Luke Heimlich and Relitigating the Past
The 2018 Draft is unusual. Not in terms of talent, mind you. No, the 2018 Draft is unusual because we have a genuinely unprecedented situation: a potential high-round draft pick with perhaps the most serious baggage a person can possibly have. From THE BOARD, courtesy of Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel:
**Luke Heimlich
Heimlich is a Level 1 sex offender in Oregon… Heimlich was projected to go in round two last year, when he was a junior. Shortly before the draft, The Oregonian reported court documents that showed Heimlich plead guilty to sexually assaulting his niece. Court records showed the victim reported multiple incidents of molestation between 2009 and 2011, when Heimlich was 14-15 years old and the victim was 4-6. He plead guilty to one count which included a handwritten admission and the other count was dismissed as part of a plea bargain.
After this information surface[d], Heimlich spent the rest of the spring of 2017 away from Oregon State and went undrafted. He returned for his senior season and has pitched well while, amid intermediate media attention, he and his family (except for the immediate family of the victim) denied he committed the crime and say Heimlich plead guilty so the legal proceedings would end more quickly. This situation is abnormal, there’s no precedent for it and it’s unclear why/how a team would go about clearing Heimlich for employment, though ownership would certainly have to be involved.
Let’s take a look at what this means.
Luke Heimlich is a left-handed pitcher at Oregon State University and one of the top college arms in the country. The crime in question occurred in Washington State, not Oregon. OSU — and the national media — became aware of it when he failed to comply with Oregon’s requirements that he check-in and annually report to the state’s sex offender registry. It’s worth noting that, according to at least one report, it was a mistake by law enforcement, rather than by Heimlich, which caused the failed check-in. In any event, Heimlich is listed on the sex offender registries of two states: Washington and Oregon.
Oregon classifies sex offenders based on what are called “notification levels,” based on a projected likelihood of recidivism. Heimlich, as a Level 1 sex offender, is considered the lowest likelihood to reoffend and therefore the lowest risk to the community. It’s also worth noting that Heimlich’s record has now been expunged; he completed his sentence and time as a registered sex offender and, per the agreement and because Heimlich committed the crime while a juvenile, it was removed from his record. That does not mean he was found, or is now, innocent; expungement is more properly considered sealing of the court file so it can’t be accessed later. Legally, Heimlich still committed the crime, and it’s still on his criminal record; it just now won’t be publicly available.
Because it is relevant, this is the accusation against Heimlich, via Sports Illustrated:
According to the document, which alleged that Heimlich committed two counts of “child molestation in the first degree,” the girl told investigators that Heimlich brought her to the floor in the middle of his bedroom, “pulled down her underwear and with his hand he touched her private part… She said that she told him to stop, but he wouldn’t.” The girl also said that “Uncle Luke”… “touched her on both the inside and outside of the spot she uses to go to the bathroom. She said that it hurt her… She said that the first time the respondent touched her she was four years old and that she was six years old the last time he did this.”
Heimlich did plead guilty to it. But he didn’t just plead guilty — he also wrote and signed a formal confession as part of the plea deal. Heimlich said he did so to avoid the trial, and added this:
I had several conversations with my mom, with my dad, and ultimately it came down to: We thought that this was going to be the best route for me and my family, knowing that it was basically a he-said/she-said. In the court of law we didn’t really think I stood a fair chance; that was the advice we had been given. So we thought that pleading guilty was going to give me the best chance at a normal life, and our family a best chance at reconnecting and being able to just kind of move past this whole event.
On the other hand, the victim’s mother was steadfast in Heimlich’s guilt, per the New York Times:
The girl’s mother, whose name is being withheld to protect the identity of the victim, said her daughter’s account is the truth. “There is no way he didn’t do it,” she said in an interview with The Times in which she described her daughter’s descriptions of abuse as “very specific.”
Now, I obviously wasn’t present, and so I can’t tell you what happened. However, as a matter of law, Heimlich is guilty. When you plead guilty to a crime, you are waiving the requirement that the government prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. You also waive your right to appeal the conviction (with exceptions that probably don’t apply here). The plea he signed probably looked a lot like this one.
And Heimlich’s explanation is, while not necessarily incredible, certainly incomplete from a legal standpoint. If Heimlich didn’t want to plead guilty, he might have been able to plead “nolo contendere” or “no contest,” which is a special kind of plea that concedes the government has sufficient evidence to convict you while maintaining your innocence. If that wasn’t offered as part of a plea deal — and it’s certainly possible it wasn’t — Heimlich’s lawyer also could have tried what’s called an Alford plea, a close relative of no contest pleas wherein the defendant pleads guilty without admitting guilt, thus preserving the ability to assert innocence later. Again, that may not have been on the table for a variety of reasons. (In case you’re wondering what rules governing Washington state juvenile proceedings, you can find them here. And Washington’s Court Rule governing pleas, 4.2(d), also says this:
(d) Voluntariness. The court shall not accept a plea of guilty, without first determining that it is made voluntarily, competently and with an understanding of the nature of the charge and the consequences of the plea. The court shall not enter a judgment upon a plea of guilty unless it is satisfied that there is a factual basis for the plea.
So, in order to accept the plea, a judge had to find that there was a factual basis for it. In theory, at least, that is to ensure that innocent people don’t plead guilty to crimes. Now, to be clear: wrongful guilty pleas can and do happen, and more often than you might think, for a whole variety of reasons. So it is not out of the realm of possibility that Heimlich is, in fact, innocent of the charges to which he pleaded guilty.
That being said, Heimlich did plead guilty. As a matter of law, he’s guilty. As a matter of fact, there’s a really good chance he’s guilty, because if he pleaded guilty based on the evidence against him, that means he (or his lawyer) believed the state had overwhelming evidence that he committed the crime, or at least enough evidence to make a guilty verdict probable. So this is not, contrary to how some have portrayed it, a “he said, she said” debate any longer. The case is over, and Heimlich accepted his guilt. He cannot now relitigate that decision for the sake of his baseball career.
Sheryl Ring is a litigation attorney and General Counsel at Open Communities, a non-profit legal aid agency in the Chicago suburbs. You can reach her on twitter at @Ring_Sheryl. The opinions expressed here are solely the author's. This post is intended for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice.
As someone close to this. It didn’t happen….that’s all I’ll say
Then why bother saying anything?
Noted. Also noted is the testimony of the victim and the victim’s mother. With those testimonies paired with the guilty plea, I am going to assume guilt. Pretty gross that he’s denying it, as it eliminates the very soft idea that he has rehabilitated back to normal society.
“Pretty gross that he’s denying it, as it eliminates the very soft idea that he has rehabilitated back to normal society.”
MLB and the team that employees Heimlich must stand up and state that they believe that little girl is a liar. There is no grey area. Heimlich removed the grey area. Is Rob Manfred going to accuse that little girl and her mother of being a liar?
It happened when the girl was 4-6 years old. Do you know any 4-6 year-olds? I am not saying she was lying, or even that I think he didn’t do it (I have no idea, of course); but it is entirely possible that she thought it happened, and still thinks it happened, and that it actually didn’t happen. Aside from that, Manfred (or any team) doesn’t have to say anything like that; all they have to do is say that Heimlich served his time, etc.
I know several 4-6 year olds. This is not the sort of thing they make up, and certainly not in the sort of detail described above.
Well, your credentials are certainly impeccable! Several of them – you don’t say!
I have two of my own, four nieces and nephews in that range, 10 more who have aged out of that range, and the majority of my friends have at least one kid in that range right now.
I’ll let the peanut gallery decide which is more likely – that a middle aged father spends a lot of time around kids in that age range, or some random yahoo claims to have intimate knowledge of a specific criminal case.
@olethros:
I’m inclined to believe that Heimlich committed this crime because of his guilty plea, and believing that he committed this crime is therefore my default position until I see a whole lot of evidence saying that’s not the case.
To claim that false testimony of this nature can’t be elicited from 4-6 year olds is to deny documented history, however. Google some historical allegations of daycare abuse such as the McMartin Preschool case and Fran and Dan Keller. Each of those two also featured testimony of ritual abuse with wildly bizarre elements (e.g., secret tunnels under a daycare building, plane trips to and from Mexico in the time between when a child was left in the morning and picked up in the afternoon).
And I’m very specific in using the language of “false testimony elicited” from children for a reason. It’s not about children “making up” this sort of detail. It’s about questioners, including parents, unfortunately (and maybe unintentionally) pushing children toward serious allegations.
I think most of us know girls who are between the ages of four and six, yes.
You asked that specific question.
You don’t seem to be worried about the evidential collection that police, prosecutors, counsellors, school teachers and indeed the family bring to the table.
