Court Won't Allow Judge to Undo Rapist's Sentence

That controversial 30-day sentence handed down to a Montana teacher who had sex with a teenage student won't be changed after all. The state Supreme Court today ruled that Judge G. Todd Baugh—the one who set off an uproar by saying the 14-year-old victim was older than her chronological years—could not legally hold a new sentencing hearing as he had planned, reports CNN. The ruling came only about an hour before the scheduled start of the hearing.

"We take no position on the legality of the imposed sentence and will address the parties' arguments in that regard on appeal," the court ruled. Neither the defense nor the prosecution wanted Baugh to go ahead with the hearing. Prosecutors, for instance, thought it would confuse the pending appeal. Baugh doesn't seem bothered by today's decision. After it was announced, he told reporters that he had decided not to go through with the resentencing anyway, reports AP. (More Montana stories.)