Justice delayed is justice denied; how many times have we heard that phrase? Well, justice delayed sometimes means death for a victim who was not originally killed.

Man kills stepdaughter, 16, in Acton he was previously accused of raping then kills self, police say

Juliano Santana, 49, abducted his stepdaughter Thursday while she was walking on Great Road near her residence after school.

By Ross Cristantiello | Friday, May 31, 2024 | 9:13 AM EDT

Juliano Santana, mugshot via WCVB-TV.

A man abducted his stepdaughter before killing the teenager and himself in Acton on Thursday, according to Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan’s office.

Acton police were notified just after 4 p.m. that Juliano Santana, 49, had apparently abducted his 16-year-old stepdaughter. Santana’s probation officer used information from a GPS monitoring device to determine his location, officials said.

Officers responded to a parking lot on Great Road outside the victim’s home. Both Santana and the girl were found dead from apparent gunshot wounds in his vehicle. Police believe Santana abducted her as she was walking on Great Road near her home after school. Evidence suggests that he shot her and then himself in the car, according to Ryan’s office.

I first heard of this case via Twitter, with people asking why Mr Santana was out on the streets after such an accusation. Well, here’s the answer:

Santana was the subject of a pending criminal case involving his stepdaughter. On Sept. 7, 2021, she reported to authorities that Santana had sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions. He was arrested and arraigned that day on six counts of aggravated child rape.

Bail was set at $30,000 with conditions that he wear a GPS device and stay away from the girl and anyone under the age of 18. She also had an active restraining order against Santana. The trial for that case was scheduled to begin on July 29.

The Eighth Amendment specifies that excessive bail shall not be required, which means that, despite the horror of the accusations — and, at the time, the victim was only 13 or 14 years old — Mr Santana had to be eligible for bail. But, look at the dates: he was charged on September 7, 2021, and his trial was scheduled for July 29, 2024. If he had been held without bail, as some people seem to believe he should have been, he would have been locked up for 2 years and 326 days without having been convicted of anything. The Sixth Amendment states, in part, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial”.

Perhaps others have a different opinion, but, to me, 2.89 years does not sound very speedy. Mr Santana may have been guilty, and it seems as though he probably was guilty, to judge by his subsequent actions, but he wasn’t legally guilty of anything because he had not been tried and convicted. Massachusetts law does allow for a defendant to be held without bail if the accused “is determined to pose a danger to the safety of any other person or the community under section 58A“, but almost three years without a trial is an excessively long time.

One of the reactions to the 2020 COVID-19 panicdemic — and no, that’s not a typographical error; I spelled it exactly the way I see it — was to shut down or seriously restrict the operation of the courts, but, shockingly enough, the illegal and unconstitutional shutdowns of society didn’t seem to shut down crime. The police still worked, and crimes kept piling up, but the courts were dramatically slowed down, which means that it was simply wrong to hold people in pre-trial detention for as long as was happening.

So, now Mr Santana is dead, and the Bay State is better off for him not being alive and in it. Of course, it also meant that an innocent 16-year-old girl is also dead, but hey, she’s just the collateral damage from the covidiocy shutdowns.