It would be vaguely pleasant if you acknowledged at least that possibility. Which in this case appears to be “I pleaded guilty after trying to talk my way out of it with my parents.”
holy shit are you a real person
I agree he is probably guilty. But, I’m not sure how meaningful it is to call a 5 year old “a liar”. A five year old could get confused about what is real/true.
The problem with this statement is that Rob Manfred has no jurisdiction here. This happened while the player was in not in the players union or covered under the CBA, and he is not bound by the league’s Personal Conduct Policy for this time period. So Manfred can’t do anything about it. Its not up to him.
The teams can, however, there is a difference between not believing an alleged victim and not punishing an alleged perpetrator, which a lot of people don’t seem to understand. The law is not “pick which one you believe and there is nothing in between.” The middle ground consists of “we’re not calling the victim a liar, we’re suggesting that we don’t have enough facts to punish the perpetrator.” That is not close to calling the victim a liar.
If you’d like to argue that the guilty plea overwhelms any question about his guilt and makes him legally guilty that is certainly a reasonable argument. But to suggest there could not be an in-between area in most other sets of facts like this is ignorant. And regardless, even he admits it outright, because he was not represented by the CBA when the acts were to have committed, Manfred cannot do anything at all in the situation.
Yeah, you know what? I think I’m going to have to go ahead and side with the victim on this one, mmm’kay?
Considering how people tend to view child molesters, I really doubt that he and his family opted to plead guilty just based on “he said/she said.”
As someone familiar with a similar situation, I can tell you that families do come to the conclusion that a guilty plea is best because it is based on he said / she said and society’s repugnance for child molesters is so strong that juries won’t believe the accused.
This is such a bad comment. 1) There is literally no reason to believe you are close to it. 2) Even if you are, how could you possibly know it didn’t happen unless you have proof that the allegations were false or you were there?
This is going to go over well!
said Heimlich’s agent…
Except the false accusation rate on sexual assault is incredibly low (around 3% if I recall). That doesn’t mean it’s a slam-dunk, but seriously. Especially given that we’re talking about the testimony of a six year old making very specific and very graphic accusations, it’s nearly inconceivable that Heimlich is innocent. I’m sorry, but that’s just the reality of the situation.
Does that mean I believe he is unredeemable as a human being? Not at all (though his current protestations aren’t doing him any favors), but it DOES mean I believe he is guilty both in the eyes of the court and in the court of factuality, and he deserves to be viewed as such. He made an incredibly offensive, incredibly short-sighted, incredibly foolish decision (apparently several times over several years). It sucks that this decision is going to affect his life in a profound way, but that’s the reality he chose.
Let’s also remember the vastly more profound impact his actions have had on his victim. Even if she has managed to block out specific memories of the incidents, the psychological trauma is still there and will almost certainly have a significant effect on her future relationships and even the way she treats children in the future. The impact of Heimlich’s puerile abuse will very likely extend decades and even generations into the future.
This is why society views child molestation with such a severe eye. I wish it viewed all sexual assault through the same lens.
If it didn’t happen, than he wouldn’t have plead guilty. This Kid doesn’t deserve another chance, what about the girl he molested? What about her chances in life? She will probably have ptsd, depression, possible drug abuse, all sorts of issues because he took away her youth. I read in Sports Illustrated that he’s essentially paid his societal debt.. and I’m curious on how so. Just because he was/is a good baseball player doesn’t mean he’s paid a debt. Just because he did some classes as a youth while being supervised to do those classes doesn’t mean he learned anything. If he paid his debt why lie to OSU in regards to him being a child molester? This kid did it and tried to cheat his way around it and got caught. Simply because he’s good at baseball doesn’t make what he did tolerable or acceptable. Would you want to bring your kid to the ball park knowing a child molester was playing or warming the bench?
He didn’t lie to Oregon State. From SI’s recent article:
“by Oregon law [Heimlich] was required to register there upon arrival—but by then he knew the drill. On Sept. 23, six days before classes began, he reported to the Corvallis Police Department and signed all necessary documents.
Seemingly, Heimlich, who lived off-campus, had fulfilled his duty: At the time Oregon State had no rule requiring enrolling off-campus students—or athletes with or without scholarships—to declare criminal felony convictions or, specifically, sex offenses. The state police maintains Oregon’s sex registry. Once notified by local police that a student has registered as a sex offender, it follows a courtesy agreement with OSU to alert its Department of Public Safety. In Heimlich’s case such information would filter to select athletic department personnel.
“As far as what I needed to do, I needed to tell Benton County and then they send the information to the university,” Heimlich said. “And that’s what happened.”‘
Heimlich presents an odd case for me as a fan.
If my team drafted/signed him, it would no doubt be uncomfortable. With a daughter on the way, it would just make me uneasy knowing his past and trying to share that joy in rooting for a guy who violated a little girl.
On the same token, I’m torn on whether teams (or at least a handful of them) can just ignore this guy, all the while several guys with domestic violence incidents are still on teams. While I’m aware that domestic violence and sex offenses are not the same thing, I just don’t know if they are different enough to justify one, but not the other.
As I said, I’m torn. I can fully understand the uneasiness in potentially taking Heimlich (for what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone will). But I can also see the potential hypocrisy in some teams passing him over. And as one who usually believes in giving people second chances, I’m just not sure if Heimlich deserves a chance that includes playing professional baseball.
I feel pretty strongly that people who have done their time should be able to make a living. But I still don’t want him anywhere near my team, or baseball for that matter. Cheering for him would be awful (in the same way it’s awful to cheer for other abusers).
That’s a contradiction that isn’t going to go away anytime soon.
don’t think it’s really a contradiction. i look at it this way – yes you want people who have done crimes to still be able to make a living, but different jobs have different requirements. baseball isn’t actually just about how well you can hit a ball with a stick, etc. part of the job of “baseball player” is that people have to enjoy looking at you and hoping you do well. there are things you can do that make that impossible, which makes you a bad fit for that job.
I think about Heimlich in the context of Michael Vick. I had no problem with him getting a job as a football player after he served his time.
Granted, torturing and murdering dogs is perhaps less evil than child molestation, if only because almost everything is less evil that child molestation. But it was still a rather evil set of acts by almost any sane person’s standards.
And whenever someone asked me about it, I said: He did his time. He deserves a job in his field.
So why don’t I feel that way about Heimlich? It might be that Vick’s drama played out on the national news, and him serving time in jail provided a sense of catharsis. On the other hand, I don’t think I have a sense of catharsis for Heimlich. I still feel like he hasn’t paid for his crime. (Part of that reason is because he was a juvenile, and I certainly don’t think he should have been tried as an adult either). The lack of catharsis, I think, is particularly intense since he denies he actually did it.
I think this is why logically, I believe Heimlich deserves a chance to be fully reintegrated into society…but psychologically, I am going to be pissed if he actually makes it in the majors. I don’t feel like he deserves a shot, even if I think it.
As you can see, I am pretty torn on this.
I’d be more ok with Heimlich playing than I am with those who have committed (or allegedly committed, or punished by MLB but not the legal system) violent crimes as adults. And even for those players, I might not like them, might think they’re terrible people, but I don’t think it would be ok to freeze them out of the game, either. If someone does something very stupid as a 15 year old, pays the legal price for it, has done nothing wrong in the ~7 years since, has had the record expunged, then I think he’s more than paid for what he did, and I don’t think there’s any good reason to prevent him playing. Especially given some of the character issues that current players (of various high profile sports) have which barely rate a mention.
I hope he gets a chance with a club, I’d expect some bad PR for the club that does when they sign him, and then it would barely rate a mention until it gets briefly brought up again if & when he makes the majors.
Heimlich is an unrepentant child molester.
You’re comfortable with that?
Heimlich is highly likely to reoffend. Classifying Heimlich at anything lower than the highest level is a travesty of justice and a living danger to very small children.
Heimlich’s known – there may be others – victim was four years old when the rape began.
The rate of re-offense for a family molester is 2.5%.
Where do you get that figure? I see about 10% for all juvenile child molesters, with a reduction generally for offenders who received treatment and for “Incest Offenders” https://www.smart.gov/SOMAPI/sec2/ch3_recidivism.html
http://www.csom.org/pubs/recidsexof.pdf
2.7% of juveniles (I was wrong about 2.5%) reoffend after conviction, less after an intervention. the 10% have (some) false positives, the 2.7% censors false negatives. https://www.smart.gov/SOMAPI/sec1/ch5_recidivism.html
molestation is way down at the bottom- less than 2.2% recidivism in adults
According to the article, he was rated as Level 1, with the lowest likelihood of recidivism. He was an adolescent, not an adult, and the crime described, while quite wrong, doesn’t clearly mark him as a sadist or sociopath. I’m uncomfortable denying people the right to pursue opportunities based on past acts, and more so based on acts committed as a minor.
