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oliver_babish t1_iyck0h5 wrote

Judges sentence, not juries:

A former Philadelphia police officer was sentenced Thursday to 11½ to 23 months in prison for the 2017 fatal shooting of Dennis Plowden Jr., a conviction prosecutors called the first for an on-duty killing in recent city history.

The penalty fell years below the minimum state sentencing guidelines for the voluntary-manslaughter conviction that a jury handed Eric Ruch in September, leading Plowden’s family members and criminal justice reform advocates to say he got a sweetheart deal. District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office said convictions on identical charges have yielded 5½-to-11-year sentences on average since he took office in 2018.

In sentencing Ruch, Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara McDermott said that he had demonstrated good behavior since he was charged two years ago and she believed a longer sentence would not offer him rehabilitation.

”Nothing he is going to do in prison is going to make him a better person,” McDermott said to a courtroom packed with family, friends, and colleagues of Ruch and Plowden.

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collectallfive t1_iyczop2 wrote

Do you think McDermott says the same thing about non-cop murderers? Or is this sentiment only reserved for cops?

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oliver_babish t1_iyd3jk1 wrote

Here's the first other case I could find:

In 1989, when John Blount was just 17, he was convicted of a double homicide. Blount was sentenced to death, and later re-sentenced to life in prison without a chance for parole. While incarcerated, he started a mentoring program for kids, kept a nearly spotless disciplinary record, and got his GED. He was written up only once, for owning a contraband radio. In 2016, following a series of Supreme Court decisions deeming mandatory life-without-parole sentences unconstitutional for defendants under 18, Blount was made eligible for a resentencing. Before his resentencing hearing in 2018, his lawyer had worked with the Philadelphia district attorney’s office to negotiate a 29-year-to-life sentence. The judge, however, disagreed. “I cannot discount two lives,” said Judge Barbara McDermott after rejecting the negotiated sentence. “I believe in proportionality in a sentence.” Her sentence, 35 to life, will make him eligible for parole at the age of 52. (Blount’s attorney is now petitioning the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to consider the case.)

It used to be unheard of for Philadelphia judges to reject a negotiated sentence in these resentencings—until Larry Krasner, arguably the most progressive prosecutor in the country, took over the city’s district attorney’s office in January 2018 and started delivering on a promise to minimize incarceration. In response, several Philadelphia judges have shut down his attempts to keep people out of prison or release them earlier. Some, such as McDermott, have overruled resentencing agreements.

Second:

Judge Barbara McDermott — who has in a handful of other cases accepted deals for juvenile lifers negotiated by Krasner's administration — has begun to reject some of the agreements she's reviewed.

One was for John Blount, who shot and killed two men as a teenager in 1989. The district attorney offered 29 years to life. On March 26, McDermott rejected that deal and imposed a sentence of 35 years to life, the minimum set by current sentencing law for a first-degree murder by a juvenile. The other was for Omar Dennis, who according to Daily News reports from 1994 shot and killed a man who'd beaten him in a "fair fight." McDermott rejected a 24-years-to-life deal and imposed a 28-year minimum instead.

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SBRH33 t1_iyclhum wrote

the jury convicted on the evidence produced to them

That is fucking hilarious. Krasners entire platform is based on "prison reduction" and "sensible sentencing" and "criminal justice reformation"

But but but but but....

The Judge - a democrat at that, handed down the sentence.

Next will come the race baiting and cries of white privilege bullshit.

Perhaps if Larry's office was filled with qualified prosecutors who knew what the fuck they were doing, then maybe it might have turned out different for team progressive.

Barbara McDermott

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Krasmaniandevil t1_iycuuwt wrote

Where did you go to law school?

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SBRH33 t1_iyd0i6c wrote

Ut'O, here comes the stroking of the Reddit "I'm A LaWyeR" cock.

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Krasmaniandevil t1_iyd0r09 wrote

Why do you feel entitled to assess the qualifications of lawyers without a law degree?

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SBRH33 t1_iyd1qaj wrote

Keep stroking. You'll get there bud.

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Krasmaniandevil t1_iyd1z20 wrote

You don't know what you're talking about, and now you're just being a dick rather than justifying your uninformed opinions.

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