The Michigan Department of Corrections this week disclosed another death of an inmate from the coronavirus but this case had a curious twist. William Garrison died weeks before his parole. What is most remarkable is the Garrison had the choice to leave prison in January with parole but elected the option to stay in prison until September to be released without parole. As a criminal defense attorney, I have rarely heard of an inmate electing the longer incarceration option. In this case, it likely cost him his life. Had he opted for parole, he would not have been exposed to the virus in prison.
Garrison served nearly 44 years of a life sentence for a murder during an armed robbery committed when he was 16 years old.Garrison and two others, ages 17 and 18, entered a home in Detroit only to have the occupant emerge from a bathroom with a gun. Garrison shot and killed him and also shot two other people.
He was given the automatic sentence in 1976. However, in 2016, the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to impose a mandatory life sentence for juveniles.
While in prison he taught himself to read and write and even studied law and became a type of jail house lawyer.
When the judge resentenced him in January to 40 to 90 years, he had already served 43 years and parole was approved. However, he surprisingly declined the parole because he did not want to be under the supervision of the correctional department. He felt that he would not be entirely free. The decision would cost him his life.
When the virus outbreak occurred, he changed his mind since he had had a lung removed as a baby because of tuberculosis. His parole was reconsidered in late March and approved. The prison asked for a waiver from the prosecutor of the 28 days for appeal. However, Garrison died in the meantime from the virus.
“Anonymous says:April 20, 2020 at 9:44 PM
CK07 & TIA have been phkking each other all day nonstop.
Think of the children!
They should get a rubber room and do each other behind closed doors.
This is what happens when they have no wives, children, grandchildren, plants to feed or dogs to walk and no purpose/ reason to live.”
******************
Don’t like it? Scroll.
(What in the hell do you know about their lives?)
BOP means federal bureau of prisons. they have a coronavirus count and update here
https://www.bop.gov/coronavirus/
Sadly, this is what passes for “normal” for a large part of our society:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVLPJdgfIis
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
And then there’s this guy:
“Florida man released from jail because of coronavirus arrested on murder charges”
“The 26-year-old also faces weapon and drug charges.”
By Christina Carrega
April 15, 2020, 10:49 AM
https://abcnews.go.com/US/florida-man-released-jail-coronavirus-arrested-murder-charges/story?id=70161179
You mean he wasn’t an aspiring rapper who was about to turn his life around.
What if he died from the virus outside the prison? And what if he infected other people?
Most of the people being released shouldn’t have been in there in the first place.
Most of the people being released shouldn’t have been in there in the first place.
Rubbish. While we’re at it, people for whom the top count was a drug charge account for about 20% of the state and federal prison census.
We have incarceration to punish people who are transgressive. If they have not been violently transgressive, that’s a reason to house them in a different prison than people who have been. It’s not a reason to refrain from punishing them.
And, like a great many intellectuals, Friedman lived too much in his mind.
My comment refers to most of the people being released. And even with your cherry-picked stats, you can’t get below a fifth. I’ll let your comment about Friedman speak for itself.
My comment refers to most of the people being released. And even with your cherry-picked stats,
The term ‘cherry-picked’ does not mean what you fancy it means.
And, no, you have no data whatsoever on the composition of the population released.
You called it rubbish. You made the charge. The burden is on you.
Yes, I did. Your implication was that drug dealers don’t belong in prison. That’s a normative judgment.
i find it interesting that the Chicago mafia aka “the Outfit” for several decades under the control of Tony Accardo, never allowed drug dealing, even as they engaged in corruption, gambling, vice, protection, murder, etc. But not drug dealing. According to FBI agent Bill Roemer one made man got involved in a drug transaction and they murdered him as punishment for it. In the book mentioned in this article
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-10-29-9511050426-story.html
the FBI decimated the Outfit in various RICO trials in the 80s and early 90s and supposedly it never recovered, eclipsed by the mexican and black gangs that have made quite a bit of money off drugs in Chicago since the feds presumed to fix the organized crime problem back then.
sometimes the cure is worse than the disease?
I’ll give you a head start and you can work from there:
https://time.com/4596081/incarceration-report/
Very few of these 39% have been release. So I believe my comment is not only the antithesis of rubbish. It’s quite a bit more than speculative when one looks at the articles about the pittance of non-violent fellow citizens being freed at the moment.
I do not care what this woman’s moral fancies are.