I don’t know who takes a chance on him. I’d imagine you’d want to sit down and have a very frank discussion with him, perhaps talk to some former teammates and coaches as well, and if you come away feeling like you’ve got a decent kid despite these incidents, rather than getting the heebie-jeebies, maybe you give him a shot.
Interesting. Legally he deserves a chance to ‘make a living’ and if we assume he did the crime given his age at that time (14-15) there is at least some possibility that he could be successfully rehabilitated. With that said, it’s probably in his best interest and the teams best interest that they set up a plan together to keep him on the straight and narrow. Whether that is weekly counselor visits, a ‘buddy’ system of sorts or what needs to be determined. He could possibly lead a productive life, but let’s face it…he’s quite possibly some sort of addict of a sorts and as such he needs to monitor himself closely and those around him need to monitor him as well. As a man with daughters he would make me extremely uncomfortable to say the least.
What you’re suggesting is impossible given that Heimlich claims the little girl and her mother are liars.
I agree with slappytheclown and psychobunny. He’s pled guilty, and has paid the corresponding price, and will be known as a sex offender for the rest of his life. And, he was a minor at the time. I believe he deserve a second chance, and should be allowed to play baseball.
I do think it would be smarter for him to admit it going forward, and just say he did a terrible thing when he was a stupid kid. Cause guess what? Even if he didn’t do it, most people are going to believe he did, for all of the reasons Sheryl cites. And by fessing up, more people would be more likely to give him the benefit of the doubt.
And, of course, he needs to be on his best behavior going forward, with a 0 tolerance policy for benefit of the doubt.
I agree with AutisticRetard. Heimlich is an unrepentant child molester.
I don’t think there’s any question as to whether he is “allowed” to play baseball. MLB has no jurisdiction over anything he did before he signs. What is in question is whether teams will exercise their choice to draft him. That seems to be what logically would be discussed in this thread.
If he didn’t do it, he should NEVER ever admit he did it. That would be an additional perversion. Some things you have to stand up for, almost no matter the cost. That on him though, I can’t decide his life.
Many times people plea bargain for things they didn’t do because of the risk of getting a worse sentence if they are found guilty. Companies do this in litigation all the time too, they just settle it for what they call nuisance or because they don’t want to risk a jury who wants to believe the plaintiff no matter what because they fell the subject matter or the defendant is heinous, much like many of the people on this thread do. Many would believe the victim no matter what given the heinous nature of the allegations, rather than use the “innocent until proven guilty” standard as we do for all crimes. They are afraid to be seen as “victim blaming.” This is the problem with the term victim blaming in the first place. In this case he got a very light sentence, if he had been found not guilty he may have gotten several years in prison.
A “buddy system”? His sponsor checks in periodically with a text, “Hey, you’re not molesting any children right now, right?” Sounds like a great plan.
As another man with daughters…it really doesn’t make sense to me why the fact that you have daughters is the biggest factor you cite in why trotting out a convicted child molester and propping that person up as someone the public should cheer for makes you uncomfortable. Were you incapable of feeling empathy for victims of child molestation until you had some skin in the game in the form of your love for your own children? I get the overwhelming feeling of love and desire to protect your daughter and the visceral response you have to those who prey on children as a result, but I don’t get why the fact that you have daughters influences your thoughts on what should be done in this situation.
This is the strangest new talking point. Of course it’s possible to a) be against child molesters even if you don’t have children and b) have even stronger feelings (or perhaps more complicated ones) after you do have children.
In fact, this is the natural thing for humans to do.
I read a very in-depth article about his case a while ago and came away with the impression that he didn’t do it and was a teenager misled into pleading guilty just to make it go away once he turned 18. I would have no problem with my team drafting him.
But what are you basing that on? The fact that he said it?
On the contents of the article, duh.
I’m pretty sure I read that same article, back around draft time last year…. As well as a number of other things over the past year-plus. … My two cents: Maybe he did it, and maybe not. And it is entirely possible that he himself is the only person on the planet that knows for sure. One thing seems clear: It is obvious from the majority of comments here (and elsewhere where this case has been examined), that people are very willing to judge, and seemingly very unwilling to forgive (or even be in favor of allowing a person to forward, once a person has served their sentence for an offense). If he did it (and I won’t even try to suppose the odds that he did – whether it is closer to 99.99% or 0.01%), the facts of the case since his conviction indicate that he has done what he was required to do. By all accounts, he has been a decent (or better) person, with zero bad behavior, for six years. Does he have “the right” to a possible MLB career? No. But no one does (MLB is a private entity, made up of private companies, who can hire whomever they want, etc.). But I feel he should be given the chance.
It’s disappointing that, regardless of whether or not he did it, Oregon potentially ruined his life through wrongfully releasing documents to the public. We trust that the statutes in place be followed, so when they aren’t, it’s unfortunate.
Should his stock fall drastically in the draft, could he sue Oregon?
*note* Yes, if he did do it (and he pleaded guilty), he did ruin his niece’s life too. But, as of right now, he received the consequence and did all he was told to do, yet was treated as if he didn’t. If you feel the penalty is light, bring it up with the government, not me. I’m not interested in that discussion.
I’d love to hear from people with legal backgrounds, but I’ve also wondered if he could sue the state. The only way this story came up was because someone at The Oregonian typed in his name and “failure to report as a sex offender” popped up.
It was not the case that he failed to report, evidently, and one would wonder if any of this would be a story had the police department not dropped to ball.
In general, it is very difficult to sue the government. You almost always need to show something beyond ordinary negligence to defeat governmental immunity. I don’t know *Oregon* law or the specifics in this case, but my initial guess is that, if he couldn’t prove that an erroneous disclosure was intentional, or at least reckless, any lawsuit would be DOA.
I figured as such. It just seems like there could be some sort of recourse for an individual who suffers from lost potential income due to the state’s mistake.
Having just finished a law degree myself, I’m not sure exactly how this leaked, but it would be a very difficult argument to make for sovereign immunity as these documents aren’t generally leaked to the media about non-athletes. To suggest that this is only negligent also suggests that there was no intent to do it to him specifically, and if that were true then they probably would have had to have leaked several other people’s name’s to the media right? I think the knowledge that he was a baseball player and this getting to the media because of it is enough to get you to “knowledge,” “reckless,” or “intentional.”
I agree that if there was an intentional leak, then he’d probably be able to state a claim (against the person who did it, certainly, and maybe the department too). I just haven’t seen anything suggesting that, and I haven’t gotten the sense based on the reporting I’ve read that this was someone trying to get him rather than a clerical error or lack of communication. And the burden would be on him to prove that it was malicious, rather than the government to prove that it was, I think.
Um, Oregon didnt ruin his life, he did.
Um, Oregon did.
Regardless of whether or not he actually did it, he was guilty. He was told “Do all these things and in X years your life can be normal.” He did all those things and, when the time was up, Oregon made a mistake and released documents.
That’s on the state.
Oregon did. He was a juvenile tried as a juvenile. Oregon can’t release info on his conviction no matter what he did. That’s there for a reason.
What’s the reason?
If you are asking, the reason is likely “People like you”
Are you really asking this?
The most important question is one no one is asking: Does it matter whether he’s factually guilty? As you acknowledge, Heimlich is legally guilty, and by all accounts, he’s done everything right since then (with the exception of the unfortunate oversight that led all this to become public).
So why does his factual guilt matter? Is he a risk to re-offend? Probably not. Contrary to popular belief, Heimlich’s risk of re-offense (like all sex offenders) is very low. And certainly professional baseball is not an occupation that presents an increased risk; Heimlich will not be alone with young children as part of his job.
Regardless of his factual guilt, Heimlich pleaded guilty and accepted the consequences so that he could move on with his life. He deserves that chance.
His factual guilt matters now because he’s making a point of it.
If he had just pled guilty and taken the consequences (which he did) and nothing more, I for one would be more sympathetic with closing the book.
But now he wants to play double or nothing. Either he’s factually innocent or he’s an unrepentant liar about a child victim. Now I have to decide what I think is the preponderance of the evidence.
This is a criminal case… preponderance is the wrong standard. Its guilty beyond a reasonable doubt
Hmm, well its neither, actually. But if it were to go to trail, it sure sounds like an acquittal to me. Good luck being 95% certain that he did this. If he wanted to so badly to assert his innocence, he should have but the bullet and not plead.
