“Leave Your Pain Here:” an Illustration of Therapeutic Jurisprudence Through the Remarks of Judge Rosemarie Aquilina From The State of Michigan versus Lawrence Nassar

Dr. Lawrence Nassar was the national medical coordinator of the United States of America Gymnastics (USAG), gymnastics team physician/assistant professor at Michigan State University, and the USAG artistic team physician. He leveraged these high-profile roles to perpetrate scores of sexual abuse experiences with young women and child athletes under the guise of medical treatments (Mountjoy, 2019). While Nassar evaded complaints about his abuse for many years, he was ultimately charged, pled, and sentenced to 60 years on federal child pornography charges in December 2017 (Mountjoy, 2019). In January 2018, Nassar was sentenced to 40-175 years for first-degree criminal sexual conduct in the court of Judge Rosemarie Aquilina in Ingham County, Michigan (Dator, 2019). In February 2018, Nassar was sentenced to 40-125 ABSTRACT Dr. Lawrence Nassar was the national medical coordinator of the United States of America Gymnastics (USAG), gymnastics team physician/assistant professor at Michigan State University, and the USAG artistic team physician who sexually abused many young women and children under the guise of medical treatments. In an unprecedented legal event, Judge Aquilina allowed anyone who had been impacted by Nassar’s abuse to participate in the pre-sentencing phase by reading a victim impact statement. Judge Aqualina listened to 156 impacted speakers and responded with personalized messages. This paper will examine Judge Aquilina’s responses to the victim impact statements through the lens of therapeutic jurisprudence with a focus on trauma-informed themes and messages of empowerment. Concrete examples of therapeutic jurisprudence will be provided as well as suggestions for how these behavioral and relational elements can be translated to inform judicial trainings.