Read the whole story, Google his name.
It turns out they told him they were going to rob a house (the stories say burglary, but they knew people were home, that makes it a home invasion robbery). They knew they were going to "knock out" an 18 year old girl who they actually killed instead of "knocking her out." Bottom line is they told him they were going to do a violent home invasion with plans to commit great bodily harm on someone in the home.
I say guilty. Maybe, maybe the sentence is too long, but maybe not.
You say to me: "I am going to go knock someone out and steal a safe from her home, can I borrow your car?" I am going to tell you you may not use my car. Now, if he had said that and they had taken his keys and still used the car, he is clean, they stole the car while he slept.
The only real case I think he has is something like "ineffective counsel". He should have been warned that 10 years was not a bad deal at all, life was in the cards if he fought it. Especially if the dead girl was pretty and did not have a troubled background.
Sounds like we’re getting to the rut of this issue. A good lesson for EVERYONE, don’t drop your guard for heart-wrenching stories - make them PROVE IT. The libs know that, which is why they attack every “I lost my health insurance” case.
Do not let those people CONTROL your thoughts - fight back, be suspicious. If a jury put this guy away, trust the jury first - not a left-wing reporter - always.
Yea, he definitely should have taken the 10 given those details.
Personally I think the judiciary should have some leeway in giving people, particularly young ones with clean or minor records going into something like this, some type of penal battalion type sentence with rigid discipline and physical service as an alternative to a life ending sentences.
If you’re going to give an 18 year old a life sentence without parole all that tells me is that society is just to candy assed to kill them. Hell, it would be a mercy to the perp, and it eliminates the whole expense/incarceration structure for people who essentially have nothing to lose from that point forward with respect to escape or jailhouse mayhem.
I sat on a Jury for 2 defendants for 5 counts of attempted murder with great bodily injury and gang, handgun and street terrorism enhancements. The verdict was split between the 2, with one being convicted (and getting all 3 strikes in that one trial) and sentenced to minimum 25 to life and the other guy walking. It’s long in the details, but the convicted guy had a clean record and had ended up being leaned on to commit the situation by an older brother in prison. While the crime was pretty horrendous, if ever there was an opportunity to reform someone though a 10 or so year grueling service deal the kid would have been an ideal candidate.
With respect to the other defendant, I mentioned to the defense guy while he was chatting with the prosecutor after the fact that the Lord had seen fit to give him a stupefying second chance, and he aught to counsel him to move off to the middle of nowhere and start from scratch.
Well stated.