[Opposing Views] 16 year old sentenced to 15 years

15 years in prison for robery with an unloaded gun for a minor? wow that is a harsh punishments.

 

Harsh.

 

It's 1 to 15 years, not minimum 15 years of jail. Hence the title is already misleading. Although he should appeal, considering another person involved in the robbery wast sentenced to 180 days too.

 

With a sentence of 1-15 years, he could be eligible for parole in 6 months with good behavior.

 

I don't understand the sentence. Are they leaving it to the jury to decide the duration and that's why it's nonspecific? 1 to 15 years is probably the range allowed by law for the crime he confessed to. It looks to me more like manipulative headlining than a news story of much merit. If he gets one year in the end, it's not orders of magnitude different from the 6 months he was hoping for.

 

What really pisses me off is that he said his judgement was impaired by the use of mar1juana, which is a ridiculous statement. Further it says they were looking for mar1juana. Surely, a person is not going to decide to hold people at gun point because of a J, and even more surely, there must be easier ways even in Utah to get your hands on some weed without having to break into a house and rob people at gunpoint.

 

Obviously, the kid is in the wrong.

The problem I have is that the courts are coming down harder than usual on minors. IMO, I think it's a judge's way of setting an example, but it's clearly the wrong way to go about things.

Here in Phoenix, so many minors are being sentenced for long stays for simple mar1juana possession. No, I don't think underage smoking/drinking is good, but the punishment doesn't fit the so-called crime.

There are parts of society that love this kind of "justice." They're the people I steer clear of.

 

That's just a maximum, no one ever gets the maximum

He will probably get 1 year because he already pleaded and he is a minor with I assume not that much of a criminal history.

He will serve like 6 month and then get out on parole

 

I wonder what he would have gotten . . if he had Affluenza

Rocket River

 

His dads debit card and atm pin number.

 

As soon as I saw this I lost all sympathy for this young manipulative narcissist.

 

Im sorry but if i make a deal with you for 180 days and you give me a sentence nearly 40 times as long I'm fighting you!

now i do agree that 180 days would have been to short but i don't think they should be able to change it once everyone has agreed to it.

 

If i can get a DWI for mar1juana impairing my judgement i should at least be able to use it as an excuse when I rob people... the law can't have it both ways!

 

Not a fan of overturning plea deals although it's probably a decent hedge against bias, collusion or incompetence on the part of counsel, also prefer seeing juveniles released by 21 for non-rape or non-murder. But it did say one to fifteen, and it's armed-ish robbery. There's the threat of violence to the homeowners and the risk of his being shot, so he kind of got off, as it were.

 

Spoiler

He's gon get raped

 

is the death penalty not available in Utah? he can choose, stoning or crucifixion!

overreaction by judge just to make a statement. put the kid under house arrest for 5 years and call it a day.

If not, this kid, like shasta said, is indeed going to get raped, then will probably employ a plot to kill the rapist. Once that is done, he will get life in prison.

On the bright side, he could start his own white gang and traffic drugs through the corrupt c.os

 

Badly. I feel bad for the kid

 

our system creates a harder, more destructive criminal
rather than reforms

Rocket River

 

disappointed in the lack of "thug" in this thread.

personally don't feel sorry for him. as a couple of folks already said... he's serving nothing close to the maximum sentence.