A convicted child predator has vanished before sentencing after an El Dorado County judge allowed him to walk out of the courthouse — after guilty verdicts were handed down. His ankle bracelet has since stopped functioning, and nobody knows where he is.

Let that sink in. A jury of his peers found him guilty of crimes against a child. The district attorney's office explicitly pushed the judge to take the defendant into custody immediately. And the judge said no. Just... let him leave.

Now the guy is in the wind, with connections to San Francisco, and law enforcement is asking the public to keep an eye out. His own lawyer reportedly believes he may be dead. Maybe. Or maybe he's very much alive and very much free, which is the more terrifying possibility when we're talking about someone convicted of predatory crimes against children.

As one Bay Area resident put it bluntly: "Sometimes you wonder if those judges are dumb or just evil."

Harsh? Sure. But when the system has a convicted predator in its grasp and voluntarily lets go, you have to ask what exactly the point of the trial was. This is the most fundamental function of government — protecting the vulnerable, especially children — and the ball wasn't just dropped. It was punted.

This is exactly the kind of case that erodes public trust in the justice system. Not because the laws are wrong, not because the jury failed, but because a single person in a position of authority made a catastrophically bad judgment call and there appear to be zero consequences for it. The DA did the right thing. The jury did the right thing. And one judge undid all of it.

We talk a lot about accountability in government. Here's a case study in what happens when there isn't any. A predator convicted by the people now roams free — courtesy of the state.