Bizarre, Criminal law

Michigan Judge Threatens To Throw Out Plea Bargain After Murderer Smirks Through Victim Statement

Screen Shot 2017-07-26 at 10.49.07 PM.pngDefense counsel often discuss demeanor in court with our clients.  One thing that we all agree on is that it is a uniquely bad idea to smirk during victim statements, particularly in a murder case.  That is one lesson Danta Wright, 17, did not learn and it almost cost him the plea bargain negotiated with prosecutors.

Wright upset many in the Washtenaw County courtroom as his murder victim’s family recounted their pain and loss.  Wright admitted that he and two other friends shot and killed  Jordan Klee, 18, in the course of a robbery.  His accomplices, Delreno Gracey and Jermarius Ellison, have yet to be sentenced.

His demeanor led 22nd Circuit Court Judge David Swartz to reconsider the deal:

“Watching you sit there, smile, laugh, shake your head like this was no big deal— I’m very tempted to just say, ‘I’m not going to accept this sentencing agreement and we’ll go to trial’ and if you’re convicted of felony murder, you’ll go to prison for the rest of your life. That means you’ll die there. That’s what I’m tempted to do.”

Fortunately for Wright, the court decided to go forward with the deal rather than order a trial.  He was sentenced to 23-50 years in prison for Klee’s murder.

 

 

68 thoughts on “Michigan Judge Threatens To Throw Out Plea Bargain After Murderer Smirks Through Victim Statement”

  1. Off topic for a moment- Have you noticed how people have more fear going to tax court to a point of suicide than facing a jury of thier peers for murder. Maybe we should try them before a tax judge.

  2. When he gets out he will smirk and kill again. Death penalty the next time. No cover charge any time. Death to all creditors.

  3. I’m generally pretty liberal, but in cases like this, where the accused shows no signs of remorse and there are no extenuating circumstances at all, I think that the perpetrators should feel physical pain for the loss they have caused. A good flogging?

    1. Jay-This is what your “pretty liberal” position has given the rest of us who are not “pretty liberal”.

      1. Amen! Great observation!

        At least it looks like Jay S is living in the year 2017, which is not all that common among Liberals. I think most of them are living in the 1920’s maybe, where poor little darkies still get strung up for looking cross-eyed at a white woman. Or maybe in whatever years it was when they had Freedom Riders. Whatever, most of them are not living in the 2017 where the black illegitimate birth rate has been over 50% for 42 years, and over 70% for 25 years.

        No, they are living in the past, and as a result of their desire to cling to that delusion, good old cognitive dissonance takes over and they start blaming black crime, and black savagery, and black poverty on Post Traumatic Slavery Disorder (a real thing!), or White Privilege, or Institutionalized Racism, or Mass Incarceration. Whatever theory they can grasp hold of to keep from blaming single black mothers and the whole “baby daddy” culture of trashy behavior.

        Squeeky Fromm
        Girl Reporter

          1. It’s not racist to state facts, even if you don’t like those facts.

            1. FFS – if facts get in the way of the liberal agenda, they are racist.

          2. Why do you think it is racist to point out that the black illegitimate birth rate is ridiculously and unnecessarily high, and that a very large and significant number of blacks are simply feral savages??? That’s just the truth. Next, you will be complaining about me calling the baboons, and talking about how they chimp out. Which, Tommy Sotomayor did a video on that too, and even he, a black man, talked about how they sounded like baboons: The sound starts about 45 seconds or so into the clip:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3cm6__dp4M

            Squeeky Fromm
            Girl Reporter

            1. I have always held that we should be judged by our individual actions, and not by association with any political or ethnic group. Squeeky evidently does not feel that way.

              1. I usually do, too. But, when the Black illegitimacy rate is hitting 72% and higher in some places, then that is a significant majority of blacks engaging in trashy and destructive behavior. I mean if Trump had won 72% of the popular vote, you would be calling that a landslide. Sooo, what is a 72% illegitimate birth rate???

                If 72% of Italian kids joined the Mafia, then would you think maybe something was wrong over in the Italian community???

                Sorry, but you need to consider the implication of having that high of an illegitimate birth rate, and why you need to change your current thinking.