Of all criminal defendants convicted in this country, about 40% are remanded to state prisons. The rest receive the social work, or they receive time served, or they receive a spell in a county jail. County jail incarcerations are measured in weeks. We do not send people to prison promiscuously, and among those so remanded the mean time served is 30 months. The median is lower than the mean in any skew distribution. The complaint about ‘mass incarceration’ is an objection to incarceration per se. I have no time for such people, and neither should any person of sense.
Well absurd, you certainly do seem to enjoy government when it suits you — with tragic results.
There’s a reason Steve Sailer refers to libertarianism as ‘applied autism’
“The very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism”
Ronald Reagan
The Constitution provides the freedom of substance ingestion.
Every conceivable, natural and God-given right and freedom is provided by the 9th Amendment.
Laws and statutes penalize and deter acts which cause property damage and bodily injury.
Substance ingestion causes neither.
The legality of alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, etc. is hypocrisy and proof of the legality of other rights “…retained by the people” such as
that of substance ingestion.
______________________
Ninth Amendment
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
A lot of years in prison can be a death sentence.
So here’s another problem. The article says he was arrested when he was 16 years old, and that he taught himself to read and write while in prison. How come he didn’t learn to read and write while he was in school??? Heck, I could read pretty well by second grade, and and write too.
Was he the product of a single black mother???
I am curious how he got to be 16 years old and couldn’t read or write.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky, at the risk of dignifying another post of your vivid imagination, the explanation for his illiteracy is in the linked article as follows:
“ He was illiterate when he entered prison as a teenager, a result of falling behind in school due to years of hospitalization for tuberculosis, Peterson said. He taught himself to read and write. He studied the law and hoped to help other juvenile lifers upon his release.”
“Peterson said”. I wouldn’t assign great weight to that.
The story smells for a couple of reasons.
If he’s completely illiterate at age 16, that suggests his schooling wherever he was billeted was so ineffective that over a period of 11 years he accomplished less than an average student accomplishes in 4 years or that a peculiarly impaired student might accomplish in 9 years.
And you’re telling me he had an extended multi-year billet in a tuberculosis sanitorium ca. 1968? Uh, I don’t think there were any operating in the U.S. at that date and I tend to doubt many patients spent more than a couple of years in one. (The choreographer June Taylor spent two years in one; the playwright Eugene O’Neill less than that).
By 1968, drugs such as rifampicin and INH had pretty much emptied the sanitaria of TB patients. It wasn’t until the advent of drug-resistant strains of TB that hospital stays for the condition became long again.
Thank you for the info. But I still wonder if he spent a lot of time in a hospital situation, he wasn’t being taught while he was there. I mean, some Cat in the Hat Books if nothing else.And at some point after hospitalization, he was healthy enough to go out robbing and killing. So there is some lost time there to be accounted for.
For example, where did he live when he was 15? Did his parent(s) notice he could not read and think that could be a problem later on?
And, did he go straight from the gurney to a life of being a hoodlum? There must have been some transition period.
I wish we knew more.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Read Marva Collins account of how elementary schools in Chicago operated when she worked in them.
Squeaky, are we to believe that you descend from a normal, loving family that valued education?
If indeed that was the case, why are you obsessed with noting the failures of less fortunate individuals? It doesn’t make much sense.
The failures of less fortunate individuals would be manifest in their school history, worklife, and household exchequer. Very often, for reasons which are external to the discussion, it would manifest itself in the ordering of that household. People don’t land in prison for violent crimes because they are ‘less fortunate’. They may be less fortunate, but that doesn’t explain their criminal record. There’s a difference between having low levels of human capital you can develop and being impetuous. There’s also a difference between being impetuous and being predatory.
Absurd: some people grow up in warped, dysfunctional environments where even ‘normal’ days would be a horror show to most people.
These circumstances don’t excuse violent crimes. But people coming from those circumstances may have no concept of what ‘normal’ should be.
“ some people grow up in warped, dysfunctional…. But people coming from those circumstances may have no concept of what ‘normal’ should be.“
We know Seth / Peter / Enoch / John / Paintchips / Sybil, Anonymous ^ 99
Tagged, Puppet, Mon, 4/20 0103
I’m Laughing and can’t stop.
Environment matters. So does choice.
I can’t help but notice that CK07 wants to off-load blame on the man he shot to death and you’re itching to blame his mother, his father, and the neighbors. You’ve got a better case than he does, FWIW.
