The tragic shooting and death of nine year old Sherdavia Jenkins ended with a lesser guilty verdict Friday of manslaughter instead of second degree murder. The Herald story is here.
Kathleen Hoague and Monica Gordo prosecuted the heart wrenching but difficult case. Hoague praised the verdict in the Herald. Jonathan Meltz for the defense vowed to appeal. While convicted of the lesser manslaughter charge in the murder case, the defendant was also convicted of aggravated assault with a firearm regarding the person the prosecution alleged the defendant wanted to shoot. Because the defendant discharged the firearm, he must receive a twenty year minimum mandatory sentence under Florida's 10-20-life law.
Two idiots with guns shooting up a neighborhood and the only one who dies is an innocent nine year old girl.
Yeah, guns aren't a problem in this country,
Speaking of idiots with guns, the Broward Blog is all over the preferential treatment the father of Broward Mayor Stacy Ritter apparently received in his bond release hearing today. We call it a bond release hearing, because although the Mayor's father was charged with a non-bondable offense for pointing a gun at his daughter (yeah, we know, but remember, it's Broward) the State Attorneys office appeared in court the very next day to say 1) they don't ever stipulate to bonds; but...2) recommended a bond of 15-25 thousand on the non-bondable offense.
Meanwhile Judge Backman (who in the past has been as nasty and sarcastic with us as seemed humanly possible from the bench) was falling all over himself to tell anyone and everyone that he was not holding an Arthur Hearing , but was acting as a "facilitator" in the case.
Hmm..that's a new one. We never ever thought to ask for a "facilitator" when representing someone being held without bond North of the Border. We always asked for an Arthur Hearing and would get one, usually on a Friday afternoon, several weeks after our client was arrested. And all along if we just asked for Backman as a "facilitator" we could have had our client out on bond the next day.
Who knew?
Live and learn.
NYC and the Boss.
There is nothing, and I mean nothing like the service you get when you stay at a suite at the St. Regis in NYC. The staff is amazing, right down to remembering "no capers"on my lox and bagel in the morning, and the particular newspapers I like to peruse (including Le Monde and The Times of London).
But none of that can match the truly overwhelming experience of Bruce Springsteen's last concert at Giants stadium in New Jersey last night. It was so powerful and almost unnerving that I stayed up all night, not wanting to give up the feelings and memory of the experience. The NY Times article is here, and it doesn't begin to capture the magic of the moment.
From the Stone Pony to closing the Meadowlands, it's been a long journey that I've been privileged to experience a small part of.
Now when all this steel and these stories, they drift away to rust
And all our youth and beauty, it's been given to the dust
And our game's been decided, and we're burning down the clock
And all our little victories and glories, have turned into parking lots
When your best hopes and desires, were scattered through the wind
And hard times come, hard times go
Wrecking Ball, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
Kathleen supported the verdict? I guess that's an admission that she overcharged the offender, isn't it? LOL.
ReplyDeleteLooks like Yehuda played it right. His guy seemed just as culpable but will be out in a few years.
ReplyDelete12:33 I believe your comment is an over simplification of what occurred. If Ms. Hoague had sufficient evidence to charge second degree murder and she still supported the verdict of manslaughter then perhaps the testimony as it came out on the witness stand after cross examination changed the case. perhaps the state's evidence when weighed with the defense evidence led the jury to conclude this was a just result. I don't think just because there was a lesser verdict which the prosecutor agreed was a just verdict means the prosecutor originally over charged the case.
ReplyDeleteIs Springsteen like 80 years old?
ReplyDeleteAs a former APD i will say this. There ain't a finer prosecutor in Miami then Kethleen Hoague.
ReplyDeleteAs for Yehuda- anyone who works with John Schwartz has zero standing in life much less as a lawyer.
As for John Meltz- he put on a valiant defense and should hold his head high.
Rumpole - this has nothing to do with guns being a problem in America. This is an inner-city problem. This is a poverty problem. This is a lack of nuclear family, kids raised on the street, desensitized to human suffering problem. It has nothing to do with guns.
ReplyDeleteI hate to be cliche, but it's like blaming pencils for bad test scores. Look to the individuals. Many of us law-abiding citizens carry concealed firearms to protect ourselves from idiots like Damon Darling and Leroy Larose.
If they didn't have guns, these dipshits would stab each other, or beat each other to death. It's about having no regard for human life. It's probably because Darling was raised without a father and a mother who could not provide adequate care. He had no male role model upon which to develop his self-image, so he turned to the streets where scared, fatherless kids puff out their chests and try to be as tough as they can because deep down, they are terrified.
