OT Burress: Two Years in Plea Deal (merged)

[PatsFanSince74]

Oh, yeah the death of person is just a minor difference in the cases.

I can't help but think that had Stallworth been sober he might not have killed the guy. But, alas, he wasn't.

no, you've caricatured my position so you could make a rhetorical point. i think i went out of my way to say it was a tragedy. my point was that under the law there were circumstances that differentiated the two cases. burress tried to game the system at every step of the way. stallworth faced his crime from the moment he committed it; his blood alcohol level was over the legal limit, but wasn't in the zone that suggests he was obscenely drunk. i am familiar with the road on which this accident occurred; especially at dawn, someone running across the street in dark clothing, outside the crosswalk would be in danger from any driver, drunk or sober. that doesn't excuse Stallworth's actions, but i think the judge took that into account when he handed down the sentence. what happened was terrible and yes, we will never know if the guy would still be alive if Stallworth had been legally sober.

as for drunk driving, i am completely intolerant of it, never get in a car with even one beer or one glass of wine in me and wish the laws were much more stringent (including for cell phone use and texting while driving, but that's another topic). in this instance, i was commenting on the applicable laws and the relative behavior of the defendants in each case.

 

[Bobs My Uncle]

no, you've caricatured my position so you could make a rhetorical point. i think i went out of my way to say it was a tragedy. my point was that under the law there were circumstances that differentiated the two cases. burress tried to game the system at every step of the way. stallworth faced his crime from the moment he committed it; his blood alcohol level was over the legal limit, but wasn't in the zone that suggests he was obscenely drunk. i am familiar with the road on which this accident occurred; especially at dawn, someone running across the street in dark clothing, outside the crosswalk would be in danger from any driver, drunk or sober. that doesn't excuse Stallworth's actions, but i think the judge took that into account when he handed down the sentence. what happened was terrible and yes, we will never know if the guy would still be alive if Stallworth had been legally sober.

as for drunk driving, i am completely intolerant of it, never get in a car with even one beer or one glass of wine in me and wish the laws were much more stringent (including for cell phone use and texting while driving, but that's another topic). in this instance, i was commenting on the applicable laws and the relative behavior of the defendants in each case.

Understand.

The judge in the Stallworth case is probably a boozer himself

 

[BradyFTW!]

Re: Plaxico Pleads Guilty

I thought it was two years for carrying a unregistered handgun and discharging it in a public place. He is actually very lucky. That bullet could just as easily gone through someone's head as his leg. He is very, very fortunate IMO.

Crap luck would be having a guy dart out in front of your car after you've been drinking. Had Stallworth been arrested BEFORE the accident for a simple DUI and been given an eight game suspension, we'd be saying what crap luck to get an 8 game suspension just for going out for breakfast after drinking that night.

How the **** could the bullet have just as easily gone through someone's head? Please go ahead and try to put together a scenario where a gun is discharged inside his waistband and is "just as likely" to hit someone's head as the leg that it's pointed at and inches away from.

Just because you can think of something worse that could hypothetically have happened doesn't mean that it wasn't crap luck.

 

[PATRIOTSFANINPA]

So you kill and mutilate dogs for a pretty long period is equal to a sentence involving shooting yourself in the leg by accident and you get 24 days for killing a man by accident but shooting yourself by accident gets you nearly 2 years - Only in america does this kind of justice become reality

 

[scout]

Understand.

The judge in the Stallworth case is probably a boozer himself

Some great posts by Patsince74, logical, thoughtful, fair and balanced (sorry Fox).
Note to Patsfan74: Don't bother.

 

[BradyFTW!]

So you kill and mutilate dogs for a pretty long period is equal to a sentence involving shooting yourself in the leg by accident and you get 24 days for killing a man by accident but shooting yourself by accident gets you nearly 2 years - Only in america does this kind of justice become reality

Different states have different laws.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Understand.

The judge in the Stallworth case is probably a boozer himself

no big deal. just curious; i see you live in canada. how do the laws differ in this regard up there (drunk driving, not guns). thanks.

 

[Synovia]

Re: Plaxico Pleads Guilty

How the **** could the bullet have just as easily gone through someone's head? Please go ahead and try to put together a scenario where a gun is discharged inside his waistband and is "just as likely" to hit someone's head as the leg that it's pointed at and inches away from.

THe gun could have fallen, hit the ground, and discharged.