                Squeeky Fromm
                Girl Reporter

              2. Perhaps Sqeeks penetrating glimpses into the obvious are too much reality for some.

            1. Thank you!!! It just seems pretty obvious to me, from the charts and the data, and the anecdotal evidence. Maybe that is why there is sooo much push back. Because once people start openly saying these things, the Democratic/Liberal Facade will be in danger.

              God help the Democrats if the Blacks ever figure out what was done to them.

              Squeeky Fromm
              Girl Reporter

  4. This is what a 72% illegitimacy rate creates. Daniel Patrick Moynihan predicted it in the 60’s.

    1. Moynihan wrote about this when the black illegitimate birth rate was 25%! , or about 1/3 of what it is now. In some hotbeds of racism, slavery, and Jim Crow, like Minneapolis, it is even higher – – – up to 82%-84%.

      When Moynihan published his report in 1965, the out-of-wedlock birthrate among blacks was 25 percent, much higher than that of whites.[5] Since that time, the number of single mother families has risen among all races, but is still markedly higher among blacks.

      In the introduction to his report, Moynihan said that “the gap between the Negro and most other groups in American society is widening.”[6] He also said that the collapse of the nuclear family in the black lower class would preserve the gap between possibilities for Negroes and other groups and favor other ethnic groups. He acknowledged the continued existence of racism and discrimination within society, despite the victories that blacks had won by civil rights legislation.[6]

      Moynihan concluded, “The steady expansion of welfare programs can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the Negro family structure over the past generation in the United States.”[7]

      More than 30 years later, S. Craig Watkins described Moynihan’s conclusions: Representing: Hip Hop Culture and the Production of Black Cinema (1998):

      The report concluded that the structure of family life in the black community constituted a ‘tangle of pathology… capable of perpetuating itself without assistance from the white world,’ and that ‘at the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro family. It is the fundamental source of the weakness of the Negro community at the present time.’ Also, the report argued that the matriarchal structure of black culture weakened the ability of black men to function as authority figures. That particular notion of black familial life has become a widespread, if not dominant, paradigm for comprehending the social and economic disintegration of late 20th-century black urban life.[8]

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Family:_The_Case_For_National_Action

      Squeeky Fromm
      Girl Reporter

      1. The source of the overall problem is plain to see for anyone willing to look at it honestly. The question is, what is the solution? There must be a solution. The solution will come when all the stakeholders are honest about the problem.
        These are real people. Human beings. Children of God, created in His image. A solution must be found.

        1. You are right. They are human beings, although of a low sort. If the illegitimate birth rate thing is not reversed in a big way, then blacks will be in even worse shape a hundred years from now. There is simply no place in a modern technological society for these savages. The best they can hope for is a job in a fast food place, or working on lawns, or emptying bed pans. We don’t have a nation full of Indians to conquer and subdue, and no huge land wars to fight, so frankly there is little place for them. Particularly since they have a totally sh*tty attitude.

          My suggestion is:

          1) Cut off the extra welfare benefits (food stamps or medicaid or EBT) for any illegitimate child past the first one. Women get one mistake, and then if they continue to pop them out, then they get no new money for it. Do provide free birth control, either condoms or birth control pills.

          2) No more Section 8 or public housing, period.

          3) Cut off child support for illegitimate children. If a woman is not married or engaged when the child is conceived, or born, then no state enforcement of child support. It is the woman’s baby, and if she has it, then she has to pay for it.

          4) Begin prosecuting women the same way men are prosecuted for failure to support their children. Some of these hoodwhores have 3 or 4 children by different baby daddies, when they can’t even support one child.

          5) Review all crazy checks at least once a year to cut off that source of income.

          6) Start running PSAs on the problems of single mothers.

          7) Increase the EIC for married couples over single women.

          8) Repeal all Domestic Violence Against Women laws where there are not some broken bones or real harm. If Jemarius slams Shaneeka up against the wall and slaps the crap out of her for running around, or not doing the housework, or feeding the kids, then unless he goes too far, leave that situation alone. This way men can start disciplining their wives again, and have some incentive to get married.

          9)End all affirmative action programs. If Shaneeka has to actually compete for a job, she will have to get her behavior in order, or stay poor.

          10) Let the state seize children where women have too many without being married and means of support, and then tie her tubes.