He and his family wanted to have it both ways. Not do the work and time and effort to get acquitted … or found guilty. He wanted it to go away quietly, but also claim innocence. Sounds sociopathic actually.
There is also other reasons to claim innocence: Shame, money, etc.
This is a giant mess. I want to give the kid a break, but he has to play his part in taking steps that made it worse for himself. I hear lots and lots of excuses… “she lied”, “bad advice”, etc.
No, the standard in criminal cases is indeed beyond a reasonable doubt. And I would agree that it sounds like an acquittal to me, but that’s a lot of prison/juvey to risk. Hard to weight that if indeed you are an innocent guy.
“Contrary to popular belief, Heimlich’s risk of re-offense (like all sex offenders) is very low. ”
Yeah, bc most molestations are reported. You have no idea what you are talking about.
C’mon, this is Fangraphs. Have you looked at the data? I have.
The reactions to this situation confirm my fears that people cannot comprehend the possibility of a person pleading guilty to an offense that he or she did not commit. It happens quite frequently.
Literally every single day.
That has a pattern though. More likely when the person doesn’t have a decent lawyer. More likely when they’re stuck in jail for years before trial. More likely when they were pressured into a false confession during long interrogation and now don’t know how to recant.
Do you know if any of those factors apply here?
Whether or not he actually did it is no longer relevant or up for debate; he admitted to doing the crime, thus he must be treated as if he’s guilty henceforth. This means he deserves whatever consequences come his way, whether it be from potential employers, potential girlfriends, or anyone else. Those consequences will include missing out on a MLB career because of his heinous act.
It is also irrelevant that MLB currently has several domestic abusers playing the game. Those players had the fortune of making it to MLB before committing their crimes. Minor leaguers or college players who domestically abuse essentially lose their shot at the majors immediately . Not legally, not mandatorily, but in reality. Prospects, even those as skilled and advanced as Heimlich, are unlikely to pan out. So while not “fair”, unless a guy is a guaranteed MLB contributor, the risk is not worth the reward. Now, if Heimlich was a prospect as highly regarded as Strasburg or even Mize, he WOULD be drafted. But the risk/reward calculus for a guy who is statistically likely to flame out and fail to make it the big leagues anyway means it’s not worth the PR hit a team would take by drafting him.
No team will be criticized for for passing on Heimlich; he’s no generational talent, and teams pass on thousands of players in every draft for a multitude of reasons. Some guys will get passed over because they are “too short”. Others won’t get picked because they have bad footwork. A few players will be undrafted because they are “bad teammates”. And Heimlich will be undrafted because of “character concerns”. No difference. Meanwhile the negative impact of drafting him will be so severe as to prevent it from occurring. Imagine the best case scenario. Heimlich, gets drafted, wins the Cy Young and aleads a team to the World Series. Even them, it seems like a losing proposition in the court of public opinion….
“Yeah, we know that Ted in Accounting is also sex offender. But he began molesting children AFTER we hired him. So what are we to do?”
Your statement about domestic abusers playing the game was bizarre and very troubling.
How is it “bizarre?” He’s pointing out that guys who get busted in college don’t get drafted, while those who get busted in the big leagues don’t lose their careers. That’s just an observation.
It’s bizarre as a rationalization that these guys are still on teams.
It’s bizarre that we deem this as “irrelevant”.
It’s absolutely relevant that a team that employs, say, Matt Bush, Jose Reyes, Jung-ho Kang, Aroldis Chapman, or others, would somehow find some moral ground to avoid drafting Heimlich.
For the record, I don’t think teams will draft Heimlich, and as I stated above, I’d be uncomfortable with my team picking him. But if there’s any justification for keeping domestic abusers and not drafting Heimlich, we need to call those teams hypocrisy and bullshit where it lies.
Disagree. If you have an argument with your wife, and things get out of control, this is a crime, but they are NOT EQUIVALENT. The other person involved is another adult who plays their own role in the event, potentially. Jose Reyes wife is different from Aroldis Chapman wife, and all of these situations are different.
I see ZERO connection or hypocrisy at all. I call bullshit also.
Also, many of these cases you mentioned were not even brought to court at all… AKA, they were not proven at all.
Also, I grew up with domestic violence in my famiky, and it is not pleasant. Its ugly and was very hard, especially on kids. Scary. But they were BOTH fighting. She held her own most all of the time. She was not a passive victim. I see zero parallel to a 15 year old touching a 5 year old. That, is beyond the pale.
“He’s pointing out that guys who get busted in college don’t get drafted, while those who get busted in the big leagues don’t lose their careers.”
Is that point actually true, though? I can believe that past some level of talent, most if not all teams would decide not to take the chance. Do we really think that a player with a 1st-round talent evaluation but for a domestic violence accusation/conviction (let’s say a guilty plea to a misdemeanor) wouldn’t get drafted at all? I don’t believe that to be the case.
I think what he’s doing is less defending the behavior than explaining why those players are allowed to keep playing from the team’s perspective. He’s not saying that it’s okay.
He’s saying that the reason that they’re allowed to keep playing is that they’re already good enough. Basically, they’re willing to deal with the PR hit because the $10+ million in value they’ll get on the field is more worth it to them than not.
For a guy like Heimlich, a team that’s drafting him has to deal with the PR fallout and the massive risk that is associated with amateur pitchers.
I must have been dreaming or something when I was watching Matt Bush pitch for the Rangers the past three years.
No one “must” treat him in any particular way because he was convicted. Teams, and fans, can hold any number of views about his actual innocence or guilt. And they can hold any number of views about what consequences his guilt should have on his baseball career.
I suspect that he’ll fall in the draft to a spot where some team will find the value irresistible, and that how he’s received by the fans of that team will depend greatly on how well he performs. Our moral responses to these kinds of things tend to be, let’s say, elastic.
Is this an issue if Heimlich is a pitcher on the third worst team in college baseball instead of the third best (national seed #3 in the tourney)? Is this an issue if he’s a backup/4th OF at Oregon St with no chance of being drafted? Is this an issue if he’s the springboard specialist on the diving team at Alabama State rather than a starter pitcher on the baseball team at Oregon State?
Inescapably, former offenders of the law–including sexual offenders–not currently in violation of the law need to be able to live their lives: work, earn a living, etc. Where can and cannot they do it? What’s the list of acceptable and/or unacceptable jobs for them to have? Which list is professional baseball on, and why?
Jobs involving public notoriety (politics, acting, music, sports, media, clergy, educators) have always been different than everyday jobs when it comes to someone’s past.
It’s the reason why Matt Lauer gets fired for being a creep and your local bag boy at the grocery store can make sex jokes on the sales floor and keep his job: there’s no notoriety for the bag boy.
This is simply a subjective moral opinion that many people do not share with you. While it has certainly been treated that way in some cases, there are a great number of people that feel that being a baseball star is no different in terms of employment and responsibility than any other job, myself included. Oftentimes I find that these types of comments are made by people who have to work really hard for their money and have their behavior dictated to them by their employer because they don’t bring enough value in their skills to the table to their employer in terms of supply and demand, to be able to not do what their employer says. Ex. “I can’t do this at my job, or wouldn’t be able to have my job if I had done this, so this guy certainly shouldn’t be able to be a millionaire and keep his job if he does. Answer: You don’t bring enough value to your employer to keep said job. He may or may not, we’ll see. It seems to be kind of a jealousy thing.
This is not to diminish what the kid did or how wrong it was, just the idea that public figures have more responsibility or higher standards. I’m also not saying this was your meaning behind this, you may not be like this at all, I just think it is an important note in general. Point is he has the same basic rights as anyone else in their jobs, but a different supply and demand curve for his skills. Maybe he still doesn’t get a job. I think he does. I would draft him if I felt like he was a good enough baseball player and would not consider his conviction.
Your latter premise isn’t really true, though.
Plenty of grocery store bag boys certainly get fired for making sex jokes that are either told to offended co-workers or that are overhead by offended customers who mention it to a manager. It’s just not news when it happens.
It was more of a simple example (albeit, a bad one, apparently) than a factual statement. Make another job with another offense, and it’s still true.
People in public jobs have much, much shorter leashes than most jobs. There are things that a grocery store employee, insurance agent, or factory worker can do that a teacher simply can’t. And some of those things are totally wrong and maybe even illegal, and often, the non-public job guy keeps their job.
For example, a teacher gets a DUI, they likely lose their job. A celebrity makes a racist comment, they get blacklisted for good (and rightly so).
Joe in welding gets a DUI and makes racist comments and most always keeps his job.
This isn’t to complain, it’s just revealing that such is the nature with jobs like this. Everything you do is under the spotlight. And if you can’t handle it, go work a regular job. You’ll likely live a happy life and no one will care what you do.