 

[Synovia]

Re: Plaxico Pleads Guilty

Yeah, typically defendants in NYC with Burress' charges don't serve a single day of prison time. The DA wants to make an example of him because he is a celebrity and celebrities apparently don't go to jail enough. In other words, the DA wants to make himself look and feel powerful so he can run for office someday..

Typically? According to whom? From what I've seen, this is fairly typical, and is exactly why they have mandatory sentencing.

 

[BradyFTW!]

So you kill and mutilate dogs for a pretty long period is equal to a sentence involving shooting yourself in the leg by accident and you get 24 days for killing a man by accident but shooting yourself by accident gets you nearly 2 years - Only in america does this kind of justice become reality

Different states have different laws.

The thing is, people will complain either way. If you make every crime have the same mandatory punishment, and have no regard for outside variables and case-by-case facts, people will complain that the punishment doesn't fit the crime and people are being victimized by an overly rigid, impersonal system. If you take specific case-by-case information into account, and allow things like cooperation, contrition, etc. to impact the sentencing, then you get people saying "how could this guy get only X years, when soandso got (less than X) years for doing a worse crime!?"

As with most things in life, there is no solution that would please everyone. I'll even go a step further and claim that most people wouldn't be pleased by any solution. No matter what, they'd always find something to complain about.

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Re: Plaxico Pleads Guilty

How the **** could the bullet have just as easily gone through someone's head? Please go ahead and try to put together a scenario where a gun is discharged inside his waistband and is "just as likely" to hit someone's head as the leg that it's pointed at and inches away from.

Just because you can think of something worse that could hypothetically have happened doesn't mean that it wasn't crap luck.

the bullet ricochets off a hard surface...Burress moves the gun to straighten it out or something and tilts it upwards in so doing...burress is sitting down and the downward discharge becomes horizontal...it's a club, people are drinking a lot, someone trips and falls while dancing, the gun discharges downwards and hits them in the head....someone drunk sees the handle of the gun, grabs it and shoots someone with it...that's just off the top of my head.

are any of them "likely to occur?" not very. have any of them occurred? I'd be willing to bet they all have or close variations...it's why there are laws against carrying concealed weapons without a permit.

 

[Synovia]

Re: Plaxico Pleads Guilty

I notice the laws grow harsher the south one goes in New England--just as the crime goes up. For instance, getting ccw in NH and Maine is easy. In Vermont ANYONE can conceal as long as he's not a felon. No permit required.

Crime wave in Vermont?

Of course when I go in Massachusetts, which is not gun friendly, more people are outlaws. Brockton, anyone?

You don't think that has anything to do with population density? The crime rates go way down once you get to the midwest or deep south.


And, for the record, theres much less gun violence in NYC than in Boston.

 

[Bobs My Uncle]

no big deal. just curious; i see you live in canada. how do the laws differ in this regard up there (drunk driving, not guns). thanks.

Tough for me to say but it's probably much the same here wrt DUI. Legal limits have been reduced and a zero tolerance plan has been implemented to, hopefully, put an end to the stupidity that is DUI. Years ago lenient penalties were in place for serious DUI infractions but that has certainly changed of late. The last MS instance that I can recall saw the driver sentenced to 20. But I believe she was a multi time offender and thus was dealing with other charges as well.

We are starting to have some gun issues but the only ones who carry guns around here are the serious criminals, the hunters and the cops. It is extremely rare for a regular folk around here to arm themself with a gun.

 

[scout]

Re: Plaxico Pleads Guilty

How the **** could the bullet have just as easily gone through someone's head? Please go ahead and try to put together a scenario where a gun is discharged inside his waistband and is "just as likely" to hit someone's head as the leg that it's pointed at and inches away from.

Just because you can think of something worse that could hypothetically have happened doesn't mean that it wasn't crap luck.

I've read more then once, where a cop (you would conclude, considerably trained with firearms) has shot himself in the foot. How the **** could a bullet go thru some one's head, in an establishment where alcohol is being served? Yea, that's a far fetched scenario.

 

[Kontradiction]

Re: Plaxico Pleads Guilty

I've read more then once, where a cop (you would conclude, considerably trained with firearms) has shot himself in the foot. How the **** could a bullet go thru some one's head, in an establishment where alcohol is being served? Yea, that's a far fetched scenario.

Not sure if this is sarcasm or not but typically when the barrel of a gun is pointed towards the ground, the bullet has a tendency to hit the foot/leg of the person carrying it as opposed to the head of someone else that's standing around. Those are just the laws of physics.

