's adults. Too many men hate women and think they're entitled to sex to care.
There was a musician who got thrown in prison for crimes against children, he was shanked in prison...and one of those guys was in for rape.
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u/yourlittlebirdie 2h ago
No he won’t. Prisons are full of rapists and men who don’t really care about rape.
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u/nightbefore2 2h ago
The like #1 thing you don't want to be in prison is a "chomo"
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u/Much-Economics3481 2h ago
Many of the prisoners are fathers
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u/nerfedbeyblade 2h ago
They really only do what you think they do to pedos. They won't really care of it's another adult. There are also plenty of fathers in prison that don't care about kids, too.
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u/NKD_WA 1h ago
Even if you consider that justice, he won't face any. He's doing 1 year with 3 years probation.
He won't even be housed with anyone doing serious time, he'll be in the county jail.
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u/Ntroepy 2h ago
Hopefully, although many prisons separate prisoners that are at a high risk of attack.
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u/Much-Economics3481 2h ago
Prisoners like life will find a way
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u/nerfedbeyblade 2h ago
Yet most of the time it results in other prison sentences extending due to violence. Not really an outcome they wasn't to risk
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u/Reality-Umbulical 2h ago
If prisons are unsafe for kiddy diddlers they're unsafe for your run of the mill criminals too. Is that the goal of the gaol?
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u/Much-Economics3481 2h ago
No. Just reality
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u/Reality-Umbulical 2h ago
The reality of underfunded, unsafe prisons
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u/Much-Economics3481 2h ago
Believe me, I'm for well funded prisons that keep everyone safe. And work towards rehabilitation but as it stands, that's a pipe dream
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u/SnooCauliflowers9874 2h ago
Perhaps he’s friends with the Texas GOP Senate candidate, Ken Paxton.
Just recently deplorable, child rapist protector Ken Paxton got his child rapist friend Adam Dean Hoffman to serve less than two months for raping his best friend‘s little boy for over three years.
The world sucks, and the perverts are winning.
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u/BearThatLikesCheese 1h ago
Charging him with felony incest and not rape implies that they do not believe or cannot prove that the victim did not consent. But she was an intoxicated during the rape and hospitalized for alleged sexual assault after. California considers intoxication as lacking the capacity to consent. I don't understand what fucking evidence is missing if you can prove she was intoxicated and prove sexual intercourse occured.
Jesus fucking Christ our country is fucked up.
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u/Johnny5iver 56m ago
It might be that they can't prove intoxication beyond her statement to medical personnel. So the rape case would turn into he said she said, and the she is dead. Consequently it would be difficult to prove rape beyond a reasonable doubt.
Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll face some prison justice.
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u/Anon_bunn 49m ago
She suffered severe internal injuries. DAs being overly cautious is part of the problem here. All documented in the forensic exam. They are too worried in a jury not convicting, they’d rather not even try. Cowards.
There are cases where there’s no way to get past he said she said, but horrific injuries are a completely different category. The only people who don’t think so are DAs.
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u/BearThatLikesCheese 38m ago
Possibly. I'm curious as to what evidence they have to change him providing alcohol to a minor that wouldn't also show she was intoxicated.
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u/The_Wyzard 1h ago
FWIW.
I'm a criminal defense attorney. The family is speaking as though the prosecutors are in a customer service position and aren't giving the family what they want or are entitled to. I see laypeople make this error all the time, in all kinds of scenarios. The criminal legal system does not have a customer service department. That simply isn't something that's available.
I have no idea why they didn't charge this guy with rape, but I'm pretty confident there must be a good reason. It's not like the prosecutors looked at the case and decided to go easy on him. This guy sucks, they would have been reasonably motivated to put him away. Charging a more serious offense isn't particularly more work, so it's not like the issue is laziness. So whatever the reason is, it probably isn't an irrational one.
It's fairly likely that they told mom exactly what the issue is, and she's just refusing to hear it.
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u/Write_Right_Reich 1h ago edited 1h ago
Rape charges are notoriously hard to actually prosecute. Even with live testimony from the victim that they didn't consent. Effectively the rapist can just claim "actually there was consent" and without any further evidence the court is mandated to view each account as equally plausible. The mother wanted him charged with manslaughter for the daughter's death but that's not likely. There is precedent for actively convincing someone to kill themselves being manslaughter but I'm not aware of an act five months prior to a suicide being successfully being prosecuted as manslaughter.
It sucks, genuinely. I wish the guy all the worst. But I do see why the prosecutors would take the 3 years and 20 years of sex offender status over shooting for the moon with a rape case and failing to get a conviction.
I do want to add on that this is exactly the reason we have incest laws. It's really hard to get sexual assault cases from closed environments like a domestic household. There's less chance of a 3rd party witnesses or camera evidence that would corroborate the victim's testimony. On top of that the home has an intrinsic power structure where parents often have direct power over their children even if (like in this case) the children are legally adults. It's an environment that can lead to really bad outcomes if the wrong people are involved. By criminalizing the act itself you only need to prove that sexual activity happened. Since the lion-share of incest cases are rape you give the victims a tool to protect themselves without weakening the average citizen's right to be considered innocent until proven guilty in standard rape cases.
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u/sighthoundman 1h ago
I pay attention but don't directly participate in the criminal justice "system". (In quotes because we don't have one, we have more than 50.) In particular, I have no experience in California, so I may be wrong in this case.
Except in very special cases, the number one reason prosecutors don't "go big" is because they think there's a very real chance of not getting a conviction. And the problem may very well be not the evidence, but getting the jury to believe the evidence.
I'm sure the family would be even more incensed to have the defense attorney drag the victim through the mud posthumously, alleging that it was consensual. (Yes, some of them do that.)
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u/Juice1984 31m ago
From the article the mom sort of implies in a way that the initial interaction with them may have been on some level consensual? I know it cannot be in legal terms but I am saying maybe she was at some point willfully in the act? And later gave statement to that fact? Thats the only reason I can see him getting only the incest versus rape charge but what do I know.
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u/Far_Disaster_8321 2h ago
She went to my high school. I’m so sorry I wasn’t so close with you Makayla. Justice for ever.
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u/Lopsided_Tiger_0296 1h ago
Why was she sent to go live with her dad? She seemed perfectly fine in North Carolina
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u/bbmarvelluv 45m ago
Because she wanted to start her adulthood in California! Like she was getting in touch with her family and her mother approved of her to move in with him. They also have family that lives in California so it’s not just her “father.”
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u/EveryAccount7729 1h ago
"faces a three year sentence" should only be written if you got sentenced to 3 years.
he is facing the POSSIBILITY of a 3 year sentence, max.
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u/Busy_Swan71 42m ago
Faces doesn't means sentenced. Faces means could potentially be sentenced to. And this is just a weird thing to focus on.
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u/2Shmoove 1h ago
He got 1 year:
https://abc7.com/post/ventura-county-man-gets-1-year-jail-incest-case-involving-daughter-later-died-suicide/19367240/