I see what you’re saying, that in actuality it happens. I guess I’m just saying it probably shouldn’t be happening. There are laws that specify workers rights, but there is nothing out there that says that people in the spotlight and making lots of money have more of an responsibility to set an example to the rest of society, except a bunch of people’s subjective opinions.
I agree that it’s a tough issue when it comes to former offenders. Obviously people deserve and need to have jobs after they have served their time, etc. But baseball is entertainment above all else and also a significant part of its audience is children. I have no problem saying that baseball players should be held to a higher standard than other professions.
Yes, even sex offenders need to work, but it doesn’t mean that teams have to pay them millions of dollars and put them on TV.
the other issue here is what signal it sends to other (potential) offenders, victims, and their families if Heimlich can’t get a job (let alone play baseball). We, as a society, WANT people to want to rehabilitate. Part of that is giving people incentives to participate in the justice system, saying “if you do what we tell you to do, you can be a normal part of society again.” If, after the rehab process we say “loljk you can’t participate in normal society,” we signal that we are acting in bad faith.
What incentive do people have to participate in the formal justice system if doing so effectively ends ones career? If people think that formal procedures
are unjust, they won’t engage in formal procedures- for example, they’ll settle grotesque abuse in the church or in the family because to go outside would essentially end the life of the accused regardless of guilt. This can lead to far, far worse abuse being systematically concealed for decades.
What makes this worse is that rates of recidivism for this crime are very low- 2.5%. Rates of recidivism for juveniles are much lower- lower than 1%. However, if you disincent people from getting the help they need, you set things up for much worse down the line. You run the risk of normalizing the behavior and running interference for the offender because to report would be “ruining this kids life.”
I think he probably did it, and in a way I wish he would not try to deny it now. But on the other hand, the way that we treat people, including juveniles, who we know have committed heinous crimes even after they have served their punishments, along with how we also rationalize away things that make us uncomfortable, means that I have a hard time blaming him.
If he did it, and he admitted he was sorry, he would have zero future in baseball. I think this is hard to argue. But since a team knows that its fans are mostly all to happy to believe even the most outlandish lies (not that it is remotely comparable as a matter of gravity, but Giants fans still believe Bonds never used PED) if it makes them more comfortable, then saying his guilty plea was just to avoid this or that will open the door for him to play baseball.
Also, if he didn’t do it, that little girl, who is now about 13, is a next-level sociopath.
If he didn’t do it I’d wager its more on the mother of the girl not the girl herself as she was probably manipulated into making statements. Kids don’t typically make up accusations like this on their own and if they do they fall apart pretty quickly.
Would love to hear your theory as to why the four year old girl’s mother would make this up.
Pretty sure she was going through a divorce with the girl’s father. Sometimes divorce brings out the worst in people. I’m not saying that is what happened. I’m saying its ridiculous to call a child a sociopath for anything that has occurred.
What does a divorce with Heimlich’s uncle have to do with Heimlich raping a little girl over a two year period beginning when she was four?
Is it that hard for people to read? It was indirect response to Adam’s question of what would make the mom lie. Not that much of a stretch.
I guess this is possible, and the girl may not remember now. In that case, the mother is a sociopath.
Both the girl and her mother could be mistaken, and not be bad people, much less “sociopaths”. Parents believe, and protect, their children. And four-to-six year-olds often don’t have the firmest grasp of reality. By my stating this, I am not trying to judge them or this case – I, of course, have no idea what happened. But if Heimlich didn’t really do what he admitted to and was convicted of, that does not necessarily make his niece and her mother horrible people for having contended (and continuing to contend) otherwise.
Jay Stellmach should have a lot upvotes rather than downvotes for this point here.
A lot of people here really ought to read up on some of the cases of daycare sex abuse from the ’80’s and 90’s – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-care_sex-abuse_hysteria. To repeat Jay’s point, I’m not saying that this case was a false accusation. Because Heimlich plead guilty, I’ll believe that he’s factually guilty until I see a whole lot of evidence that says otherwise.
The underlying issue as I see it is that eliciting information from a 4 or 5 year old is pretty much always going to involve an element of leading, by its very nature. So, even if the people involved have good intentions, it can snowball into a mess of the child wanting to please authority figures (including parents) and an understandable tendency of questioners not to want to express skepticism toward a child who may have suffered heinous abuse. The potential problem, though, is that children can be led into saying untrue things that they’re hesitant to recant and that inconsistencies or implausibilities are brushed away because “hey, it’s a 5-year old, and a 5-year old who might have been traumatized at that”.
In short, it’s absolutely possible in some cases that even people with only good intentions of wanting to protect and believe their children will encourage and then push a false allegation without intending to do so.
How this has +7, I’ll never know
1) If he admitted it, I’m not sure the situation is much worse than it is now, actually.
2) Millions of Giants fans know Barry Bonds did steroids.
3) And, your last sentence is insane, combining one speculation with another ridiculous one +_a ridiculous assertion as well.
I’m less sympathetic to him since he denied it–take your punishment, shut up, let your parents do the talking, move on. Still, I think no one should be prevented from earning a living for something that happened when they were that young–that’s why juvenile records are normally sealed.
Sheryl, I think you undersell the overwhelming incentives to plead guilty. In this particular case, Heimlich served no prison time and was promised a clean slate as an adult. A rational innocent person would have a difficult time turning that down, considering the possible alternatives. And when advised by counsel that they should take such a deal, I’d submit that most people would hardly stop to consider the implications of signing an incorrect confession or agreeing to an incorrect allocution.
False confessions don’t just happen in Making A Murderer-type situations. They’re the grease that keeps the wheels of the criminal justice system turning.
A rational person would plead guilty to raping a four year old child?
Yes, if the probability of being convicted times the likely sentence is sufficiently worse than the plea deal you’re offered.
This happens ALL THE TIME. Constantly.
I call BS, plea deals most often happen because there is some level of guilt. Innocent people arent going to plead guilty to child rape and being labeled a sexual predator to avoid a trial. His records would be expunged at 18 either way, The only thing he would gain by a guilty plea was avoiding some time in juvenile detention. It would be awfully difficult for the State to prove guilt if it really was a he said – she said case.
Around 95 percent of criminal cases end in pleas. Do you really believe that 95 percent of people charged with crimes are guilty?
To be clear, I am not saying Heimlich didn’t do it. I’d say it’s more likely than not that he did. But I’m not certain, and I’d like to see intelligent people exercise a bit more healthy skepticism about what a criminal conviction means when it’s the consequence of a process that can be heavily coercive.
If I had my druthers, we wouldn’t have plea bargains at all. Someone’s guilt or innocence shouldn’t be negotiable. But because they exist, prosecutors are highly incentivized to extract some guilty plea even in cases where the state probably doesn’t have enough evidence to convict in the first place. They know that juries are random enough and the risks of a conviction at trial high enough that a defendant will often plea to something. Facing a criminal case is incredibly disruptive to someone’s life and certainty, even of a bad outcome, is worth a lot.
“I call BS, plea deals most often happen because there is some level of guilt.”
This statement is startlingly detached from reality. The attitudes in this thread demonstrate precisely why it is so common (and rationally so) for innocent people to plead guilty – especially in these kinds of cases.
Yes. Of course people who can’t wrap their minds around the reality that people plead guilty to crimes that they didn’t commit won’t understand that a person on trial for sexually molesting a child has next to no chance for a favorable outcome regardless of the facts of the case.
Really? “Plea deals most often happen because there is some level of guilt?” Which of the “Law and Order” series did you learn this on?
This shouldn’t be getting downvoted. This is just risk analysis.
“Yes, if the probability of being convicted times the likely sentence is sufficiently worse than the plea deal you’re offered.
This happens ALL THE TIME. Constantly.”
Mookie is 100% correct. If you doubt him, talk to a public defender.
If Heimlich did do what the parents says the child claims, he was thirteen to fifteen at the time, meaning he was still a child himself, not an adult. Children do inappropriate things a lot, which is part of the growing up process, and is also the reason we typically don’t throw them into prison and throw away the key for doing inappropriate things, even if those things qualify as crimes. Their frontal lobes aren’t close to being fully developed, and they understandably make decisions that would be bad if full-grown adults made them. This should be remembered.
There are some stories, notably at SI and the Portland Tribune, that seem to indicate strong mitigating evidence suggesting that even though the felony plea looked like a straightforward admission of guilt, there’s a reasonable case to be made that Heimlich might not have done these deeds after all, and pleaded out to avoid interrupting his academic and baseball endeavors. Taking the stories at face value, all indications are that he took his lumps, passed probation with flying colors, and every authority who encountered him during the process fully endorses his full integration back into regular society. He even drew applause in court at his final hearing.