 

[Synovia]

Re: Plaxico Pleads Guilty

Not sure if this is sarcasm or not but typically when the barrel of a gun is pointed towards the ground, the bullet has a tendency to hit the foot/leg of the person carrying it as opposed to the head of someone else that's standing around. Those are just the laws of physics.

Do you really think that its highly unlikely that a guy who carries a loaded, unholstered, unregistered weapon in the waistband of his sweatpants, into a club, with the full intent to get "krunked" shoots someone by accident?


The gun was tucked into his SWEATPANTS. Do you really think the chances were good that the barrel was going to stay facing straight down, like in a holster?

 

[Gwedd]

Re: Plaxico Pleads Guilty

Not sure if this is sarcasm or not but typically when the barrel of a gun is pointed towards the ground, the bullet has a tendency to hit the foot/leg of the person carrying it as opposed to the head of someone else that's standing around. Those are just the laws of physics.

Could have been the head of his "little fellow". THAT would have been poetic justice..

Of course, I still love this video:

YouTube - Plaxico Burress On Gun Safety

 

[PatsFanSince74]

Re: Plaxico Pleads Guilty

Not sure if this is sarcasm or not but typically when the barrel of a gun is pointed towards the ground, the bullet has a tendency to hit the foot/leg of the person carrying it as opposed to the head of someone else that's standing around. Those are just the laws of physics.

geez, this is getting way OT, but the key words in your statement to me are "typically" and "tendency"...carry laws are designed in part because the things we expect typically to tend to happen don't always happen the way we expect they will...if he'd had a gun with a safety and if he'd had it in a holster, then i'd be a lot more sympathetic to some of the things being said here, but a Glock stuck in sweatpants is an accident waiting to happen, which of course is what occurred, fortunately with the gun discharging in the way we would typically expect it to tend to discharge and harming only the fool who caused the problem in the first place...but a lot of other things could have happened...

but, hey, how about them Patriots! helluva football team, huh?

 

[PatsFanSince74]

The laws are indeed draconian and that is the issue. By Patsfans' definition, any concealed weapon carrier in any location where there are many people is a "menace" to society. Good gun owners know that even a well-secured weapon in a holster can go off for no reason. It's pretty clear to me that NYC has some over-the-top gun laws.

As far as I'm concerned, licensing is really just a formality. Anyone can get a concealed weapons license. That doesn't make it all of a sudden safer for Burress to walk into a nightclub strapped up. It makes it easier for the NYPD to track him down if he fires it.

From what I understand, most of these cases don't even go to trial. The defendant usually gets a much shorter sentence followed by probation.

I never agree with using someone's life, even a wealthy celebrity's, to make some sort of demonstration- people read about the sentence, say that sucks for him, and forget about it tomorrow. The DA isn't even making a difference.

No, by my definition any weapon carried unsafely is a menace. And, since it is impossible to remove all risk even when a gun is carried safely by a knowledgeable person (as you rightly observe), the point of carry laws is only to reduce the risk, not eliminate it. Living in this city of 8 million people with my wife and two young children, I'm happy that these laws, designed to reduce the risk, are in place, draconian or not. They're fine by me.

I think you're wrong about how the sentencing works in NYC. The DA only cuts deals if s/he is worried about getting a conviction because there is some confusion about the circumstances or if they think they might get a jury that will nullify. I have the impression that two years is the typical deal, but that they'll go lower if the facts might potentially be spun by a good defense lawyer as ambiguous and they're worried about losing at trial as a result. Otherwise, it's 3 1/2 to 15, depending on aggravating circumstances. In Burress' case, since he acknowledged the facts under oath to a grand jury, the deal was the best he could hope for as he would have had to rely on 12 jurors voting unanimously to nullify his crime; not very likely since he'd already confessed under oath.

 

[Kontradiction]

Re: Plaxico Pleads Guilty

Do you really think that its highly unlikely that a guy who carries a loaded, unholstered, unregistered weapon in the waistband of his sweatpants, into a club, with the full intent to get "krunked" shoots someone by accident?


The gun was tucked into his SWEATPANTS. Do you really think the chances were good that the barrel was going to stay facing straight down, like in a holster?

It COULD have happened. But, in this case, the gun fired and it still stayed tucked into his waistband. Now, if it had been a .45 or a .357 magnum and the gun fired, then yes there would be a good chance of the gun shaking loose from the waistband and shooting someone else.