Just so we are all tracking:
Donte Stallworth gets drunk and high, drives his car, and kills a pedestrian while driving drunk and high in Florida. No jail time.
Plaxico Burress accidentally shoots himself in the leg with an illegally concealed handgun while in a bar in New York City. Two years in jail.
5 comments:
NY vs. Florida?
That would seem to be the controlling factor. The question is what about those localities led to such insanity.
I cannot see the New York decision as insanity. The Florida situation might be too lax, but that Plaxico shot himself in the thigh is not really a degfnse -- his gun went off and happened to shoot himself. He voluntarily chose not to register his gun. And months ago he turned down a plea bargain that would have given him three months. he chose to fight despite the reality that the facts were not in dispute. he was going to be convicted. And he was going to serve 3.5 years. That's the law. Plaxico had YEARS to register his gun. Instead he made the decision not to.
I'm a fan of rule of law.
Furthermore, the family of the victim in the Stallworth case did not want a trial. Maybe that should not have been a factor, though if that's the case then we admit that "victim's rights" is empty pablum that we only pull out when it is ideologically convenient. Linking the two cases makes no sense because they are completely separate and completely unrelated. Plaxico got 2 years because he made a series of dumb decisions to violate the law for which he was convicted. Perhaps Stalworth should have gotten more, but I have no concern that Plax got too much when he had the chance to serve three months and be out before this football season started.
dcat
Sure, you are right. I can't be too hung up on the fact that different states have different laws and different interpretations of those laws. But damn, it still irks me that one guy was a dumbass and hurt only himself and the other guy killed a person, and the dumbass is going to jail.
Tom --
Yup. Though in a just world, dumbasses would routinely go to prison.
dcat
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