Still, can’t help but notice his sister had a room set aside from him pending his release and pix have been circulating around of his 49th birthday celebration in prison. Somebody cared about him.
Uh, because the failures don’t keep their screwed-up lives at home. Too often they go out robbing and killing and car-jacking and stealing. They end up making more people just like them and end up on welfare, Medicaid and housing vouchers. That is one thing that encourages companies to offshore jobs (greed being the other). The failures, particularly the black ones tend to demolish cities and civilization and even neighborhoods which makes a breeding ground for more of the same. They are like mosquitoes with water hoses.
Plus, we as White people get that this bunch of losers are superior morally to us, and that we should give them reparations and choose them as vice-Presidential candidates, because as People of Color, they are possessed of superior wisdom. These failures are why we as a country can not have nice things.
It is also why Lucy Lawless is being called a racist. Her crime? ” Lawless shared a popular meme that has been doing the rounds on social media that reads: “Whoever said one person can’t change the world never ate an undercooked bat.”
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Reliable sources report that those bats are receiving a gift of $60 Million from Pelosi to reward them for tanking small businesses
One of my peeves about our wretched legal system is that politicians and publics tend to respond to public order problems by first jacking up statutory sentences and then later stripping judges of discretion. The latter is a good thing but the former commonly of dubious value. In a sane world, the first response would be to consolidate local police forces, to increase manpower, to deploy such forces optimally, and to insist they use best practices. The second response would be to reduce the discretion of guild insiders to frustrate the course of justice by replacing punishment with social work. The third response might be jacking up sentences. (IMO, statutory sentences in New York are not systematically weak, it’s just that sentencing rules incorporated in the penal law allow judges a dozen different avenues to avoid imposing those statutory penalties. Penalties for aggravated assault and fraud are the only ones that seem too lenient in the black letters).
Crazy to think he spent 3/4ths of his life in prison for something he did when he was 16. As heinous as the crime was, it was a robbery gone wrong. Reading the link makes it seem even more tragic since it notes he was led to a life of crime due to illiteracy related to his tuberculosis, though he taught himself to read and write and became an in house lawyer of sorts in prison as you note here. And then the combination of tuberculosis and covid took his life.
I’m curious when the parole would end if he were eligible for release without parole in September. Does that mean his release with parole would only place him under parole until September? In either case it’s hard to fault him for not jumping at what he viewed as partial freedom. He’s already spent 516+ months there, before Covid-19 you’d say what’s another 16. His release was based on a 2012 Supreme Court ruling which shows how slow the law can be at times…
To clarify it’s the 2016 Supreme Court decision that made the 2012 one about mandatory minimums for juveniles retroactive
Another 8. Not 16…Need my morning covfefe
Crazy to think he spent 3/4ths of his life in prison for something he did when he was 16. As heinous as the crime was, it was a robbery gone wrong.
There”s a reason felony murder is treated at least as harshly in penal codes as other sorts of homicide, commonly more so. Invading someone’s home with a firearm incorporates a willfully assumed risk. While we’re at it, most homicides involve escalating verbal and physical confrontation among people who are well-acquainted or among people who’ve had too much to drink. Not so felony murder, which is a predatory exercise.
‘Crazy to think he spent 3/4ths of his life in prison for something he did when he was 16. As heinous as the crime was, it was a robbery gone wrong.”
*********************
You got the pity thing backwards. He originally got the same sentence he levied on his hapless victim. Funny no mention of the facts of his “robbery gone wrong” as if that somehow makes it any better.
@mespo Pity is an interesting thing. If I had to choose between 2 lives, one involving 50 years of freedom before being shot dead and one involving 16 years of freedom followed by 44 of confinement while missing a lung I’m pretty sure I’d choose the former. Not saying I can’t feel bad for a man who died nearly 50 years ago while shooting at some kids who came to rob him, but I feel worse for the one who died yesterday having turned his life around as he was an inch away from freedom
CK07:
Your dismissal of a guy who was attacked by a gang and fought back is surprising. That you think age matters is bewildering. How do you know the murderer turned his life around?
@mespo Dismissal is a strong word. I said if I had 2 lives to choose from I’d choose his over the one that just ended. Even if it means dying in a gunfight before the wonders of the modern era. It’s not like Garrison got to enjoy them. Age matters in the sense that Garrison’s victim got to enjoy some semblance of adulthood. Maybe he’d have lived to the ripe age of 95 by now but unlikely. If Garrison killed a child I probably wouldn’t choose to be a child cut down before his prime.
