Posted on 09/26/2018 11:09:50 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery's office has gone on the defensive, doubling down on the decision to reduce the charges against Holly Davis, who shot and killed a Chinese exchange student in January 2016.
As Phoenix New Times reported back in April, prosecutors had initially attempted to charge Davis on 14 criminal counts, including first-degree murder, endangerment, and aggravated assault, after she rear-ended 19-year-old Yue Jiang's Mercedes and then fired into one of the vehicle's windows.
In late February of this year, Davis pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, and the other charges were dropped. The plea deal came with a 25-year sentence and an agreement to pay up to $250,000 in restitution.
But Jiang's family wasn't happy with that outcome, which was first reported in New Times and then picked up by Chinese media outlets. The family's lawyer told the Arizona Republic that they want to see the case go to trial on first-degree murder charges, and for Davis to face a longer sentence.
Davis was 32 when she killed Jiang, meaning that she would be released from prison when she's in her late 50s. She would not be eligible for early release, the county attorney's office said in an emailed statement from spokeswoman Amanda Jacinto.
Jacinto didn't explain why the charges were lowered. Instead, speaking for the office, she noted that "the pursuit of justice for victims of crime necessarily requires prosecutors to take into account the views and concerns of victims, as well as the practical realities of the facts and circumstances of any given case."
There was no indication that Jiang had been targeted due to her ethnicity, Jacinto added.
Chalking the Jiang family's outrage up to language barriers and the fact that they're not familiar with the American legal system, Jacinto wrote, "This resolution has been
(Excerpt) Read more at phoenixnewtimes.com ...
Pleas deal is miscarriage.
The killing was deliberate enough that a plea deal is unconscionable.There was forethought there, perhaps not long planned but long enough that she decided to do it, it was not just an unconsidered reaction to an event.
My guess is that the perp might have gotten away with an insanity defense, so 25 years was probably the best the prosecutor could hope for. Back in the day, when insanity defenses seldom worked (i.e. before the 60’s), the perp would already have been executed, because the typical time from *arrest* to trial to exhaustion of appeals and execution, if found guilty, was about 3 years. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
From the looks of her alone, Davis looks like a low life.
She just rear ended a car and fired into the window?
Stick her away for life or execute her.
Yes, but it enables te DA to count the case as a ‘win’.
Meth-head, most likely...
This one should be de-toxed and then fed to catfish.
Totally agree. Or crocodiles.
I’d MUCH rather be dispatched by crocodiles...
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