          This will force these women to rely on themselves, their families or charities or churches to help them, and on that close and personal level, there is not going to be any support for popping out as many kids as you want. Women will have to start behaving themselves again, because right now everything is in their favor, and there is no balance.

          There is no guarantee that this will change the current dynamic. The cat is out of the bag, and it may not go back in, but this is a place to start IMHO. However, the chance of actually doing anything like this is maybe like 1 in a million. Which is why America is doomed, and the Black community is doomed.

          Squeeky Fromm
          Girl Reporter

          1. Re #8 — you advocate wife beating?? How about rape within marriage — do you think that happens?

            1. I advocate wife spanking. Really, would you want to adopt a kid if you could not spank or discipline the kid when needed? That is the problem men face. They have to put up with all kinds of crap from women, so there is a tremendous disincentive to take one on. That is one reason why you have “Men Going Their Own Way” (MGTOW) movements. But society needs marriages, and two parent households for stability. Sorry, but that’s just reality.

              In more enlightened times, you had ducking stools for “common scolds.”

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_scold

              Squeeky Fromm
              Girl Reporter

              1. Squeeky – I remember taking my then current gf to the film McClintock with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. One of the highlights of the film is when he publicly spanks her. Driving home from the drive-in I asked my gf if she thought she should be spanked like that. She said Yes, if she deserved it. I wonder if her husband ever did? 🙂

                1. I saw that movie, too! Didn’t he spank her again in The Quiet Man??? Oh, and let’s don’t even talk about what Rhett Butler did when he grabbed up Scarlett O’Hara, and whisked her upstairs that time!

                  And as far as violence against women, let me tell you when Penelope represents the husband in divorce actions, there are quite a few of their mothers who openly state they would like to physically attack their ex-daughter-in-laws for the problems they caused.

                  FWIW:

                  http://www.historyandwomen.com/2014/10/spare-rod-spoil-wife.html

                  I think that people forget that it used to be legal to beat male soldiers and sailors who did not fulfill their assigned roles, too:

                  http://militaryhistorynow.com/2012/06/29/this-is-gonna-hurt-military-punishment-throughout-the-ages/

                  Squeeky Fromm
                  Girl Reporter

                  1. Squeeky – corporal punishment was usual for businesses that hired children, too.

          2. Actually, I think your plan gets close to Sharia Law as practiced in Saudi Arabia and other places. You know, stoning people to death, chopping off their hands, public beatings for “immodest” dress. Of course, female blog commenters might get singled out for special treatment…..

            1. Well, if you don’t like Sharia Law, then maybe you should get on Trump’s side about banning Muslims.

              OTOH, what the Muslims are doing are enforcing certain standards of behavior. Cutting off a hand is severe, but I suspect there is not much shoplifting or thievery in the countries that prescribe that. I also doubt that you get the Western equivalent of “He has a rap sheet as long as your arm. . .”

              if the penalty for adultery is death, then you probably won’t end up with a Tinder culture, and all it’s many problems. And how many people are actually executed for adultery? It probably doesn’t take but a few per year to put the Fear of Allah into people.

              Squeeky Fromm
              Girl Reporter

            2. Jay S, instead of being a tiresome drama queen here, what are your proposed solutions?

              1. Squeaky’s list of ‘solutions’ may be satisfactory public policy for other reasons. They will have negligible effect on the illegitimacy rate. This point is not arguable anymore. We saw what happened to that rate after 1996. TANF rolls have 1/3 the census of the old AFDC rolls, even though the population as a whole is 20% larger. The effect on the illegitimacy rate has been imperceptible. What RM Kaus used to call the ‘bribe theory’ (which Charles Murray promoted) has been discredited.

                1. I am not sure that you are drawing the correct conclusions about TANF. For example, look at this chart:

                  https://hailtoyou.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/fertility19802013_b.png

                  The average black birth rate has fallen from about 3 little heathens per woman to about 2 little heathens per woman. Unfortunately, even 72% of those “two children” are still illegitimate. That decline seemed to start a few years before TANF, and therefore logically, TANF was not the cause. BUT, TANF and its lower cash payouts could be responsible for the rates continued decline.

