Priests talking about non-violent murderers, seductive children, and gay marriage.

Sports Illustrated reports that George Huguely, the former University of Virginia lacrosse player convicted of murdering Yeardley Love, has been sentenced to 23 years in prison for the crime.  This Washington Post report says that Virginia law requires Mr. Huguely to serve at least 85% of his sentence which would be roughly 19 years and six months.  Mr. Huguely has already been in jail for about a year so he has around 18 years remaining on his sentence.  Both reports say that Judge Edward Hogshire deviated from standard practice by sentencing Mr. Huguely to less than the 26 years recommended by the jury that convicted Mr. Huguely.  It is not clear why Judge Hogshire went with a lower sentence.

Judge Cebull apologizes to President Obama.

Yesterday we posted about Judge Cebull's stupendous error in judgment when he used his official email to forward a racist and misogynist email about President Obama's mother. We updated the post to reflect that Judge Cebull has requested that the Ninth Circuit investigate his actions. The Ninth Circuit has posted Judge Cebull's request here.

Judge Cebull has also written a letter of apology to President Obama. It is here. The text of the apology is:

I sincerely and profusely apologize to you and your family for the email I forwarded. I accept full responsibility; I have no one to blame but myself.

I can assure you that such action on my part will never happen again. I have requested that the Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit review this matter.

Honestly, I don't know what else I can do. Please forgive me and, again, my most sincere apology.

Dear Reader(s), Judge Cebull's apology is how one gives an actual apology. Note the lack of sentences like "I am sorry if my email offended anyone." Judge Cebull also didn't try to say that we was sorry "to the extent anyone misconstrued my intent or was otherwise offended." Judge Cebull does not try to make it seem like it is the fault of someone else if they were offended by the email. Instead, he explicitly recognizes that he has "no one to blame" but himself and, most importantly, he asks for forgiveness.

Obviously, I don't know if President Obama will respond to this request for forgiveness. I hope he does and I hope his response is, "I forgive you."

UPDATE: In the event that Mr. Torvik doesn't use this post as opporunity to attempt to humilate me, Ellie Mystal of "Above the Law" disagrees about the effectiveness of the apology.