now i know Florida has horrible ammounts of corruption in its legal structure but this? The East coast version of the OJ verdict? dude? WHAT. THE. FUCK.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
It's Florida, man. what other verdict could they possibly have come up with?
say it with me: F-L-O-R-I-D-A.
But yeah, I cant fathom it any more than you- I've intentionally NOT read anything on this case so I dont know the details: I was in McDonalds yesterday and they had some Court TV thing talking about how the Jury Parking tickets at the trial are going to be major keepsakes and collector items.
Jebus motherfucking Christ. On a pogo-stick.
Really, the murder of a child is reduced to a possible ebay auction, the notion of integrity in televised news is completely over. The "reporter" was even hounding the victim's family as they ate lunch- speculating on "what they could be eating at a time like this".
But yeah, Florida.
But dont look now, there's an even more hideous case on the horizon... I give you... Nancy Novak.
This sweetheart ordered the two hit men she contracted to kill her husband to "cut out his eyes" while she watched. Now she's hocking his passion- the world's largest batman collection- to pay for her defense. Oh, she's also a suspect in the possible murder of his mother too.
Yeah...she'll get off too.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I mean, really. You're crazy rich- hit the Playboy mansion or something. This is like extreme natural selection at play here, wherein terrible life choices thin the gene pool and clog the probate courts.
Posted by WizArtist II (Member # 1425) on :
I had a fellow artist once tell me that "The STUPID gene eventually eliminates itself from the pool" but that isn't true. It reproduces far too quickly.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
So true- and this guy had already spawned so the theory, while desired, does not hold water.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote: Pileggi is accused of shooting Ronald C. Vinci in the head, stabbing him in the chest, slitting his throat, wrapping him in bedding and plastic bags – and then plotting to drop his body in the ocean.
She was held without bond Wednesday.
“This is a brutal, brutal murder," police spokesman Detective Travis Mandell said. "I can’t imagine someone else doing this to another human being."
Yes, even though it keeps happening...always such a suprise. Keeps life an adventure, I suppose.
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
He's dead.....wrapped in plastic...
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
The jury will go for a Self Defense plea- the beaten, shot, stabbed 70 year old, wrapped in plastic and covered in garbage bags with his throat slip was asking for it....
Posted by Pensive's Wetness (Member # 1203) on :
Yes, they passed a law making the state capitol they serve in easier for people to come in and shoot them. Such is the power of the NRA in FloriDuh.
quote:... a law that took effect Oct. 1 pre-empts city and county governments from regulating guns except where the state expressly allows it. That includes the state Capitol, where guns are prohibited only in the House and Senate chambers and committee rooms.
So Capitol Police no longer ask gun owners to secure their firearms. And they’re not alerting the House and Senate sergeants, who are civilian political appointees.
That'll get to FloriDuh in time- Lotto is a the big thing here- it got legalized as a means to bolster Flrida's broke education system by a percentage going to schools...but then the state legleslature decided to reduce the education budget by the projected Lotto contribution, making the budget the same....unless the econemy tanks and the Lotto makes less money.
Then the schools have to run on even less money.
So now teacher's jobs depend on statewide gambling- and parents piss away money on Lotto that they could spend on their children.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Think of the most contrived television plotlines- stuff that shows like Bones or whatever would reject as too implusible and you have the weirdness magnet that is South Florida.
Down here, groups with "Family" in their name is code for "Retards".
We just had our very first Fisrst Degree Homicide aquittal based on the NRA-written "Stand your Ground" law. It's pretty unbelievable.
quote:“Jarkas gave a full confession to Plantation police,” he said in an email. “He confessed he was going to kill my father, his estranged wife and then kill himself.” Concannon said his father was ambushed and held at gunpoint against his will and was seated when Jarkas shot him.
“This man took away my father, a man who served our country in the Navy, a man who has five grandchildren who loved him to pieces,” Concannon said. “He’s gone forever. His murderer is about to walk free.”
Brian Cavanagh, head of the state attorney’s homicide unit, said he was concerned that the Stand Your Ground law would encourage violent ends to confrontations because it removes a citizen’s duty to retreat. Although he did not criticize the judge’s ruling, Cavanagh said juries should be allowed the final say about who is telling the truth when prosecutors and defendants disagree.
“As the law stands, it contradicts the entire purpose behind the justice system,” Cavanaugh said. “It takes the decision out of the hands of the jurors.”
Welcome to the wild west- better come packing when any slob can claim he felt "threatened" and blow you away legally...thanks to the National Rifle Association.
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
So basically what you're saying is that Dexter is an accurate portrayal of Miami?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Maybe a bit tame compared to reality in places.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Do it...for the children.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Fabrux: I.....I.....have no words.