                  Plus, TANF is only the cash part of welfare benefits. There is still Food Stamps, Medicaid, Section 8 housing, public housing, free child care, crazy checks, etc,

                  The Great Recession made a large impact on welfare spending. In a 2011 article, Forbes reported, “The best estimate of the cost of the 185 federal means tested welfare programs for 2010 for the federal government alone is $717 billion, up a third since 2008, according to the Heritage Foundation. Counting state spending of about $210 billion, total welfare spending for 2010 reached over $920 billion, up nearly one-fourth since 2008 (24.3%)”—and increasing fast.[46] The previous decade had seen a 60% decrease in the number of people receiving welfare benefits,[15] beginning with the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, but spending did not decrease proportionally during that time period. Combined annual federal and state spending is the equivalent of over $21,000 for every person living below poverty level in America.[47]

                  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_programs_in_the_United_States

                  As I said above, I am not sure that merely cutting out the government benefits available would reduce the illegitimacy rate, and that is why I advocated other steps to dry up the funds available to women who produce illegitimate kids. And legal steps outside of just financial disincentives, such as prosecuting women who have children that they can not support.

                  That is because trashy behavior is quite often passed down from generation to generation. Trashy behavior predates welfare programs. Sheeesh, just read about the trashy behavior among white immigrants in New York City during the 1800s. Today, however, If a black girl grows up in a household with several baby daddies, and a whorish mother, then it is more likely that she will also be trashy and whorish and under educated. In other words, trashy behavior is like weeds, and there are going to be weeds no matter what you do.

                  But, if you water and tend to the weeds, they will be worse. For about 30 years, the government watered the weeds, and fertilized them, and played New Age Music to them. Then with TANF, it got a little more stingy with the cash. But the other benefits continued. I am not sure how much of the $21,000 to each person below poverty level (I assume this also counts kids) above is lost to overhead, and how much gets thru net to each person, but it still must be pretty large, and at least enough to insure that poor black women are grossly overweight.

                  Squeeky Fromm
                  Girl Reporter

                  1. Total fertility rates haven’t changed in 40 years. The share of births which are illegitimate continued increasing until about 2010.

      2. Minneapolis a hot bed of racism and Jim Crow???? What????
        You do know Minnesota is A progressive, delusional, blue state that whites would be most likely apologize to, if they were raped or robbed by a black ‘underprivileged’ person.

        1. No, that can’t be right. For the Liberals and their House Negroes teach us that these kind of problems are a direct result of slavery, racism, Jim Crow, and White Privilege! Therefore, and follow my logic here, if Minneapolis’s black illegitimate birth rate is 84%, or 12 points higher than the national average, then ipso facto and corpus delicti, these things must have been much worse in Minneapolis as compared to Shreveport where the black illegitimate birth rate is a mere 75%.

          I bet we just aren’t getting the full story on Minneapolis and all the slavery that went on there. Because it sure couldn’t be that more Liberal whites cause more black illegitimacy, now could it? Why, a thought like that could turn the world upside down.

          Squeeky Fromm
          Girl Reporter

    2. The illegitimacy rate is 40%, not 72%. It was around 20% in 1980, then the homicide rate was double what it is today.

        2. Strange as it may seem to you, non-blacks commit 1/2 the homicides in this country.

          1. DSS, she’s talking about illegitimacy rates, not homicide. I know you’re embarrassed with your comment that it is 40%, but you don’t cover up your mistake by trying to change the statement.

          3. In other words DSS, 13% of the population commits 50% of the homicides.

  5. For the life of me why do we even go through this charade. These people pour thier hearts out and it has no impact on the sentence. What’s the good remembering your love one in front of the animal who viciously took them from you. Do you really think he or the judge cares. Administer the full sentence quickly and have done with it.

    1. I suspect it’s to shame the judge, prosecutor, and public defender. State legislators have over the years undertaken a set of measures to constrain the capacity of legal professionals to rubber-stamp travesties.

  6. The kid does have one of those unfortunate faces that has a base look of goofy, mouth open, appearing to laugh at anything. Add to that the realization that he will probably be doing twenty hard years in prison, and what you get is a face illustrating sniveling denial. The stark reality is that this mutt, his friends, parents, mentors, have absolutely no worth. They should play this tape at every parole hearing.

    1. issac – the big question will be will he still be smiling when he is someone’s bi**h?

