Discussion for article #227172
That’s a good start! The sentence should have been longer. This is not longer the era of the wild, wild west! You can’t shoot first and ask questions later!
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Let that be a lesson. If you want to kill a black person who comes banging on your door, call the cops and let them shoot them.
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Sadly, we need more of these convictions. Just “believing” you’re in danger isn’t a reasonable test of using deadly force. He had a steel door between him and her. He didn’t have to open the door and loud noises convinced him his life was in danger? In Dearborn Heights? I can have NO sympathy for this man.
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The injustice system at work again. If this had been an
African-American who had done the same crime that man would have been sentenced to death. Inequity is the hallmark of our injustice system, so it was, so it will ever be.
Just another frightened guy with a gun.
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But you repeat yourself.
It’s a start.
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Death wasn’t an option for what he was convicted for. You could only get that with first degree murder, and there is no way under the language of that statute that this could be charged as first degree.
The case was charged correctly. Overcharging leads to acquittals (if Zimmerman had been charged with 1st Degree Manslaughter, he would have been convicted.) It has nothing to do with black or white. It has to do with the crime committed.
And once the case was charged correctly, you could only go by the sentencing guidelines. Which they did here.
This is a good outcome.