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this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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US Authoritarianism
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One: 65 years, while long, is not "multiple life sentences." Two: The 65 years was shortly thereafter reduced to 55 years, though I am not finding any details on why. That 55 years was 30 for felony murder and 25 for burglary and theft (???), consecutively. Three: Body cam shows A'Donte Washington charging the officer with a drawn weapon, so this does not appear to be a case of abuse of force. Four: A later court changed those to run concurrently, making it an effective 30 years. In this hearing, the victim's own father made a statement that Smith did not deserve to be charged with his son's death. Five: This screenshot is dated less than a week after the original sentencing.
Other notes: There were five teens involved in this burglary, Smith was the only one who did not take a plea deal. The day before this burglary, Smith and others were involved in the murder of another man. The stolen car used in the burglary came from yet another murder. I have to think it was a difficult argument for the defense to make, that Smith "did not intend to hurt anyone." The prosecution surely had an easier time framing this in terms of "Smith was at least present when someone was murdered the day before [it may have been a short time, hours, since the earlier murder was "around midnight" and I don't see what time of day the later burglary occurred]. He had to know that continuing to commit crimes with the same group of people could end with death, and still pressed on."
Whatever your opinion about this situation, you will be better served by presenting it alongside a more complete and accurate respresentation of facts than this screenshot of a tweet contains.
We need more people like you.
I appreciate this more than you know. Thank you.
Here's another one:
1 you shouldn't be charged with a murder you didn't commit.
I feel like that one is super important here.
A lot of people here are discovering felony murder for the first time.
Also seems to be a lack of understanding that just cause you didn't pull the trigger doesn't mean you didn't help create the scenario where a trigger got pulled.
I'm not sure I agree with all instances of felony murder (like when it's an accomplice who dies), but the general notion is you participated in the events that lead to this person's death.
I think the problem is the sentencing can get out of hand.
In this case 30 years is still more than most other countries would give, but its not outrageous like america usually is.
Based on what I was reading, I think they may have thrown the book at all of them because this was the third incident (possibly murder?) this group was involved in that week.
Yeah and it was appealed down as far as sentencing went. Wild story isnt it. Not what I would choose as an example of a miscarriage of justice.
Lets say I along with a number of others bought drugs from a dude who used that money to buy more drugs to sell and some of those drugs killed someone.
Is everyone that bought from them responsible?
You've got a break in events (going to buy more drugs). However, if you buy someone drugs and they die from them you can be found culpable!
is it possible to fit this level of nuance in a headline?
perhaps reading past the headline is recommended
Have you met people before?
Unfortunately.
Unsurprisingly there's no footage of this other person in that link. Not that that would justify putting an innocent person in a cage.
Why would anyone take a plea deal for a murder that they didn't commit? The real problem here is this scam of forcing people into plea deals by threatening them with insane punishments in a fundamentally unjust system. It's gross when people act like refusing a "deal" is some kind of guilt. It's mostly likely the opposite.
That's irrelevant to the cop murdering this kid.
Even if this were relevant, did this even happen? Your article is from 2016 says nothing about Lekeith being convicted.
More generally it's amazing how "normal" people are brainwashed enough to post this kind of copaganda word salad.
There's no "opinion" here. Teenagers shouldn't be convicted for murders committed by cops. It's that simple.
It's really important to know the details because it's the details that allow us to parse and challenge injustice effectively.
Knowing the context of Felony Murder and how it applies to this sentencing is not saying 'this is fine then, no worries'. Rather, it means we can actually talk about the systematic issues in the legal system that enable things like this.
The comment you replied to was in no way 'word salad' or 'copaganda', it was context.
This is not a trial.
And the wall of text dumped above doesn't make it one, either.
Police murdering someone and blaming others is the discussion. Save the rest for your L2 seminar discussion.
Shooting someone who is charging you while armed is not murder, dope.
Thanks for the context but a court shouldn't be considering things they haven't been convicted for unless it's part of the matter before the court.
Also it doesn't matter if the police shooting was justified. Charging this guy with the police shooting is, and always has been, fucked up.
65 years is 3 life sentences in the normal world. That's not a normal sentence for burglary outside authoritarian countries.
They didn't consider it in the trial to determine his innocence or guilt, which carries a reasonable doubt standard. They considered it at sentencing, which falls under a an abuse of discretion standard. Basically anything can be relevant at sentencing. It's up the the judge to weigh the evidence, and the judge must give appropriate weight to uncharged crimes (probably not much, certainly not as much as convicted crimes). Ever read a pre sentencing report? It's the convict's entire life story. All of it gets considered. Should the court not consider whether someone has a family or deep community ties because they weren't convicted have having a family or deep community ties?
A rigid sentencing rubric that allows no discretion, to me, is the fascist approach to sentencing.
This sentence seems long for the kid's age, but that's Alabama. Vote.
For lesser crimes, I can agree, but felony stuff. I think it should be more rigid.
It's the felony murder rule. You intend the foreseeable consequences of your actions. Police shooting your accomplice in an armed robbery is certainly a foreseeable consequences of armed robbery. It's one of the reasons doing armed robberies is illegal.