Ohio teen dubbed 'hell on wheels' after killing her boyfriend and his friend in a crash is sentenced to 15 years to life

18-24-61-B-17-17-4@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 554 points –
'Hell on wheels' teen who killed boyfriend and his friend in crash sentenced to 15 years to life
nbcnews.com
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I agree. 15 years is hardly "life" in prison, though. I think it's more than fair.

People change. They get better. The guy who shot Reagan got better, and they let him out. Now he writes love songs and posts them on YouTube, and sells his paintings on eBay.

15 years seems like a perfectly adequate amount of time for that.

I agree that there should be time served, and a significant amount of it. I'm okay with 15 years. This person needs to be set aside from society while we determine if we can help them and, if we can, to do it.

I'd like to know how we arrived at 15 years, though. Would 10 not be enough? If the court had suggested 20 I don't think either of us would have said "But surely it can be done in 15." It feels right but it looks kinda arbitrary and that's interesting to me.

Oh it's completely arbitrary. The only way I can think of making it non arbitrary would be a very long study to see how long was necessary for people to genuinely rehabilitate, but even then, it would be based on their own arbitrary sentences.

Does "15 years to life" mean anything? Or is it just "15 years"?

Means there's a chance they get out on parole at 15 years. So they may end up with a life sentence if not approved, but regardless, she is serving 15 years.

On one hand, yes.

On the other hand, 17+15 is 32. Think of all of the things you do to get your life started between 17 and 32 and where you'd be if you'd waited to do the stuff you did at 17 until you were 32. That's a whole lot of life and life experience there.

Such a stupid senseless waste all around.