Wealthy hit-and-run killer buys his way out of prison

What a horrible execution of justice in that whole affair. Absolutely frustrating. But it isn't as serious of course because the perp wasn't an illegal alien.

 

The most disturbing part of this story, to me, is this:

I guess everyone has their price.

 

Him going to prison does nothing for them, but $1 million goes a long way. Not that I know how much they got.

 

Even so, I'm disappointed. They could have sued him even if he was in prison. Maybe it would take longer and they'd get less money, but there's no reason why a monetary settlement should have anything at all to do with criminal sentencing.

Besides the crooked outcome, why is this judge even presiding? Having the defense attorney in the case also acting as your campaign treasurer is an obvious conflict of interest. She should have recused herself, right?

 

at least o.j. actually won at trial. he didn't plead guilty and get a ridiculous sentence like this.

 

For real.

 

On a clandestine date with his mistress one night, top Wall Street investment banker and snobbish WASP Sherman McCoy misses his turn on the thruway and gets lost in the South Bronx; his Mercedes hits and seriously injures a young black man. The incident is inflated by a manipulative black leader, a district attorney seeking reelection and a sleazy tabloid reporter into a full-blown scandal, a political football and a hokey morality play.

/Tom Wolfe'd

 

Here's my thinking, and I actually started thinking about this a few days ago.
You get arrested and going to be sent to jail for, lets say 5 years. You should be given the option, depending on the type of crime, to go to jail for 5 years or go under house arrest.
For house arrest, you serve 1.2x the length of your sentence and no chance of parole. So, in this example, you serve 6 years. There is a maximum size of the facility you're allowed to be in, maybe 1k sqft. Also, for every year, you have to pay a fee, maybe $100k/year.
Obviously there would be major problems with this. White collar crimes may go up, since the threat of actual jail time would not be relevant. But, this increases revenue for the state, and decreases the prison population.
I donno, it's just a thought.

 

I agree with you. A civil suit should have been how they got their money, and their receiving money shouldn't have to do with criminal sentencing. The guy should have been doing hard time. I understand that this was probably the most efficient thing to do (saves taxpayers money, and helps protect the widows), but that can't apply in a situation that claims lives, in particular with the way this guy disregarded the value of those lives. If this had been his first offense, if he had stopped, called the police, and did the right thing, than maybe this outcome wouldn't have been as egregious.

 

Where is the justice that protects society from this guy doing this again and again? We are now endangered because they couldn't wait for a civil trial to sate their appetite for money.

Justice my arse.