All that said, there are two stories in play here: the story about Heimlich molesting his niece; and the story about his plausible denials and heroic journey through the probation process. The first story is easy to understand and taps into dark, visceral emotions. The second story is complicated and requires a good deal of critical thinking to understand and embrace.
Which story do you think is going to stick with the public?
I think Heimlich is a dark horse to get even a late round draft pick. First of all, a battery of klieg lights would be shining on the organization that selects him and they would be forced to defend, over and over and for weeks and months afterward, why they even selected a (technically) admitted child molester. They might have a good answer for the questions, but I promise you, it would never be enough for a lot of baseball fans and, more importantly, non-baseball fans, including people who hate sports, who hear about the kid getting drafted and have no interest in hearing the complicated story requiring the critical thinking. Would any organization want to jump into that quicksand? I have my doubts.
And secondly, even if Heimlich did get drafted, he’ll be going from a cloistered, protected environment of educated teammates and coaches into a dog-eat-dog environment where his success means someone else’s failure. And he would be coming in with a huge scarlet CM on his chest. Teammates might shun him; coaches might give him short shrift on instruction; and fans at games at which he appear would have a field day with ugly chants hurled in his direction, and in the direction of his teammates. Again, what organization wants to put themselves through that?
If I had to put a dollar on an outcome, I’d bet June will be the last time Heimlich throws a pitch in a game at that high a level ever again.
Most serial child rapists who progress to murdering children start out exactly as Heimlich did and at Heimlich’s age.
Even if 100% of child murderers started out that way, the relevant ratio for the point you are trying to make is the percentage of molestors who become murderers, not the percentage of murderers who were once molestors.
My goodness, I expected better out of this crowd.
to be fair, most of the really egregious stuff seems to be from sock puppets or trolls. Everyone else is having a mature discussion about what it means to pay one’s debt to society
Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. Maybe these aren’t even real readers commenting or liking. Maybe this is part of a all-encompassing bot-based trolling strategy, emanating from god knows where, in which no site, no forum, no comment area, is too small or inconsequential to pollute, in the service of an overall objective to shred the last remaining fabric of social cohesion in the Western world.
And as a result, I expect the red box under this post to light up like a Christmas tree immediately for my apostasy.
What’s happening is that some saber fans have years of training in the subject when it comes to baseball and thus can formulate decent opinions on baseball.
But it’s not at all automatic that that training can be applied to other areas, even when you’re talking stats, where it should be relatively straightforward.
It seems to me that most of the regular commenters were here yesterday. I don’t recognize most of the people making the opposite argument here today.
That chasfh711’s well thought out post gets a-29, and Belch’s gets a+5, almost comically proves your point chasfh711.
I thinkm you might be correct, then again it would be a real triumph of will if he persevered through it all. The kid clearly has worked at baseball his whole entire life, and he also has a real chance. The whole thing is just sad for the girl, for him, for everyone.
I was simply giving my opinion about why it’s likely that no team will draft Luke Heimlich, despite whatever reported gains he made have made in his rehabilitation. I just don’t think any team will take that chance, for the reasons I stipulate in my post.
If I were simply trolling for likes, I might’ve said that the guy is a obviously a serial child rapist/murderer who should be immediately lynched on national television. But I don’t roll like that.
Pretending that teenagers are not capable of making rationale decisions regarding right and wrong behavior is dangerous thinking. There is nothing magic about age 18 other than it being a societal norm in the West.
This is partly true. Our decision making doesn’t really fully develop until about age 25, on average.
Luke Heimlich is entitled to rebuild his life and find gainful employment. That doesn’t mean he’s entitled to work at the thing he’s best at. I’m sure he can make a fine life for himself selling cars or insurance or whatever.
Did you ever watch the documentary “Capturing the Friedmans”?
But where is that rule? Who made that law or decision? So he’s not allowed to do what he’s best at, but Michael Vick was? This is fine as an opinion, but it is woefully inadequate as a set of guidelines to use moving forward in society.
trentaur, This isn’t very difficult. I made that decision regarding my own fandom, and that is the only authority I need to decide whom to root for and what teams to support. The same is true for the millions of other sports fans in this country, and ultimately they will decide whether Luke Heimlich is employable in his chosen field by supporting him or withholding that support to the point of boycotts or other negative publicity. That (and his own on-field performance) is the difference between whether he becomes a major-league pitcher or a successful salesman.
This is all true. You speak only for yourself, and largely so does everyone else.
I guess I’d like to use this situation to have a larger conversation about what should be done with individuals who are released from custody after committing heinous acts…either bc of plea, parole, or after serving their time in prison.
And upon reading this comment thread, it seems that people have no problem accepting the paroled double murderer as a neighbor, no trouble looking the other way when a domestic abuser is one of the highest paid closers for the most famous baseball team on the planet… but a kid who plead guilty to doing something heinous 7 years ago (at age 15) and only through an accident of paperwork was his supposedly sealed record made public…that kid…he can do…NOTHING.
Is that really people’s opinion? I mean, say it out loud?!
Sheryl, you say that “in order to accept the plea, a judge had to find that there was a factual basis for it.” But in cases like this, isn’t it likely that the most important and possibly only evidence the girl and her parent’s testimony? I imagine that without any other physical evidence, lack of motives for the girl’s family to hurt the guy, consistent statements, etc, these cases would usually be found guilty. So in a way it is a “he said she said” case, because what she said is, rightfully I might add, considered to be sufficient for a guilty verdict.
The risk is not in the guilty finding but in the sentencing.
Having gone through a similar procedure on what (I would like to think) is a less heinous offense (DUI, no casualties) — I pleaded Nolo Contendere to that offence. (15% over the limit in California, as if that matters, but full disclosure.) My lawyer advised me to do that. He was right.
Either this kid had really rotten lawyers, or, well I don’t know. Presumably if he pleaded a Nolo, he’d be open to a civil action?
I wish Luke Heimlich well (I am going to resist the attempt to pun on his actions). Teenagers do all sorts of inappropriate things. But I wish him well out of baseball. Because just about everything is wrong with a promising pitcher who has a documented, pleaded guilty, charge of child molestation.
Yet another excellent (and very unexpected) piece, Sheryl! You were less hard on the (prospective $500K pitcher) kid than most of us would be.
I’m not sure everyone is truly realizing how incentivized Heimlich was to accept this plea deal. Accepting the deal meant, yes admitting guilt, but also that as far as he was concerned, word of this crime would never enter the public sphere. He could play baseball at OSU and continue his dream of playing Major League Baseball with no one the wiser. Fighting this case would mean that this story would be publicized with his name attached, whether or not he was found innocent. Even if he was found innocent the entire world would have a record of a 6 year old girl saying he had molested her. I am not sure even knowing I would be found innocent I wouldn’t take the plea deal and continue my life basically unchanged. Truly think about what his life would have been like had he been found innocent. Now consider if he went to trial and convicted, and had to serve jail time, that is basically a torture sentence. Even if he was innocent, but thought there was a 5% chance he could have been convicted, is that a gamble you would have been willing to take?
I have no reason to believe this girl would make this accusation up, and if I had to bet I would bet on Heimlich being guilty. I would probably make the same bet though if this was all the evidence we had, he had went to trial, and he had been found innocent.
This has to at least enter into the equation. It’s entirely consistent with what we know and it casts massive doubt over the entire case.
I just wrote a long post saying the same thing. Wish I had read your post first. D’oh! 🙂
Your last sentence says it all. Most people would still think he was guilty, even if he was found not guilty in court. After all, Kobe Bryant, OJ Simpson, and George Zimmerman were all found not guilty in court. And Ben Roethlisberger never made it that far. But that hasn’t changed how people feel about them.
It’s possible, even probable, that Heimlich’s primary motivation for the guilty plea was to keep this out of the public eye.
If you argue that he shouldn’t be allowed to re-enter the workforce at all, then I can acknowledge the consistency of that argument, whether or not I agree with it.
But I don’t get the argument that he should be allowed to re-enter the workforce, just not playing professional baseball. Why is it OK for him to, say, work in a warehouse, but not play baseball?
People are to queasy to say that he should be executed or sentenced to LWOP, but they definitely don’t want to ever have to see him or think about him again. Since the people on this site are baseball fans, that means they don’t think he should be given the opportunity to play baseball.
Because families don’t take their kids to cheer on the workers at a warehouse?
I’ll ask my question above a different way: What should Luke Heimlich do next?
