NY woman who fatally shoved singing coach, age 87, is sentenced to more time in prison than expected
apnews.com
A New York judge sentenced a woman who pleaded guilty to fatally shoving an 87-year-old Broadway singing coach onto a Manhattan sidewalk to six months more in prison than the eight years that had been previously reached in a plea deal.
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This fella....just 4 years for killing someone and you still want to white knight here?
He's not being a white knight towards this specific woman.
He's raising the topic of what is best for society.
I agree with his point. Law and order doesn't exist to punish people or to get revenge. It exists for the benefit of society. And putting people in jail, making them unable to contribute to society and becoming a permanent burden on society is bad for society. It doesn't do any good.
Frankly, I think it's better for society to just bring back the guillotine if we aren't going to rehabilitate.
You're assuming four years in prison won't allow her to rehabilitate. It very well might.
We have the data for this that it won't. The US doesn't have rehabilitation programs. We have punishment programs. We don't really provide tools for people to improve their lives when they're out. If anything, we do the opposite. If you have a criminal record of any kind, getting a job is significantly harder, which pushes people into illegal work again.
We have the data that it LIKELY won't, but that just means we need to do better with our prisoners and rehab programs. It's not an excuse to let someone who killed someone right back onto the streets.
Are other countries with better rehab programs letting manslaughter convicts out in less than four years?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_Swedish_law
Apparently in Sweden you get 6-10 for manslaughter.
Looks like it'd be this one, so yeah they are more lenient:
Causing the death of another (Vållande till annans död, literally 'causing another's death'). It roughly corresponds to negligent homicide or involuntary manslaughter. The law reads: "A person who causes the death of another person through negligence is guilty of causing the death of another and is sentenced [...]" The punishment for Vållande till annans död is:
A fine (day-fines) if the crime is petty,
Any prison term up to 2 years, or
Any prison term between 1 year and 6 years "if the offence is gross".[2]
We're talking about voluntary manslaughter. "Drap" or whatever. That's 6-10 in Sweden.
That requires intent. I'm pretty certain intent can't be implied in this case. She pushed her and she fell, but was old and frail and died. She did not kill her on purpose. It's involuntary.
That's exactly the manslaughter part. She voluntarily shoved her, which is a crime, with the unintended consequence of homicide.
If she intended to kill her, that would rise to murder.
We're talking about a different nations laws and it's defined differently. I'm done if you aren't going to read the details of the thing you literally posted. Read the things it links to.
Yes, the thing you and I both read: "A person who causes the death of another person through negligence"
Shoving someone on purpose is not negligence. It's a voluntary, intentional act. Hence, voluntary manslaughter, in Sweden called Dråp.
Voluntary manslaughter state of mind requirment:
If you accidentally kill someone without intent, it isn't voluntary manslaughter. If someone pisses you off and you intend to kill them and you do, then it is. Pushing someone and then ending up dead is not that most likely. The intent was not death most likely. It was injury.
That's murder. Listen man, you obviously never studied criminal law, just read the wiki on manslaughter. The whole point of voluntary manslaughter is you intentionally assault someone but didn't mean for them to die. If you did something negligent, (make a turn in a car without looking) and kill someone, that's involuntary manslaughter, aka negligent homicide.
I ‘m sure it has nothing to do with her being a white rich woman
I see a discussion about rehabilitating everyone or guillotining everyone. I don't think there's any need to mix race into these extremes.
It's true though. I have a family member who is a white woman that has repeatedly crashed her car into buildings while trying to run people down, fractured skulls with hammers, thrown people into oncoming traffic. She's just got a bad temper. Nothing ever happens to her. Cops talk people out of pressing charges, she's never even spent a night in jail.
Wait, but the NY woman did go to jail, didn't she? I don't think anyone was suggesting here that she shouldn't have been sentenced.
Where did you get 4 years? Plea deal was for 8, judge added 6 months to that.
This isn't a rebuttal against what you're saying overall btw, just a correction on the 4 years. 8.5 years still seems too short.
The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world by a large margin. How do you see that as acceptable? We have a culture of revenge and it doesn't do any good. Shouldn't the purpose of laws be to do as much good as possible, not to make people feel nice because they got revenge?
There are people doing more time than her for having weed on their person or passing a bad check to buy groceries or pay rent. Let's start there, not with people who kill old ladies because they're mad about being asked to leave an establishment that is closing.
We need to reform the system completely. Saying we need to start with only one crime is being shortsighted. It's all fucked, and it's fucked so some people can profit off of it. I agree those people serving more time is worse, but it's a symptom of a rotten system, not something we can fix one case at a time.
System reform doesnt start with the crimes you feel morally okay with. It starts with systemic issues.
I mean.. yeah.. but I don't think you're going to get far arguing that violent people who kill old ladies for sport should be given less time. You'll win more hearts and minds with literally any other type of crime (except those against kids). She is an example of someone who does need to be separated from society, for the safety of vulnerable people.
You think this was a sport killing?
It was classed by the court as first degree manslaughter. She got angry, threw food, was "storming" down the street, saw an old lady on the other side of the street, called her a bitch, crossed the street and killed her, to placate her own rage. Yes, I would call that sport killing. It would be slightly different if the woman just happened to be in her way, but she wasn't. She saw a target, made a decision, changed course, and killed her to meet her own emotional need. If she had been in a car and done this there wouldn't be a question (unless of course the lady had been protesting something at the time, then game on!).
Thats.... a wealth of assumptions. What youve detailed assumes a ton about the motive, but you didnt even detail a sport killing. Killing someone "to meet an emotional need" isnt killing for sport.
Youre also assuming that she knew pushing the lady over would be lethal, and that she started an argument with the express intent of justifying lethally shoving her.
She was drunk, bud. A drunk person incorrectly assuming a passer by is insulting them in some way and starting a fight over that assumption is so common its a writing stereotype.
Angrily starting a drunken argument on the street and then getting violent isnt killing for sport.
And, like.... yeah if she had a murder weapon it sure would be different. If she had done it sober at 8 in the morning it would be different too.
E: it feels kinda dumb the say "thats not killing for sport" without saying why. Sport killing is killing for the fun of it. Like, intentionally hunting someone down and killing because you enjoy making someone die. Theres no evidence publicly available that she shoved the victim because she wanted to kill her, for the purpose of personal enjoyment.
There are better ways to bring down incarceration rates than to go easy on casual murderers.