You speak of pity and honestly I pity Garrison more than a man who’s been long gone. As for how I know he turned his life around, that’s impossible to know fully, but he’d earned 7000 good time credits, which you only get for good behavior, he’d taught himself to read and write, and as Professor Turkey notes he made himself an in house lawyer. That seems a far cry from the juvenile menace described, robbing houses in Detroit.
“You speak of pity and honestly I pity Garrison more than a man who’s been long gone.”
*************************
That’s a library worth of unpacking to that line.
How do you know the murderer turned his life around?
The same way you and the rest of us know. By being that age. Recall the wag who said, “Old men do not grow wise. They grow careful”.
Not saying I can’t feel bad for a man who died nearly 50 years ago while shooting at some kids who came to rob him,
You don’t feel bad for him, which is why you speak of him this way.
@this is absurd Xxxxii we know nothing about the 1976 victim other than what is written here. He was a target for the kids to rob and came out of the bathroom shooting so he was shot and killed. If you found out he was a target for robbery because he had thousands in cash from selling coke in the hood I doubt you’d feel sorry for him either. Not saying that’s the case but if others can question Garrison turning his life around you can just as easily question whether the man he killed (who we have next to no information on) 50 years ago was an angel whose loss is felt until this day. Garrison was locked away since 76 based on an automatic life sentence that violates human rights provisions to which the US is a party concerning childhood imprisonments and half the “evolved citizens” here could seem to care less about all of that.
If Garrison’s victim was killed execution style I’d feel worse for him but based on the little bit that we know I can only express so much sympathy. As I said in my opening statement the crime of taking his life was heinous. We know plenty about Garrison and what we do know is tragic. The main issue with my detractors has less to do with the sympathy I’ve shown for the 1976 victim and more to do with the amount of sympathy I’ve shown Garrison regardless of what they’d claim here
@this is absurd Xxxxii we know nothing about the 1976 victim other than what is written here. He was a target for the kids to rob and came out of the bathroom shooting so he was shot and killed. If you found out he was a target for robbery because he had thousands in cash from selling coke in the hood I doubt you’d feel sorry for him either.
You haven’t figured out what an a$$ these chess moves make you look like.
It would never have occurred to me to figure the deceased was a local drug dealer because only a low-single-digit minority of people have anything to do with the drug trade. (Since the deceased was 50 years old at the time – ie born in 1926 – such an assumption would be even more outlandish). The behavior of convicts is commonly not much improved by spells of imprisonment, but, of course, it varies. That he’s going to be trouble on his release is vastly more plausible than the notion his victim had it coming to him, but you need your excuses.
Be agreeable to know the deceased’s name and state in life, but reporters, like you, don’t care about such people. There is no slip opinion floating around from his court case either.
@This is absurd xxxii Not sure if my original reply will ever appear but for starters I never said to assume he was a drug dealer. I said suppose you found out he was. My point was you know nothing about him (and as “outlandish” as you seem to think a 50 year old drug dealer born during the Great Depression may be, the most famous US dealer, Frank Lucas was exactly that before he was arrested in 75) besides his death, gun ownership, and the fact a group of teens seemed to suspect he had enough cash on hand that it was worth robbing him (and weren’t shocked enough to flee when he pulled said gun). This was less than 10 years after the 12th street riot and Detroit was a wild place. He could have been a pilot, firefighter, child abuser, murderer, EMT, small business owner, terrorist, soldier, reporter etc.
I tried researching the 1976 victim long before your post and found nothing. If you have something, a name even please share with the class. That way perhaps we can feel some genuine sympathy in remembrance of a life long gone. Otherwise what you offer is just faux outrage over someone whose life you know nothing about, not even his name. I could feel remorse for a reformed klansman if I knew his struggle to turn his life around. If you feel more sympathy for a man you know nothing about besides his death 50 years ago (no picture, name, occupation, anything) than you do someone who’s life you’re given vivid details on, I think it says more about your lack of empathy for life than it does anyone-else’s.
I never said to assume he was a drug dealer. I said suppose you found out he was.
You’ve already said you were more sympathetic with the convict than with the man he killed. Your hypothetical was to justify that. Please, keep track of your own BS.
