In light of the helicopter case today, I am a bit confused about the sentencing guidelines used by our cousins in England. In Manchester, Samantha Brown, 20, and her sister Toni Brown, 24, were sentenced in a horrific murder of Brown’s boyfriend and received brief jail sentences.
Brown (right) and her boyfriend had been at her sister’s house drinking when the boyfriend reportedly caught Brown in a intimate moment with another woman. When he accused her of being a lesbian, she reportedly grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed him in the groin. When she fled the scene, Darvill allegedly begged Brown to call for a ambulance and she refused. She then stopped another woman from calling an ambulance. When the other woman called Darvill’s family, Brown again refused their pleas for her to give them the address for an ambulance or to call one herself.
After another hour, an ambulance was finally called but the man died from loss of blood.
Brown later said that she refused to call an ambulance for the dying man because she did not want the ambulance to wake her son who was sleeping upstairs.
Toni Brown was sentenced to just four years and Samantha Brown was jailed for just five years for the knife attack.
We have previously discussed criminal liability for people who fail to call police. In the United States, you cannot be charged for the failure to call police as a witness. However, Toni Brown crossed the line, even in the states, by actively barring others from calling an ambulance and her involvement in the crime which occurred on her premises. This is not a case involving the failure to meet the standards of a Good Samaritan but a failure to meet the standards of a human being.
This sentence seems shockingly out of proportion to the crime. These women warranted long jail sentences for crimes that should have shocked the conscience of the court.
Source: MSN
Stan:
maybe I should have said whacked out anti-social narcissists.
What they did was the depth of depravity, they watched a human being bleed to death and taunted him and his family while he lay dying.
We don’t know what mitigating factors influenced the sentence. Perhaps there was evidence that immediately prior to the attack, the decedent had proposed a threesome.
Blouise,
How are ya doing today?
Where is Swarthmore mom and her nemesis…..
stan kohls:
Yes.
Ginger – yeah, I never got that song. I haven’t heard them in years everything I had was on 8 -track! but dang that guy could play.
Is imprisonment really the best way to deal with “disturbed individuals?”
bigkoala@verizon.net
Stan:
Stabing the man may have been impulsive but allowing him to bleed to death was the act of someone who needs to be put away.
That was murder and those 2 women are very disturbed individuals.
For someone going to prison for the 1st time, 4-5 years is a very difficult sentence. It’s a big chunk out of a young woman’s life. Perhaps the judge thought this would be enough to teach them a lesson. Perhaps he thought that a longer sentence would have negative effects, and that when they got out, they’d be more dangerous than when they went in. The act seems to have been basically impulsive, perhaps the judge was looking ahead, to the time they’d be released. Prison rarely makes anyone a better person, and in Europe, they seem to be more interested in rehabilitation than punishment. Since about 70% of our prisoners re-offend, and since we have such a large prison population, perhaps we could learn something from the European approach.
As emotionally satisfying as severe punishment might be, is it really the best way to deal with people who commit a single, impulsive, violent act?
bigkoala@verizon.net
frankdawg said:
My stepfather likes to bake ginger cheesecake, I play drums, and I do admire Ginger Baker as drummer – among many others. I can now also type “Gingerbaker” really fast, so that is a real consideration. 🙂
PS – do you know GB’s song about making a cup of tea ( “T.U.S.A.” from “Sunrise on the Sufferbus” (Ginger Baker and Masters of Reality)? Good clean fun.
Saw this cartoon today & wondered how many lawyers would recognize a judge or two in it:
http://comics.com/free_range/2010-08-03/
she probably received a light sentence because she is a lesbian and thus a member of a protected class. she probably told the judge her feelings were hurt because her boyfriend was anti-gay.
Women are more attracted to men dressed or framed in red according to the American Psychological Association.
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2010/08/red-attraction.aspx
BTW – Gingerbaker – is that an occupation or are yo a fan of Ginger Baker’s Air Force? Didn’t know there were any people who remember him.
No, it depends on how you like your groin – perforated or unperforated!
I hate these kinds of stories in the news because so often they fail to tell the whole story & try to sensationalize the facts. Were there other details that the paper left out that might explain this sentence? Its hard to imagine what those would be but not any harder than imagining a judge going this lightly on such apparent inhumanity.
Well GB, It all depends on how you like you liquor…or is that Licker…..
On the upside, Samantha Brown is cute, unattached, and will be available soon.`
KS,
Thank you for the correction. I was almost certain you didn’t mean the vermin….in this case as a lot it hard to tell which is which and who the real victim is….
sorry, his relatives
In America, under the Justice for All Act of 2004 AKA Crime Victims Act, her relatives are supposed to be able to input on sentencing.
This is just plain Nuts.