      1. If you want to call it smiling or just bewilderment fused with a pathetic stance.

    2. They perceive that they have no worth. Can you even imagine going through life believing you have NO worth? What, then, becomes your moral compass? Why can’t you flaming liberals answer that question????

    1. Mespo,
      I used to be for the death penalty until I finally knew someone who was actually murdered. It was first degree murder in which this scum drowned my friends sister. What changed my mind was how the murder affected my friend and her family and I realized that killing the scum was not going to bring her back and more importantly, make her and her family feel better. Now, after saying that, I in no way believe these scum should have the luxury that they have in prison. They should be spending a lifetime of hard work supporting the institution that they are in.

      1. Yeah, but then what happens when you wind up with millions of criminal scum in the prisons? Like we have now. Most of them have only gotten worse during incarceration, and if you let them out, you will have Hell to pay for it.

        Plus, if we swiftly executed these vermin, and didn’t spend 20 years or more in bullsh*t legal maneuvering, we might actually see some deterrent effect. If you think that the threat of imminent death doesn’t work to some degree, then see Duterte.

        And to heck with this lethal injection crap. Raffle off places on a firing squad, and you’ll have plenty of people quite willing to pop a cap in these thugs, and make a little money to boot!

        Squeeky Fromm
        Girl Reporter

      2. I agree it gives no solace to the families. It just reaffirms our society’s valuation of of innocent life. There is good in that, too.

        1. Mespo, Our society’s valuation of innocent life has been well documented throughout Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Is it 1,000,000 collaterally killed or 2,000,000?

          2. Our society’s valuation of innocent life has been well documented throughout Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Is it 1,000,000 collaterally killed or 2,000,000?

            1. It hasn’t been documented.

            2. I realize peace-and-justice types fancy their favored victim groups have no agency, but it isn’t true.l

  8. The jackass shoukd have gone to trial. I’m not sure he deserved a decent lawyer, but the judge should have reprimanded the lawyer, too.

    The jackass will only be 40 when he first comes up for parole. Plenty of time for him to wreak more havoc. I hope he has to stay in for the whole 50 years. At least he’ll be 67 by then. But the sentance wasn’t nearly long enough. It should have been for life without parole. I am against the death penalty for philosophical and practical reasons, but if I were going to make an exception it woukd be for this lousy pretense of a human being.

    1. The problem with a trial is that you might get a Black Lives Matter type idiot on the jury. I watched a show a few weeks ago, like Dateline or 48 hours or something. It was a show on NCIS cases. Anyway, these three black savages car-jacked a black dude, and tried to kill him IIRC, and then attacked a white couple out on a date and killed both of them for the fun of it.

      When one of the monsters went to trial, the evidence of guilt was overwhelming, and it was 11 to 1 to convict him of murder. The single holdout was a juror who thought it was wrong to put one more black man in prison. The other 11 jurors worked a deal with the idiot holdout, and the dude just got a kidnapping conviction.

      So, there is always that risk that a monster will walk free if there is a trial. I think the other two perps went down for murder.

      Squeeky Fromm
      Girl Reporter

        1. True. But they do happen. And part of being smart, is trying to figure out if there are trends, and if so, where they are taking us. For example, the whole “mass incarceration” thing started out as stupid, but it is gaining “speaking time” among people IMO. Same with the silly Black Lives Matter nonsense.

          Sooo, is this a new trend?

          http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/8/lawyer-black-jurors-should-refuse-convict-blacks/

          Squeeky Fromm
          Girl Reporter

    1. Most common color for the coveralls worn by those detained. The only difference was Prisoner for already convicted and Defendant. Not everyone got a brand new suit and tie especially from a pro bono lawyer.

      1. Those giving the victim impact statements were also wearing orange. Hope they didn’t get picked up because they were thought to be detainees.

  12. There was no comment from the judge on how disengaged the defendant’s lawyer was. Why didn’t he jump on him, too?

    1. The attorney should have sought a gag order, to gag his his own client.

    2. By all appearances the lawyer is a late-middle-aged public defender who has sat through hearings like this scores of times.

    3. The pair of women giving the ‘victim-impact statement’ showed up in T-shirts and jeans. I do not understand some people.

Comments are closed.