@ This is absurd x XXii I said I felt more pity for the man who had spent the last 44 years of his life and died just prior to release, than a man who got to enjoy a full life. Would seem to be BS to boohoo over a man who’s been gone for 50 years that you don’t know anything about. If he was my own kin I wouldn’t want your fake support used to justify your lack of empathy for another death.
than a man who got to enjoy a full life.
Give or take the 26 additional years a man of 50 could expect to live in 1976.
Would seem to be BS to boohoo over a man who’s been gone for 50
Says the man who tells me I lack empathy.
, I think it says more about your lack of empathy for life than it does anyone-else’s.
I’m not spitballing about the deceased’s character ergo I lack empathy?
I can never figure out if you people are fools or frauds.
This is absurd x XXii You lack empathy because you’re using the death of someone you know nothing of in 1975 to justify your lack of feeling over the death of someone who died weeks before his release from a sentence he’d been carrying out since childhood. Your crocodile tears over a man you know absolutely nothing about, dead for generations as you weep not for the one we have an entire article on replete with pictures and links would be the most fraudulent here…
You keep telling me I ‘lack empathy’ and you cannot even reliably read and interpret simple one-paragraph posts. Neither I nor mespo ‘used’ the death of the person in question for any purpose, certainly not the purpose you’ve imputed to us.
This is absurd xiii
A mans life expectancy in 1976 was 69 years. Assuming the man was black, shorten that to 63 years. He may have lived longer, perhaps not. The deceased the article is about did not.
https://www.infoplease.com/life-expectancy-birth-race-and-sex-1930-2010
@thisisabsurd actually it’s worse than I noted.
Life expectancy at birth for African American men extrapolated to 1926 would have been approximately 46. So if your argument is based on life expectancy that the man you know nothing else of could not have lived a full life at 50, you’d be wrong. Doesn’t change the outcome of which life anyone honest here would choose if forced to pick between the 2.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2010/022.pdf
A man 50 years of age in 1976 had a life expectancy of 26 additional years. The deceased was 50 years old, so no clue why you are making use of life expectancy at birth. The CDC posts the period life tables in pdf format for your perusal.
@Anonymous, I am thinking of the children, which is why I’m trying to educate TIA on how it’s wrong to disrespect a man who just tragically died (going on about how the story stinks, and what he’d done wrong a lifetime ago) at his own memoriam. For the record I have all of the above, though the dog died (pre Covid) but even the living need my attention less than this nut, who’s not my type
“ This is absurd x XXii says:
You keep telling me I ‘lack empathy’ and you cannot even reliably read and interpret simple one-paragraph posts. Neither I nor mespo ‘used’ the death of the person in question for any purpose”
This is rich coming from you, as you continue to misconstrue my words in first confusing pity with sympathy, then claiming I assumed the deceased was a drug dealer when I correctly asserted you knew nothing of his character. Mespo brought up the murdered man to point out how I was confused about who to pity. You then piled on insisting I wasn’t sympathetic enough to a murdered man I know nothing about. When my cited posts have merely reflected on the tragedy of the recent victim what other motivation was there to bring up a long since departed here?
As for the cdc site (which actually says his expected life from 50 on would be 24 if white or 22 if non white in table 5-4 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/lifetables/life76.pdf ) you’re arguing semantics. Was it a full life or not? Certainly a more full life than 3/4ths of a 60 year life in captivity due to a horrible mistake as a child. There’s a reason international human rights conventions outlaw such sentences with regard to children. It’s barbaric, but I doubt you’d agree.
This is rich coming from you, as you continue to misconstrue my words in first confusing pity with sympathy,
I’ve misconstrued absolutely nothing you’ve said, and neither has mespo. We’ve simply rendered what you said in terms which made its rank qualities more blatant than you’d like while you’re striking your poses. Your problem is staring at you in the mirror in the morning.
TIAxxxii “ I’ve misconstrued absolutely nothing you’ve said, and neither has mespo. We’ve simply rendered what you said in terms which made its rank qualities more blatant than you’d like while you’re striking your poses”. Right so going to a memoriam about a man who just passed tragically and moaning “what about the guy he murdered 50 years ago?” who you can’t even name is a perfectly normal thing to do? @$$hat check your own mirror as you’re concerned with me.
“what about the guy he murdered 50 years ago?” who you can’t even name is a perfectly normal thing to do
In reaction to what you said, of course it’s normal.
