Patriae Potestas Case Study

Patriae potestas is Latin for “power of the father” (Encyclopedia, 2014) that the patriarch of the family had explicit power in the Roman empire to determine the fate of those in what was by law his property – other members. In particular in this reference is the father having the ability to decide if a child should live or die, even be sold (Doerner & Lab, 2012). Again, reducing them to little more than property and subject to abuse.

Civil commitment refers to confinement of those who have served their jail term sentencing but still pose a potential threat to the safety and well-being of the general public (Department, 2014). In this case, Leroy Hendricks, a convicted child molester, admitted he still had sexual desires to molest children in his civil commitment trial. As time came for his release from prison, officials looked at how to mitigate his release but keep the public safe, as well, with the determination to continue confinement. However, Hendricks argued this was double-jeopardy, that he was being re-imprisoned for a past crime that he had already served time. But given his pedophilia was titled as a mental illness, the powers that be determined civil commitment until such a time as he was deemed able to be released into the public (University, 1997). In short, the civil terminology revoked the double jeopardy Hendricks had argued and has allowed power that should a pedophilia in such a similar case be proven un-rehabilitated can be civilly confined until such a time as they are deemed able to return to the public.

The concept behind home visitation as a coping strategy to curb child abuse is to alleviate it before it happens or to find signs of child abuse by having public health works conduct visits to every hou...

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...en though Ehrlich Coker had an extensive list of previous crimes that likewise included rape and had escaped from prison, the act of rape was not considered as offensive to that of murder and did not constitute, said the court, the punishment of death in return. This was not unusual or the first, given juries had returned with the death penalty verdict for a non-death crime but it (Coker v. Georgia) has been used and upheld by the supreme court to overturn those rulings (Silverstein, 2002).

Unfortunately, there are many myths surrounding rape and predominantly is the belief that the majority of rape occurs by strangers when “Two-thirds of rape victims have a prior relationship with the offender” (Doerner & Lab, 2012). That rape cannot happen from someone is not a stranger or a nonstranger, for example, there is a belief that a wife cannot be raped by her husband.