But wait! It gets better. The group that pressured Lowes to remove their commercials- the Florida Family Association (FFA), is a "group" which apparently consists of a single paid employee — its president — and a mailing list of an alleged 35,000 members.
So...one right wing nutter with a mailing list can bully around a multi-million dollar chain of hardware stores.
Damn. We need a mailing list!
Posted by Pensive's Wetness (Member # 1203) on :
Those are just the ones than made national news. we just had a ranting parent's spittle short out a microphone (causing sparks) at a school borad meeting. She's saying the short was intentional and they tried to murder her for daring to speak out on whatever, right there. In front over a hundred people. In a broadcasted , public meeting.
Of course, she's already hired a lawyer...
And just a couple of pages back I posted about the woman claiming self defense after shooting her boyfriend, slitting his throat, stabbing hin dozens of times, wrapping his corpse in plastic and blankets and trying to dump it at sea.
And of course, the state capitol issung taxpayer-funded panic buttons after the leglislature passed an NRA-written bill allowing guns in public parks and public buildings- including the state capitol!
Really, the weirdness magnet is cranked up to thirteen in this state.
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
So, I just found out about this Jorge Saavedra case from /b/. Comments?
Posted by Pensive's Wetness (Member # 1203) on :
Normally id take a 'I could give two fist-fucks' about anything in Florida' but proposing to the woman you love (who has 3 young minions) changes your position slightly. I still sneer in contempt but i also consider just how critical it is to remember to actually parent the minions, almost to point of annoyance to them. Pretty sure FB and other social media will be controlled with a Nazi-like zeal, if only to ensure safety. The whole incident just shows me how shitty alot of american parents are, or can be. I have friends who now reside in central Florida (after moving there 5-6 years ago) because they got sick of the climate here in Ohio but i really hope their kids dont grow up to be retards like a lot of kids do, let alone my own minions...
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Never bring a fist to a knife fight.
quote:Accompanied by several students, Dylan Nuno, a junior, followed Saavedra, a freshman, off the bus. He then punched him in the back of the head, according to court documents and testimony.
Saavedra attempted to get away once, witnesses said. He then stabbed Dylan Nuno 12 times in the chest and abdomen. Two of the blows caused fatal wounds, including one that nicked his heart.
In her decision, signed Dec. 30, 2011, the judge said Saavedra had “no duty to retreat” and was “legally entitled to meet force with force, even deadly force.”
Yep, get punched in the head, stab the guy twelve times- that's "meeting force with force" right? That's "standing your ground" allright- because, hey, that guy might have gotten back up with only eleven stab wounds, right?
I posted on this thread already about this NRA-written Stand Your Ground law that allows anyone to kill anyone else by claiming they felt threatened- and since the law is so vaguely worded, prosecutors dont bother taking a case to trial. The NRA is drafting the same leglislation in other states with their success in Florida as their template.
Might be time to discard my lofty ideals and buy a gun, a concealed permit and maybe some armor.
Also of amusment, the all-Republican state leglislature that passed this law also passed another NRA written law allowing handguns in any public building (exceping hospitals, courthouses and jails). So now capitol police cant even ask about someone's gun-shaped bulge and the lawmakers have, I shit you not, panic buttons in their offices for when that inevitible disgruntled voter decides to make like the old west. That same law allows for guns in state parks, although park rangers do not carry firearms. Last week we had our first (shooting) homicide in a state park in twenty years. Surely a cooincidence.
The NRA also got a law passed prohibiting doctors from asking if handguns are present in a person's home- the idea being that those liberal doctors and psychiatrists cant infringe on Second Amendment feedoms by talking about the dangers handguns pose where children or the mentally ill reside. Talking about such things would result in the forefiture of the physician's liscence. really. For a doctr suggesting gun locks on firearms where children are present- after all, we only have a dozen or so kids accidently kill themselves fooling with guns each year.
By a suprise victory for the ACLU, A state judge has sided with Doctor's First Amendment freedoms over the gun lobby....but Republicans swear to take it (at taxpayr expense) all the way to the Supreme Court.
My home is a surreal and violent place- and almost impossible to explain wihout various internet links to make it semi-believable.
But hey, good weather...that's gotta count for something, right?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote: (CNN) -- Saying he had no discretion under state law, a judge sentenced a Jacksonville, Florida, woman to 20 years in prison Friday for firing a warning shot in an effort to scare off her abusive husband.
Marissa Alexander unsuccessfully tried to use Florida's controversial "stand your ground" law to derail the prosecution, but a jury in March convicted her of aggravated assault after just 12 minutes of deliberation.
The case, which was prosecuted by the same state attorney who is handling the Trayvon Martin case, has gained the attention of civil rights leaders who say the African-American woman was persecuted because of her race.