CK07:
This has been quite the “run and gun” battle but this tangent on life expectancy is irrelevant. We are choosing between two stark choices in terms of who to afford some level of compassion. And it really is a zero sum game since, in every sense, the protagonists are the cause of the other’s plight differing only in the directness of the consequences from their actions. TIA and I find the victim infinitely more deserving of compassion given that his life was WRONGFULLY taken away by the other. You find something noble in Willie serving his sentence and sad in his inability to enjoy his freedom due to his choice to stay in the pokey to avoid the ravages of the “virus” in some sort of Mask of the Red Death redoux. Our choices hinge on what we regard as justice versus what you regard as mercy. They are different concepts and conflating them adds nothing to the discussion. In essence you want a merciful end because you believe he’s changed. Perhaps he has, but I see no evidence of remorse or even acknowledgement guilt in his actions. Hence, I believe mercy should give way to justice which frankly was done even though the perp was then age 16. Humans know from their toddler years, you don’t steal and you don’t hurt others. Willie’s disadvantages may have been manifest but they were never justification for an invasion and murder. They aren’t even a satisfactory reason for it. The perceived good of this defendant in doing what he did was to benefit himself and his comrades. That’s not admirable and that’s not laudable — even if he did spend his time getting other perps off.
Mespo the tangent on life expectancy was a diversion TIA chose to focus on after he was aggrieved I justified my choice between who I’d rather be by noting the ‘76 victim lived a full life. As you note it becomes largely semantics. If both died today and we knew anything about the man killed in the robbery I think any reasonable person, myself included would feel more sympathy for the robbed. Here however we know less about him than the first Egyptian Moses killed, and while we can’t extol the virtues of the one Turley’s article describes we know he educated himself in prison, had earned good behavior credits, and took up juvenile justice cases.
We also know he died after a 40+ year torturous journey just before he got to reach his own promised land. Moses he was not, but that’s at least a Greek tragedy if I ever heard one. The other may have been a great family man, and may he Rest In Peace regardless of who he was. This article is not about him, and the one it is about’s story evokes pity, even if he made horrible mistakes early in his life. You’ve said those who get out of prison are more likely to go back than reform, but how many do you know who have been in for 4 decades plus since juveniles that go on to help young inmates with their cases? The figures of Greek tragedy all had their failings, but any human would feel for them when they reached their tragic end or the plays wouldn’t be as revered
As for my character which TIA has sought to degrade for daring to question the authenticity of his remorse for the murdered. I hope he can continue to justify his support of one who spitballs about whether war heroes and beloved family men are below or above the next time he’s wingin his campaign rallies.
To elaborate on the reference to TIA’s hero’s respect for the dead, I present exhibits A & B:
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/ej-montini/2019/06/26/donald-trump-scornfully-implies-john-mccain-hell/1574505001/
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-rally-john-dingell-hell-debbie-dingell-impeachment-vote-2019-12
Have a field day with that buddy & goodnight.
Thanks as always they forget to mention the victim you know the guy or gal in the grave who can’t get time off for a change in the law! And the family that is forever changed with a horrific loss of someone that they love and miss dearly
Tagged, Puppet, Mon, 4/20, 0102
crime and punishment has to concern itself not only with mercy but also truth.
it also has to contend with what average folks think is justice, or not.
some cultures, they say, ranging from Scots to Italians to Greeks and Arabs, won’t let a debt of honor die easily.
some people could wait for 30 years to exact revenge, and they would.
it’s important for the legitimacy of the state, that it not only reckon with the expectations of meek and mild christians who turn their cheeks, but with people who are not so gentle.
I feel no sadness for this fellow. he apparently thrived in prison. some folks do. they are smart, they adjust, they learn the ropes, they make good use of their time. he apparenlty made better use of his life incarcerated, than he did “free”
there is a saying among some prisoners: “three hots and a cot” — ie free bed board and health care in jail.
there are also other examples of people who chose not try for parole, it may be very rare but not unheard of.
they don’t make news like this one.
what happened here, is sometimes called a “back door parole”
any inmate with a long term has to accept this as a possibility and surely this one understood.
Karma is a bitch.
It’s a terrible pity all around.
However, in 2016, the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to impose a mandatory life sentence for juveniles.
