Kenneth G. Hinson Arrested Again on Rape Charges in South Carolina
Kenneth G. Hinson, a previously convicted rapist, was arrested today on charges of 
what else? Rape. He was arrested on charges of assaulting two 17 year old girls. Hinson had been previously convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl in 1991. Once again another case of giving the benefit of the doubt to the criminal and endangering the publics safety.
Kenneth G. Hinson, 47, fled on foot after the girls escaped and called police. Although he was carrying a handgun, Hinson was arrested without incident after a neighbor spotted him, said Deputy U.S. Marshal Tim Stec.
The two 17-year-old girls were taken from their nearby home late Monday and assaulted in a room under a shed on Hinson’s property, police said. The girls were left bound inside the room but managed to wriggle free and walk to safety. (AP)
Hinson had created an elaborate underground room behind his home hidden by a shed where he committed the rapes and imprisoned the teens. Hinson abducted both girls separately while they slept.
Authorities say that late Monday, Hinson, 47, took the two 17-year-old girls one at a time from a nearby mobile home while they were sleeping. He bound the first girl’s mouth with tape and took her to a shed on his property, where a trap door led to an underground room not much larger than a closet with a 4-foot ceiling, Darlington County Chief Deputy Tom Gainey said.
Hinson sexually assaulted the girl, then left her in the underground room
bound with duct tape while he went back to the mobile home for the other girl. She was also sexually assaulted, Gainey said.
After Hinson left, the teens managed to wriggle free, open the trap door and kick down the door to the shed. They walked through some woods and flagged down a passing motorist, Gainey said.
Like in so many cases we see today, Kenneth G. Hinson was arrested and sent to prison for nine years in 1991 for the rape of a 12 year old girl. The problem being that Hinson was sentenced to 20 years for the crime, yet in 2000 Circuit Judge Edward Cottingham let this predator out of prison and said, “authorities failed to show the man was capable of committing a sexual offense in the future”. Judge Cottingham, what do you think now? Review Committees at the time had requested that Hinson remain in prison and was a risk to society. Yet Circuit Judge Edward Cottingham in his infinite wisdom allowed this animal back on the streets to prey on innocent girls. This is just the latest in a long line of judges that need to be shown the door as they do not have the publics safety or interest at heart.
In 1991, Hinson was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl. He was released from prison in 2000 after serving nine years of a 20-year sentence, a decision state Attorney General Henry McMaster blasted Friday.
“This man was sentenced to 20 years. Had that 20 years meant 20 years, he’d still be in jail now, and this wouldn’t have happened,” McMaster told Fox News.
McMaster also chided a judge’s decision to not place Hinson in a program for sexually violent predators.
Just before Hinson’s release, a review committee recommended that he be committed indefinitely to a Department of Mental Health facility for treatment, but Circuit Judge Edward Cottingham rejected the recommendation, saying prosecutors failed to show Hinson would likely offend again.
“I can’t control what comes before me as a judge,” Cottingham said Friday. “And I deal with what’s before me and make a ruling to the best of my judgment.”
Cottingham said he did not remember Hinson’s specific case but that state law requires prosecutors to show probable cause that the person will commit another sexual assault.
When is enough, enough? When is the judiciary going to actually start making the primary concern the publics safety first? One can only imagine the rapes that Hinson may have done between 2000 and today that he was never charged with, or worse. Just recently we were presented with Judge Edward Cashman in Vermont who gave a sexual predator, Mark Hulett, 6 months until pressure was brought to bear.
“The one message I want to get through is that anger doesn’t solve anything. It just corrodes your soul,” said Judge Edward Cashman speaking to a packed Burlington courtroom.
Then there was the Ohio judge, Judge John Connor, that gave a convicted sexual predator who raped two boys probation. A judge that also seems to have his own issues and many wonder how continues to be a judge.
See more of Judge John Conner’s past and questionable decisions.
Now this brilliant decision by Circuit Judge Edward Cottingham to let this convicted rapist out early was he did not this he would rape again. What are these people thinking, especially when he was advised by two panels not to let this criminal out of jail. These judges should be charged with crimes for their pathetic, ridiculous and harmful decisions that they make that expose predators on society.
EARTH TO JUDGES … THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A ONE TIME RAPIST!!!