After the sentencing, Rep. Corrine Brown confronted State Attorney Angela Corey in the hallway, accusing her of being overzealous, according to video from CNN affiliate WJXT.
"There is no justification for 20 years," Brown told Corey during an exchange frequently interrupted by onlookers. "All the community was asking for was mercy and justice," she said.
Corey said she had offered Alexander a plea bargain that would have resulted in a three-year prison sentence, but Alexander chose to take the case to a jury trial, where a conviction would carry a mandatory sentence under a Florida law known as "10-20-life."
'Stand your ground' plea rejected The law mandates increased penalties for some felonies, including aggravated assault, in which a gun is carried or used.
Corey said the case deserved to be prosecuted because Alexander fired in the direction of a room where two children were standing.
Alexander said she was attempting to flee her husband, Rico Gray, on August 1, 2010, when she picked up a handgun and fired a shot into a wall.
She said her husband had read cell phone text messages that she had written to her ex-husband, got angry and tried to strangle her.
She said she escaped and ran to the garage, intending to drive away. But, she said, she forgot her keys, so she picked up her gun and went back into the house. She said her husband threatened to kill her, so she fired one shot.
"I believe when he threatened to kill me, that's what he was absolutely going to do," she said. "That's what he intended to do. Had I not discharged my weapon at that point, I would not be here."
Alexander's attorneys tried to use the state law that allows people to use potentially deadly force anywhere they feel reasonably threatened with serious harm or death.
But a previous judge in the case rejected the request, saying Alexander's decision to go back into the house was not consistent with someone in fear for her safety, according to the Florida Times Union newspaper.
A jury convicted Alexander in March and Judge James Daniel denied her request for a new trial in April.
Daniel handed down the sentence Friday after an emotional sentencing hearing during which Alexander's parents, 11-year-old daughter and pastor spoke on her behalf.
Several people had to be escorted from the courtroom after breaking out singing and chanting about a perceived lack of justice in the case, but Daniel made a point to say that he had no choice under state law.
"Under the state's 10-20-life law, a conviction for aggravated assault where a firearm has been discharged carries a minimum and maximum sentence of 20 years without regarding to any extenuating or mitigating circumstances that may be present, such as those in this case," Daniel said.
Brown, the Jacksonville congresswoman, told reporters after the sentencing that the case was a product of "institutional racism."
"She was overcharged by the prosecutor. Period," Brown said. "She never should have been charged."
Brown has been more complimentary about Corey's work in the Trayvon Martin case, where her office filed second degree murder charges against neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in the February 26 death of the unarmed African-American teen-ager.
That case provoked nationwide protests demanding Zimmerman's arrest after an initial police investigation released him under the "stand your ground" law.
Yep. Nothing wrong with this law at all! This woman, in fear for her life gets 20 years in prison and the guy that stabbed a stereo thief to death after chasing him for a block gets a walk.
Yeah. Florida really sucks at times. Bad. Posted by shikaru808 (Member # 2080) on :
Well, is there anything good about Florida? There has to be some sort of redeemable quality about it if that place is still populated...
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
Well SOMEbody has to stay and run the parks.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by shikaru808: Well, is there anything good about Florida? There has to be some sort of redeemable quality about it if that place is still populated...
Great weather and beaches, pretty women....er...a nice library? Really stretching here.
Posted by shikaru808 (Member # 2080) on :
seriously, what the fuck is it about this state?
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Hardly the strangest nor most distrubing story I've read in the past year.
Keeps things interesting that at any moment life can vecome an HBO series of one sort or another.
Besides, waste not, want nor, right?
Posted by shikaru808 (Member # 2080) on :
Well, what is the most disturbing thing you've heard of since pseudo-zombie-cannibalism in a metropolitan city seems pretty low on your richter scale
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Well, there's daily stuff like this. Cop sees a guy with a baseball bat at night, feels threatened....
And shoots the guy four times.
In the back.
No taser or pepper spray, just....
Really, I'll take my chances with the occasional cannibal over cops that shoot first and let the department cover it up after.
quote:“It is very unlikely for my son to threaten an officer,” his mother said.
“But let’s say for some reason the officer felt threatened. Why shoot him four times?”
The number of rounds wasn’t the only detail of the shooting that has kept the Gregory family on edge.
“Officers carry a Taser, mace and a baton,” Juan Gregory said. “Out of all of those, why a gun?” Also, why shoot someone if they are already on the floor?”
“He was shot in the back,” she said. “That’s cowardice. A backstab.”
Anywhere else, this bozo would be in prison- when running for office he repeatedly lied to reporters about what he does for a living and how he can afford his posh home- he's got no verifiable source of income at all.