Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
10,754 posts, read 23,832,257 times
Reputation: 14671
Advertisements
Quote:
Originally Posted by ;
SALEM — Essex County prosecutors will meet Monday to begin the process of preparing for parole hearings for nine convicted killers whose life sentences without parole were wiped away by the state’s highest court on Tuesday.
The nine, who were all teenagers under the age of 18 at the time of the murders, were made eligible for parole in the Supreme Judicial Court’s decision. Two others, convicted since 2007, will also someday get a chance at parole.
Now, decades after families of victims were reassured that their loved ones’ killers would never see the outside of a prison, District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett’s office is facing the prospect of tracking down those relatives to give them the news.
“Massachusetts prides itself on being enlightened on victims’ rights,” a clearly frustrated Blodgett said yesterday. “And yet this decision comes out on Christmas Eve day? That’s a pretty tough, bitter pill to swallow for victims’ families who thought that these cases had been put to rest.”
I know one of these guys who then 16 and now aged 37 will be up for a parole hearing. At age 16 he courted a girl I went to high school with, she turned him down then he took a swing at her head with an aluminum baseball bat. He took away her future, why should he be able to have one? This is a betrayal and injustice upon the families who are reliving this nightmare over again.
This is the problem... Our justice system makes being a criminal easy , fun , and non punishable. Being in jail you get free food , water, clothes, education , medical , dental , cable tv, books, and the lights never go out. It is almost a luxury to be a criminal .
If this country wants to change or actually do something about violence , and ALL violence this is where they need to start.
Not fun unless you are slinging crack. Then you get thirty years man min. Hell you whack a girl in the head with a bat no big deal. Justice system is what it is but it's messed up. I say bring back chain gangs........put those fuggers to work instead of sitting around lifting weights and playing gang banger. Give em some shovels to clean up some snow at government buildings for Lord's sake. Ah but liberals will say that is inhumane. Whole country has gone insane.
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
10,754 posts, read 23,832,257 times
Reputation: 14671
Quote:
Originally Posted by KUchief25
Not fun unless you are slinging crack. Then you get thirty years man min. Hell you whack a girl in the head with a bat no big deal. Justice system is what it is but it's messed up. I say bring back chain gangs........put those fuggers to work instead of sitting around lifting weights and playing gang banger. Give em some shovels to clean up some snow at government buildings for Lord's sake. Ah but liberals will say that is inhumane. Whole country has gone insane.
Inhumane my ass, and I usually lean left but not when it comes to life and death and how the victims were treated at the hands of these killers....
Quote:
Eligible for parole These are some of the teen killers who could win parole following Tuesday's SJC ruling.
Alfred Brown of Topsfield was 15 when he shot his parents, Wilfred and Yoshika Brown, and his sister, Dorina, shortly after his mother asked to see his report card in January 1978. Brown used a rifle his father had given to him as a gift to kill them all in the family's home.
John Jones was 17 when he and a 16-year-old co-defendant planned to rob and kill Donald Pinkham on "Dead Man's Way" in Gloucester in October 1982. Pinkham was burned and bludgeoned with a rock during the attack.
Jose Tevenal was 16 when he took part in the robbery of a Lawrence cab driver in February 1985. After being handed some money by the cab driver, Tevenal fired six shots into the driver's head, killing him.
Joshua Halbert and John Nichypor were teenagers who, along with a third teen, Kevin Pierce, went to the Gloucester home of 38-year-old David McLane in September 1988, with the intention of "rolling" him because of McLane's sexual orientation. They beat him and slashed his throat.
Richard Baldwin was a 16-year-old who had recently moved from Groveland to Peabody when he asked a friend to help him persuade Beth Brodie, 16, a girl he'd dated a few times, to go out with him again. On Nov. 18, 1992, Baldwin entered Brodie's home in Groveland, then attacked her with a baseball bat, striking her twice in the head.
Jamie Fuller was 16 when he lured his girlfriend, 14-year-old Amy Carnevale, to the rear of the Memorial Middle School in Beverly, where he stabbed her, slashed her throat and stomped on her head in August 1991. He then enlisted friends to help him dump Carnevale's body, weighted down with cinder blocks, in Shoe Pond.
Christopher Berry was 16 when, after a night of drinking and drug use, he was kicked out of his family's Saugus home in 1987. He broke into the home of a neighbor, an 87-year-old widow, and stabbed her multiple times. Before he left, he put out a cigarette on her forehead.
Compiled from court decisions and newspaper accounts.
They aren't going to automatically receive parole, they are just eligible for it now. Teenagers should not be given the death penalty or life without parole, because their brains and ability to understand the consequences of their action, either for themselves or others, are not at the same level as adults. We won't let them enter into contracts for this reason. If their decision making skills are so poor that we won't let them buy a car, we are obligated to understand that their decision making skills aren't the same when under a lot of emotion too. There is a reason why teenagers are more likely to commit suicide over a breakup than adult. Unlike most adults, teenagers can often be rehabilitated. I'm not saying they should get parole, only that the option should exist. I agree they should be punished and it should be significant, but they also are capable of turning their lives around. The story of novelist Anne Perry is interesting one on this subject. In the United States she would have probably received life without parole if the state had it.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