Note: answer the question I asked. I do not want an answer about the past (fact or opinion), nor the present. This is a question about the future. In addition, do not tell me: “not play baseball in the pros” or “not get a job anywhere near kids.” This is also not an answer to the question…I want to know what he should do, not what he shouldn’t do.
Lastly if all you can come up with is “die,” or “kill himself,” or “spend the rest of his life in jail,” you are by definition an effin moron who doesn’t understand the point of the question. The question again is, What should Luke Heimlich do next?
I think he should keep his head down, try to say as little as possible, and hope a team drafts him. I’m not sure doing anything else will help anyone.
And he should try to be a good person; but we should all do that.
Good answer. And if he is drafted he should…? If he’s not drafted he should….?
If he’s drafted, more of the same about keeping his head down and saying as little as possible. If not, depends on how much he wants to dream. If he’s determined to try, go somewhere else to play. Maybe Asia? Or figure out how to move forward in his life without baseball. The plus side of that is that he’ll be forgotten. He’s free of requirements now, so I’d suggest a name change too if he wants to avoid trouble.
If he doesn’t get drafted, he should seek some independent league team to play on for a season or two. Work hard on his skill, and use his free time to get back into the good graces of baseball folks.
If he does get drafted (I don’t think it’s likely), he needs to spend a lot of time showing fans that he’s not the person everyone’s made him out to be. Grow, be kind, do good.
If no baseball team signs him (affiliated or independent), he needs to continue to contribute to society in a meaningful way.
That probably sounds vague, but the best option is to move on from this by showing everyone you’re not a monster, but a compassionate, hard-working individual who cares both about his baseball career and the community he lives in.
I am extremely disappointed with the writing in this article. So blatantly presenting an argument to one side is both disingenuous and reckless.
The possibility of taking a plea deal to make the case go away is very present, and for it to be so easily dismissed in regards to a 16 year-old is absolutely abhorrent. The extreme pressure to take plea deals in the United States has been *extensively* documented, this is neither an implausible or rare situation.
The actual legal repercussions Heimlich faced as a minor were relatively minor in comparison to the extreme negative social backlash. Heimlich was presented an opportunity where he was guaranteed to have his record expunged so long as he did not violate the terms of his plea deal. Faced with uncertainty between guaranteed social ostracism should anything become public, or a plea deal that is essentially a slap on the wrist, the potential reasons to accept a plea deal are exceedingly obvious.
I cannot assess the factual validity of Heimlich’s claim, and Heimlich has every reason to lie, but the possibility remains far more logical and plausible than is suggested in this article. It is ethically deplorable to present an extremely slanted opinion piece as legal analysis.
This comment deserves a lot more upvotes.
Sheryl Ring has presented a clear “believe victims no matter what” bias in every article of hers I’ve read here that touches on the matter. It’s no surprise to see it happen again.
If you think this accusation is unfair, just wait until her next piece on the subject, and watch where the slant lands.
Holy cow, you people are an unforgiving lot. There’s no solid proof he did anything, he was a juvenile when the events either occurred or didn’t, he paid his debt to society as if they did occur, his statistical chances of recidivism are 1 in 37, and his criminal record has already been expunged. MLB has no jurisdiction here; nothing he did was covered under the CBA because he was never subject to it. MLB can’t even ban him.
So why in the name of God are you all coming after him with torches and pitchforks? It’s OVER WITH. Justice has been served, now get over it. He didn’t get a life sentence; stop trying to give him one. You’re engaging in virtue signaling at its worst (“Look at how repulsed and unforgiving I am! I’m such a good boy!”)
Only you’re not being good at all. You’re being bitter, vindictive, and merciless.
A boy – not a man, a boy – allegedly makes a mistake. Maybe he did it, maybe he didn’t, no matter, because he has paid the full price of the mistake. But now almost all of you want to punish the man, forever, for what the boy did or didn’t do and was already fully punished for. You want to give him a life sentence. Is there no mercy in you?
I know a sex offender, a woman. When she was young, she was going through a bad time and had a period of weakness and had consexual sex with a male who was three months under the legal age of consent. As always, word got out, and she lost her job, she lost her friends, her family turned their collective back on her, and the man she was married to will not mention her name nor speak of her to this day. She was ostracized from not only polite society but also from impolite society. If you do an Internet search on the public data base of sex offenders in our area, her photo, name and address all appear. She had a psychological hiccup, did something that was illegal (by ninety days), and paid a far higher price than she should have had to. And virtually no one has forgiven her. Paroled murderers are treated far better than she is. Parents won’t let their children within speaking distance of her. Her neighbors act like she doesn’t exist. It’s been going on for years and years and years now, and she is still being punished every single day. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLY RIGHT?
The first time I invited her over to attend Sunday dinner, she cried. She has a few tolerant friends now, I’ve seen to that, but unforgiving vindictive virtue signalers like many of you just keep on ruining her life. She has paid her dues and should be allowed a chance to have a have a happy and productive life, but merciless people refuse to let her have one because they will not let it go. No non-violent crime should be a life sentence, but hers was one and is one. Now you people want to make sure that Heimlich gets a life sentence as well. That’s just wrong, people. It’s mean and its bitter and it’s unforgiving and it’s utterly merciless of you.
For the love of God, people, justice has been done – now show a little mercy.
(And, of course, downvote this to Hell because it dares to oppose Groupthink.)
I don’t consider these two cases in any way similar.
“I don’t consider these two cases in any way similar.”
Right. Two people with lifetime social stigmas courtesy of unmerciful gits after fully paying the justice system for their sexual sins, and you can’t see any similarity? Mother of God.
So you consider sexual assault of a minor as opposed to consensual sexual relations with someone right at the age of consent to be worthy of equal consideration? Shove it up your holier-than-thou ass.
I consider people who have fully paid the justice system for their crimes to have been punished enough, whereas you want to go on punishing them over and over for the rest of their natural lives. And I consider anyone who feels the way you do to be mean, bitter, unforgiving, and unmerciful. I’m not surprised that you posted a vile obscenity, either; doing that fits your profile perfectly.
I actually largely agree with you, but as per usual your condemnation of “holier than thou” is a holier than thou screed itself. Also, his guilty plea is itself “solid proof” of his guilt. Not saying he did it 100%, but that is solid proof.* The fact that the judge accepted the plea suggests that there should have been sufficient evidence to establish guilt. Sure, prosecutorial misconduct is a thing, but you can’t say there isn’t any solid proof.
*speaking legally of course
But I do 100% agree with you that this guy does not need to be punished further, and the fact that he did what he did as a child, compared to say what Matt Bush did, makes me believe the vitriol aimed towards him is coming from a place of fear. Sure, it is understandable. But people worry so much about someone doing something like this to someone they love, that it can make a normally forgiving person act completely differently. Notice that the crowd is blatantly ignoring the actual data when it comes to recidivism and upvoting some nonsense posts about how he’ll likely do this again. Of course, there are also those tough on crime types that think if you do anything wrong you should just be shot, but I don’t think that crowd predominates on Fangraphs.
note: Reading this over, I see that I too may be a bit holier than thou in this post. Sorry, I don’t really see a way of making these points differently.
At the risk of running afoul of the virtue-signaling (i.e., torch-wielding) crowd, I will suggest that the guilty plea he made at age 16, upon the advice of counsel, is *not* solid proof of actual guilt, given his contention today that it was basically coerced by the circumstances. He might be lying, to be sure. Most here would say he’s *probably* lying. But it’s at least worth acknowledging the possibility that he may *not* be lying, and as several posters have mentioned above (with citations to articles) the pressure to plead out, regardless of actual guilt, is extremely strong. It’s not outrageous to allow for the possibility that the following may have happened: a high school kid whose life had changed overnight in a horrible way–facing an untrue allegation that is nevertheless extremely difficult to disprove–would choose a distasteful path to make it all go away (or so he was promised by the prosecutor).
I would have loved for this column to have started with a poll question about “banning the box”.
Here is what is crazy, if he committed manslaughter we wouldn’t be having this talk. We’d say he paid his penalty. Yet here we are.
“Here is what is crazy, if he committed manslaughter we wouldn’t be having this talk. We’d say he paid his penalty. Yet here we are.”
Bingo. Had he shot a female and had she died he would be perfectly okay to play baseball – remember Cesar Cedeño? His girlfriend was shot, allegedly accidentally, and died while alone with him in a hotel room, and he got the charges reduced to involuntary manslaughter, paid a $100 fine and went right on playing for the Houston Astros. Instead Heimlich may or may not have touched a female inppropriately – and to a huge percentage of FanGraphs posters, that somehow is worse and less deserving of forgiveness than shooting someone is.
Which is frankly insane.