Someone once remarked that to make sense of Anthony Kennedy’s rulings on such matters, one thing you had to realize is that in the extended families of appellate judges, unintelligent people are so due to peri-natal accidents. They actually have little palpable experience with common-and-garden unintelligent people. My sister, a lapsed special ed teacher, would have been happy to tell you that the people social work students call ‘developmentally disabled’ may be book-stupid but quite cunning and quite commonly are. The same witless sentimentality applies in regard to criminals below a certain age. Throwing someone in prison for decades may be bad policy, but we do not employ appellate judges to correct bad policy. When our constitution was written, imprisonment was rare. You had fines, corporal punishments, capital punishment, bonded servitude, and exile.
“When our constitution was written, imprisonment was rare. You had fines, corporal punishments, capital punishment, bonded servitude, and exile.”
*******************
That’s true since leaders didn’t want to saddle the productive class with caring for this miscreant class. They also didn’t have welfare to care for them another way.
No, some sort of common provision could be found in most Christian societies, though it may not have amounted to much against the backdrop of total product. If it was less common here, my wager would be because land was plentiful.
That’s true since leaders didn’t want to saddle the productive class with caring for this miscreant class.
Whatever they wanted or not, pre-industrial societies don’t have much margin over subsistence. See some of the interpretations at Colonial Williamsburg. A common penalty for larceny (the example the interpreter used was for stealing bedding from your employer) was branding, right on the palm. A theft at age 20 would follow you for the rest of your life.
He made the right decision with the wrong result. RIP
“As a criminal defense attorney, I have rarely heard of an inmate electing the longer incarceration option.”
I am a practicing criminal defense attorney, but I am a street lawyer, not a white-collar or political type criminal attorney. I see a not-common, but a still realistic, minority of people who would rather do more time up front rather than risk violating probation later.
One not under supervision can choose to move and change homes, or states, without requiring the permission of the Courts. In Shawshank Redemption, Morgan Freeman’s character recognized in himself that he could not survive well outside under supervision, but he also recognized that he could leave without the state looking hard for him as a violator. Some clients would rather know that they have finished their time and can choose to be free to do what they want, so long as they remain on this side of the law, rather than always looking over their shoulder.
Now for news you can use about the over-hyped Wuhan Virus and the real mortality rate: https://www.foxnews.com/science/third-blood-samples-massachusetts-study-coronavirus?utm_source=whatfinger
Yes but this is among people who are out and about in a pandemic. One would think their more likely to have it than the average person who is staying at home during this. That’s not to say the death rate doesn’t need adjusting one way or another but at the same time there are a number who die at home that aren’t accounted for as covid victims which is why New York adjusted their numbers much to trumps dismay.
Finally you’ve got countries which practically border each other like Germany and Italy, and have similar infection rates, yet the death rate in Italy is somehow 6x that in Germany. It would seem the death rate is tied more to the exposure level than just any exposure. So if you get exposed to a bit of the virus on a package or in passing you’ll likely show some antibodies. If you’re working in a hospital or prison and are constantly subjugated to it, it may get the better of you regardless of underlying health. And before anyone gets the good idea to join the protestors remember
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/philadelphia-threw-wwi-parade-gave-thousands-onlookers-flu-180970372/
CK07:
The point is the exposure is older and more widespread which means the death rate is overstated by orders of magnitude and this now becomes just a run of the mill SARS-virus over-hyped to Black Plague status by the Chicken-Little class aided by their apparatchik fools with press credentials. They ‘ve done unimaginable harm to people and their businesses and will never answer for their offense.
Garrison was right. The parole monitoring stuff is pretty much a money racket for state and Federal governments. And a joke.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
The utility of parole is that it gives a convict an incentive to respect prison rules.
My own bias is that when a prisoner is due for parole, the state department of corrections would convene a six-man parole jury composed of field employees of the prison system selected at random (with people with < 2 years experience and people who've been posted to a given institution during said prisoner's stay there excluded). The jurors would each be given a dossier delineating the prisoner's disciplinary infractions, but with all the identifying information removed and given a few hours to deliberate. A 4-2 decision would suffice to grant parole.
I think the problem now is that parole boards are commonly composed of politically-connected professional-managerial types, who either know nothing of convicts or who have a patron-client attitude toward them. They also put conditions on parole that promote dissembling by convicts and not much else. The degree of obedience a convict offers to state employees is a better indicator of his fitness for the life outside, IMO.