[Dion]

Is it the Canadian government, which has granted the convicted U.S. sex offender (Denise Harvey) protected-person status after a lengthy review by the Immigration Refugee Board and the Federal Court?

Or is it the Florida justice system, which sentenced the Vero Beach mortgage broker to 30 years in prison for having consensual sex with a 16-year-old boy who played on her son's baseball team?

Her problems began when she was convicted in 2008 of five counts of having sex with a minor, a boy whom she met at her son's baseball practices, the National Post said.

The judge jailed her for 30 years, a sentence upheld despite two appeals. But before she could be taken into custody, Harvey, who had always asserted her innocence, fled to Canada with her husband and son in 2009.

The family settled in Pike Lake, Sask., near Saskatoon, but Harvey was arrested by the RCMP in 2011, triggering her refugee claim.

Ordinarily, extradition in cases like this are just a matter of time, but Harvey had a key fact on her side. Besides the argument that 30-year sentence was heavy handed, the acts of which Harvey was convicted are not a crime in Canada.

As in Canada, many U.S. states do not bar consensual sex between 16-year-olds and adults, and where it is a crime the punishments frequently are light.

"The 30-year sentence handed down was a shock," TCPalm observed. "If the sentencing judge's hands were tied according to law, then the law needs to be reformed to comply a little more with common sense, the severity of the crime and the threat to society.

"Thirty years? Some murderers don't get that much time."

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dail...202822436.html