Soccer pioneer can’t shake past: Former coach faces deportation years after indecency conviction
How long should a person have to pay for a crime committed long ago? Are there some crimes so heinous, so terrible that they’re not mitigated by the passage of time, even if the person in question has, for all anyone knows, not re-offended?
When it comes to sex crimes, especially those involving children, should anything even remotely resembling forgiveness be involved? Should there be a statute of limitations on the stigma attached to these crimes? Or are these crimes so awful, so indefensible, so beyond the pale that the guilty party should forever be banished from the communion of good and decent people?
I don’t pretend to know the answers to these questions, but I raise them in consideration of the case of Ronald Griffith, a youth soccer pioneer in Dallas-Fort Worth, who ,in spite of all he has accomplished, is guilty of a sex crime (or sex crimes) committed in 1981.
Ronald Griffith has no doubt contributed much to the growth of youth soccer in North Texas. His love for the game and those who play it have never been in doubt. What is in doubt now is whether his previous transgression(s) should be considered sufficint to color his legacy AND justify deporting him to his native England 25 years after the fact.
For decades, Ron Griffith, a crusty, disheveled Englishman, has been revered as a youth soccer pioneer.
He launched the Texas Longhorns, the oldest soccer club in the Southwest; led scores of young players on overseas soccer tours; and is widely known as the founder of the Dallas Cup, one of the world’s premier youth soccer tournaments.
Less well-known is a dark part of his past: In 1981, he was convicted of fondling a 14-year-old boy he met through the sport.
That incident, for which Mr. Griffith served five years’ probation, is surfacing again, threatening to sever him from the community in which he has invested much of his life. Since 1999, government officials have been working to deport Mr. Griffith, a legal permanent resident. A hearing is scheduled before an immigration judge in Dallas next month.
Certainly, things are differently now. We view sexual offenders in a much harsher and darker light than we did in 1981. And while I certainly wouldn’t want to minimize the seriousness of Griffith’s crime, I can’t help but wonder if it is fair to judge Griffith’s 1981 crime by the rule that exist today.
But all of Mr. Griffith’s accomplishments would be marred by what happened in the pre-dawn hours of May 9, 1981.
According to a Richardson police report, Dallas officers found a 14-year-old boy “in an excited and highly emotional state,” running through a parking lot in the 8600 block of Spring Valley Road. The boy told police he had gone to Mr. Griffith’s Richardson condo around midnight. He had intended to spend the night there.
The boy told police that Mr. Griffith, who was 40 at the time, said he could sleep in his room. Around 4 a.m., he woke up to find Mr. Griffith fondling him. He said that he tried to brush him away and pretended to be asleep, but that Mr. Griffith once again groped him and masturbated next to him.
The boy said he got up, grabbed his pants and ran out the door, afraid that Mr. Griffith might chase him. He said he was trying to get to a telephone to call his father when police found him.
According to the police report, as officers were speaking to the boy, a light-colored van passed by, and the boy said it belonged to Mr. Griffith. Police stopped the van, and Mr. Griffith was arrested….
Mr. Griffith was indicted in June 1981. Later that summer, he pleaded guilty to a charge of indecency with a child and was sentenced to 10 years probation and ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment. According to court records, after he served five years of probation, the remainder of his sentence was set aside.
Whether or not one agrees with the sentence that Griffith received, there can be no argument that Griffith paid the price demanded of him at the time he committed his crime. That he was allowed to continue working with children seems odd, but again, that’s by today’s standards, which are certainly much different than what existed in 1981.
At what point, then, do we allow a man who has offended the ability to begin with a clean slate? Or do we as a society assume that once a sex offender, always a sex offender? In today’s political climate, it’s certainly fashionable to want to toss a sex offender off onto the ash heap of society. But what of a man who may have made a mistake, admitted it, received treatment, and paid his debt to society? I’m not saying that this is definitely the situation when it comes to the case of Ronald Griffith, but are we justified in re-punishing a crime committed in 1981 by the standards that have come into existence almost 25 years later?
Eric Reed, a Dallas criminal defense lawyer who is not involved in the Griffith case, said defendants charged with sex offenses today have a much more difficult time fighting the accusations.
“The laws have gotten more draconian,” Mr. Reed said. “Now people can never put such cases behind them. If the case were to happen today, he would have been faced with much more serious consequences.”
Some experts say nonviolent sex offenders have a good chance of being rehabilitated if they attend treatment, as Mr. Griffith was ordered to do. At the same time, fears that people convicted of such crimes will reoffend have led more states to enact laws to track them in light of high-profile cases.
Again, can people like Griffith be rehabilitated, or are they to be forever cast aside and treated as less than second-class citizens because of the nature of their crime? And in case such as Griffin’s, should a sex offender be deported for a crime committed almost 25 years ago? Can and should today’s stands apply retroactively?
I’m not about to defend Griffith or what he did. There can be no excusing those would violate the innocence of a child. Having said that, though, are we not a society that believe in second chances? Can we not recognize that people make mistakes? And how long do we condemn a person? Are there cases where the nature of crime justifies the permanent banishment of an individual from the communion of civil society?
Again, I do not pretend to know the answers to these questions. I do think that we as a society need to take a long, hard look at how we deal with sexual offenses, particularly those committed against children. Ultimately, how we deal with these crimes and those who commit them will say an awful lot about the kind of society we want to be. Right now, it merely seems as if we’re terrified and unwilling to address these questions.
