With today's announcement of Donte Stallworth reaching a plea deal on his DUI/Manslaughter charges, a significant amount of people are up in arms trying to make a comparison to the Michael Vick situation. The fact that Stallworth is only going to serve 30 days in jail has somehow drawn people to make the leap that "human life is being valued less than dogs." This is a terrible inference to draw and is highly inaccurate.
First...it is difficult to analogize being prosecuted by the feds and being prosecuted by a local prosecutor. The DOJ convicts at roughly a 98% rate. They are out for blood. Local prosecutors are not quite as focused as the feds are. Vick wasn't prosecuted because he happened to kill a few dogs. Vick helped fund and was involved in a sophisticated, high-dollar, multi-state organized crime ring. Vick's initial charges were brought up under RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.) He wasn't just out shooting Fido.
Conversely, Stallworth made a horrible error in judgment that resulted in the death of a human being. But, the statute his charges were brought up under are specific to alcohol. So...if you or I were driving and hit someone in the exact same situation as Donte did, but were sober, we wouldn't be facing the same charge (if any.) So, it hinged on alcohol being the cause for the accident. But, the victim was not in the crosswalk at the time of the accident, putting some comparative fault on his shoulders. Now there was a question of fact as to whether or not the alcohol was the cause of the accident. Just because Stallworth was drunk does not mean that he deserves to spend a significant time in jail for an accident that may have happened had he been sober. The comparative fault is huge here.
Not to mention intent. There's a big difference between a guy who has too much to drink and tries to drive home and takes a life and someone who makes the decision to operate an illegal operation and cruelly kill animals with his bare hands. It isn't a situation of valuing animal life over human life, rather the state of mind of the individual. Clearly, a family losing a father, husband, son...is much more egregious than the loss of an animal. But it is the manner in which the death came about that makes the situations different, and the punishments fit the crime. Stallworth would've been on the hook for a large wrongful death suit with a lower burden of proof than his criminal trial had he not settled (and wisely done so prior to his day in court.) The settlement is rumored to be in the vicinity of $5M, so he didn't get off lightly.
That said, I'm not ready to crucify Mike Vick anymore. I was one of the more vocal critics when he was initially convicted and still am appalled at what he did. But, he's done his time and deserves a second chance.
Speaking of second chances...as much as I want to, I just can't get behind the whole Plaxico Burress prosecution. It reeks of a witchhunt. While I should be loudly cheering (after all, Plax has kept a national championship ring off of my finger and denied my favorite team in all of sports the greatest season ever) for this guy to be put behind bars, it's nothing but a publicity ploy by NYC. There's no way that the average Joe would be facing this level of scrutiny over Burress's crime. Plax should miss a few games (time served from his NYG suspension) and then be back on the field after a wake-up call.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
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5 comments:
The legal process failed because Stallworth has a lot of money and was able to buy his way out of this. If this was the average citizen who does not have millions of dollars at their disposal, the Reyes family would sue them for everything that they own, after they served much, much, much more time than 30 days in jail.
The bottom line is that he killed someone and got away with it. It will cost him millions, but he got away with it.
BS- I just can't agree with you here. While Stallworth's assets certainly helped in that they were able to reach a (collectable) pre-civil litigation settlement, which likewise aided in the ability of the judge to accept the plea agreement without having to deal with contest from the family of the decedent, that's the extent of what mattered.
The larger issue is fault. In this situation, there's no proof that even if Stallworth were sober, the accident wouldn't have occured. He wasn't driving egregiously (10 over is common, and was the flow of traffic at that time) and there's no link between his drinking and the accident. The decedent was at fault as well and assumed risk by crossing outside of the intersection. It was a busy six-lane road in a high-traffic area. Florida has comparative fault here. There were serious holes in the prosecution's case, and IMO Stallworth paid a heavy price (30 days + approx. $5M) for making a poor choice that ultimately wasn't the cause of this man's death.
If it was the average man, the family would sue for wrongful death, likely not win (althought he burden of proof in that case would be only preponderance of the evidence, which is much lower, so maybe they would win) and then not collect. Especially in Florida. Either you or I would get a similar deal Stallworth got, if not charges dropped outright because of failure to prove a crucial element of the crime. If we were sober, likely we'd just face the civil suit.
Legally, the system worked here. Imagine this scenario: Say Bobby gets drunk. Bobby gets in his car, is going 10 over, but remarkably is aware of his surroundings and not driving recklessly. Bobby has the right of way, goes through a green light and BAM! Gets crushed by Timmy. Timmy is stone cold sober, but ran a red light. Timmy dies. Because Bobby is drunk, and driving, and speeding, should Bobby be put in jail for Timmy's death?
Geez, Big D, are you going to law school? You've got a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo going on there.
So you don't think that Stallworth would have gotten the 15 years in jail, if this had gone to trial and he was found guilty?
This sums up pretty much how I feel about this case:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/lopresti/2009-06-17-lopresti-stallworth_N.htm
I've been known to attend a law school class from time to time...
That's a fine legal argument that's pretty much bullshit in the real world.
He was driving drunk and speeding.
He had the "presence of mind" to flash his headlights at his victim...that's a much better reaction than braking. He's either the world's shittiest and stupidest driver or he was wasted and ran over a dude.
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