I’m loathe to join any group that resembles a torch-wielding mob (ask any lynching victim about the wisdom of crowds… but I digress), but the crowd would be correct if they pointed out that “may or may not have touched a female inappropriately” severely undersells the seriousness of the allegations in this case. If he did in fact molest a preschool-aged child over a period of years, that’s a far more serious issue than an instance of grab-ass committed against an adult woman (which is still very inappropriate, and should be punished, but is not punished at the same level as multiple instances of child molestation). Your characterization calls to mind the grab-ass level of offense, when we are talking here about the child molestation level of offense. That’s not to say your point is invalid, but your characterization of the offense is going to undermine it.
New York Times, 1974:
‘SANTO DOMINGO, Jan. 15 (UPI) — Cesar Cedeno was found guilty today of involuntary manslaughter in the motel room shooting of a young woman and fined the equivalent of $100, closing the case.
“It’s an injustice!” cried Felicia de la Cruz, aunt of the victim.
The Houston Astros’ star centerfielder testified at the trial’s opening yesterday that 19-year-old Altagracia de la Cruz was accidentlally shot in the head and killed when he tried to get his.38 caliber pistol away from her in the room Dec. 11.
Judge Porfirio Natera announced the ruling to newsmen. There was no court session.
Cedeno spent 20 days in jail, until the charge was reduced from voluntary to involuntary manslaughter, making him eligible for bail. Voluntary manslaughter is roughly equivalent to second degree murder in United States jurisdictions.
The investigation brought out that Miss de la Cruz had maintained a long liaison with Cedeno. His wife, Cora, was at their winter home here at the time of the shooting. A family friend said Cedeno and his wife planned to fly to the United States as soon as the court freed him.
Astro officials including General Manager Spec Richardson, had flown here after Cedeno’s arrest to offer assistance.’
Maube it is because I am from Oregon as well, and we tend to be more liberal on rehabilitation, but I literally had two murderers working at my elementary school simultaneously. Didn’t find out till my mother told me many years later, but one had been convicted of killing both his parents when he was 12, and the other had killed one of his parents at 14. Both did some ears, and were deemed rehabilitated enough to work at a school. One of the teachers committed the crime in the 90s and went through juvenile jail and got out, the other committed the crime in the early 60s and went through a mental hospital.
I understand this doesn’t pertain to this case specifically, but rehabilitation is a really loose term. You don’t have to root for someone, but I would say that completing your legal requirements should be enough. To say this guy could sell concessions at your favorite ballpark, but he can’t play when he is likely as talented as the players on the field to me seems silly. Wouldn’t someone with a background benefit from being in the public eye? I just don’t see the logic behind not wanting him to continue in baseball.
“You don’t have to root for someone, but I would say that completing your legal requirements should be enough.”
Exactly. If everyone who posted that Heimlich shouldn’t be allowed to be a major leaguer player were to have instead posted “Well, if and when he plays I’ll never pull for him” that would have been fine. Yes, Heimlich has paid his obligation to justice in full and is now free to do whatever legal acts he chooses to do and can do – which may or may not include one day being a major leaguer – but no one needs to like that fact or to pull for him. But no one with any amount of mercy whatsoever in their hearts should be demanding that he be punished for the rest of his life.
There seems to be a lot of comments about how Mr Heimlich has put himself in a worse position by claiming the allegations are untrue. To the outside observer, it seems horrific to call into question child abuse claims.
I know less than nothing about this case, so I’m not commenting on it specifically. However, in cases of abuse it is-perhaps not common, but certainly not unheard of-for a victim to admit to abuse, because they desperately want help, but for them to be too scared of the abuser to actually name them as a perpetrator. Instead, they will blame someone “safe” (someone from whom they do not fear retaliation.). Oftentimes, the victim will change their story when they feel safe enough to do so (if they are taken away from their situation) or the victim’s story is such that factually, the accused cannot have done what is being claimed.
Is that what happened here? Statistically, probably not. But for those who think the accusation and Mr. Heimlich’s plea point incontrovertibly to guilt, I would say that while that is likely, I don’t know that it is likely enough that we should consider this man vile scum, unemployable by MLB (or indeed, nearly any profession.)
I think to make a judgement like that, one would need to know more details of the case, which unfortunately aren’t available.
first..is the minors/not adult.==sealed..i would say move on but of coarse not in washington or oregon…lol….maybe.japan
I’d like to know what Sheryl meant by calling Heimlich’s crime “perhaps the most serious baggage a person can possibly have.” Whether that expressed personal opinion or an attempt to gauge public sentiment, to make that statement without any elaboration seems inflammatory and irresponsible, and amounts to begging the question.
Heimlich’s objective guilt or innocence seems to me not worth discussing. He’s officially guilty. The interesting questions are whether a profession like MLB should offer employment to someone with a record of child sexual abuse, and how much mitigation might lie in the fact that he was 15 at the time of the crime.
“perhaps the most serious baggage a person can possibly have.”
Were he still alive, my grandfather, who killed a lot of men during combat in two world wars as well as in between as his county’s sheriff, would like to have a word with her about that. In his old age, he told me that late at night he would see the faces of the men whose lives he had ended. I’m sorry, but that’s far more serious baggage. One of his sons literally went through Hell in the Pacific in WW2, and he came home with PTSD – which they didn’t understand then – so bad that he could never again function, even partially, in society and finally ended up killing himself. Again, worse baggage. I won’t trouble you with a description of my own life and baggage, but given a choice I’d far rather have suffered either what the girl may or may not have suffered or what Heimlich has and is going through. Trust me, there’s far worse baggage in the world than anything involved in this case.
On the other hand, she might be referring to baggage as perceived by modern-day virtue signalers, in which case she might sadly be correct. They would have happily cheered Cèsar Cedeño’s career on after Altagracia de la Cruz’s death, but Heimlich? No baseball career for him, ever. That girl didn’t die, she was (or wasn’t) touched.
Insanity.
It’s quite simple to see where Sheryl’s biases lie. Just think about the values that are expressed in the Constitution and the underlying principles of Anglo-American common law, and then see where her arguments violate those values.
It happens all the time when she addresses certain subjects (most notably the 4th). Once you notice the patterns within her arguments, her prejudices are remarkably clear.
The question after that is whether Fangraphs shares her prejudices.
Not that hard to work out what was meant from the context. But probably should have said ‘draft pick’ rather than ‘person’. Many potential draft picks/international signings come with off field baggage. Poor academic performance, injury history, drug use, had kid at 16, reputation for partying, DUI, existing commitments to national service, had to switch schools, Lavar Ball’s family, whatever. A club has to weigh the off field baggage along with the on field ability & potential. A sexual assault conviction certainly seems right up there as the most serious baggage a potential draft pick can come with.
The most obvious reason (to me, at least) why Heimlich would plead guilty when he was in fact innocent: to keep it out of the “papers”
(“papers” meaning social media, blogs, internet sites, and most importantly, the court of public opinion)
Think about the scenario. Luke Heimlich was 16 when these accusations happened. He was nearing college age, was probably already being looked at by some schools, if not being actively recruited. And his talent was probably at a level such that everybody knew a major league career was a distinct possibility.
(Note: for this argument, I’m presenting it as if Heimlich is in fact innocent. But I’m not arguing his innocence, I’m only giving a reason why I think he would be motivated to plead guilty even if he was completely innocent.)
Then these accusations happen. He’d like them to go away, but they’re not going to go away. He has to deal with them.
Now, these would be tough to deal with for anyone, but for a person with exceptional skills and a very bright future in a high profile occupation, he has the added worry of people finding out about it. If this hits social media, or the internet, or the public conscious, his name is forever associated with molesting a child. Whenever he takes the mound, people will think about the child molestation. Whenever he does an interview, someone will ask “isn’t that the guy who touches little girls?”
Even if he beat the rap in legal court, his name would forever be tainted in the court of public opinion. And that’s not something you want to be associated with.
So, he could “fight tooth and nail to clear his name,” as others have suggested. But a better option would be to never muddy his name in the first place. Pleading guilty gave him that option.
If he pleads not guilty — the case goes to trial. If the case goes to trial, it opens the very real and very likely risk that a reporter recognizes the name of this top pitching prospect and publishes it.
If he pleads guilty — that all goes away. Sure, he has failed to clear his name to the thirty or so people that know about this, but he has prevented his name from being muddied to millions of others. Or so he thought.
That’s the most important thing to remember, in my opinion. We were never supposed to know about this. Ever. Pleading guilty was supposed to make it all go away, at least from his perspective. You don’t have to clear your name if it was never muddied in the first place.
It also raises the very real possibility that there are others who have been drafted who were accused of similar things in the past, but we never knew about it because those records have been sealed.