A judge who put a transgender child rapist in a women’s prison has been nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by Joe Biden.
Judge Sarah Netburn has served as a magistrate judge for 12 years.
The judge gained notoriety after moving William McClain, who now goes by “July Justine Shelby,” to a women’s prison against the recommendation of the Bureau of Prisons.
McClain served over two decades in prison for raping a 17-year-old girl and molesting a 9-year-old boy. He was arrested again in 2017 for distributing child pornography involving a young girl and an infant.
The Washington Times reports:
Under a Biden administration policy implemented in 2022, transgender women can be moved to a women’s facility on a case-by-case basis, based on “whether a placement would ensure the inmate’s health and safety, and whether the placement would present management or security problems.”
The policy directs that a transgender individual’s “own views with respect to his/her own safety must be given serious consideration.”
The prisoner claimed to be endangered in New York’s Otisville Correctional Institution, a federal medium-security men’s prison.
The Bureau of Prisons repeatedly denied the prisoner’s request to be transferred to a women’s prison, citing risks it would traumatize prisoners and possibly threaten their safety.
The judge, against all reasonable advice, decided to move the sexual predator to the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, which is a female prison in Texas.
“The hypothetical concern that Petitioner will hurt someone must be counter-balanced by the actual evidence that she has been assaulted and harassed in a men’s facility,” Judge Netburn wrote in the decision.
During her confirmation hearing, Sen. Ted Cruz grilled her about the decision.
“So you took a six-foot-two serial rapist. Serial child rapist with male genitalia,” Sen. Cruz said. “And he said, you know, I’d like to be in a women’s prison. And your answer was, ‘That sounds great to me.’ Let me ask you something. The other women in that prison, do they have any rights?”
The judge remained unapologetic for the decision.