Damon Darling is not an isolated incident. He exemplifies many of the clients we see everyday. The young, 19, twentysomething, sitting in jail on an armed robbery, attempted murder - some serious charge. Mom or girlfriend calls you to hire you. No father in the picture.
The epidemic is not guns. It's children born out of wedlock.
There are a myriad of interlocking and overlapping problems in the inner city- poverty, drugs, crime, violence. But I know this- that little girl would be alive today if those two morons went looking to hurt or kill each other with baseball bats, or knives, or anything other than guns. There are way way too many guns in our society and removing them will be one piece of the puzzle.
ReplyDeleteLe Monde Rumpole? Isn't that a little pretentious, even for you?
ReplyDeleteWhen Cheney was running the country I got into the habit of reading Le Monde because at times I didn't even trust the NY Times to tell me what I needed to know about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteLe Monde has an english edition which works, but I enjoy practicing my French by reading the French language edition.
The Rankmaster made a list of his top 10 candidates for who Rumple is, and just got off the phone with the St. Regis hotel. It only took 3 guesses for them to confirm who Rumple was.
ReplyDeleteWell maybe if Monica Gordo was a nice person the jury would have voted guilty, but since I am sure the jury could read through her fakeness they punished the State.
ReplyDeleteThe State always overcharges, this is just one bit of evidence that this is the MO of the State. Remember the OJ charges?
wedlock is not the issue-the issue is the criminalization of the black coommunity. everytime a misdemeanor prosecutor gets jail time for minor crime from a black defendant it pulls the defendant away from his bastard children and criminalizes the individual more and more. marriage is a civil contract-who cares. Being a bastard child-who cares. the issue is not having your father available to talk to because he is serving 10 days for DWLS. the state should think twice about the effects on the community for misdemeanor jail pleas before it sees itself trying more and more "tragedies."
ReplyDeleteQuit complaining about broward. Just try cases there. Highest acquittal rate in state. Dumbest asa's. Half can't enter anything into evidence.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in rural Virginia, pre-drugs except marijuana. Daily I saw pick-up trucks go by with guns in racks on the back. Mostly people got shot in "bad neighborhoods" or in hunting accidents. Those folks still living there won't change the gun laws because they remember the good old days and believe they are still here.
ReplyDeleteTry changing college-educated peoples attitudes about gun sales and they refuse to consider it. Most of the illegal guns in NY come from VA. But hey those people aren't killing people in VA, so what's the problem, they say. In my small town, the paper stopped advertising gun shows and thousands stopped the paper. And there is no other way to learn what is going on.
Between John Kennedy dying and Brady getting destroyed, you'd think there would be even a tiny bit of progress. I've watched the NRA run rough-shod over congress year after year.
The best solution I have heard is for all us pacifists or at least gun-control people spend the $50 and join the NRA. Millions of us join, we could neutralize the uncivilized goals of that organization. Why aren't we doing that?
This is a political problem and it is going to take a revolt to solve it. But where is the Gandhi-equivalent. This congress won't even support the police position to begin t reduce the problem.
Join the NRA. don't tell anyone just do it.
Holy crap there is a Fake Firtel? Isn't the real one bad enough.
ReplyDeleteRump
ReplyDeleteSince the Jury rejected the Murder charges and found the Defendant was negligent (ie Manslaughter) does it not go that the Jury believed/bought the Self-Defense claim and under The Stand Your Ground exception the court should discharge the Defendant; since he acted in self-defense and even though it was a tragedy that the little girl died, but the percipitaor of the violence, the guy who caused the Defendant to act in self defense is totally responsible? Should a Judgement Not Withstanding the Verdict be issued and the Defendant released under Stand Your Ground. Doesn't Stand Your Ground except/protect you from a death that results from negligence caused by firing a gun in Self Defense?
D. Sisselman
say what you about yehuda, but he got a deal of a lifetime for his client..
ReplyDeleteActually I am way way ahead of you Rankmaster. And FYI the front desk has informed me there have been 27 calls today for individuals who were not registered, 6 names I recognized from Miami. As near as I can tell Dan Lurvey, Phil Reizenstein, David Alschuler, Scott Fingerhut, Alan Shuminer and David Markus(??) are not registered here. But nice try.
ReplyDelete3:08- just WHAT is wrong with my name? I exist to point our pretentiousness and reading Le Monde, in the English or French editions is highly pretentious.
ReplyDeleteI want to party all the time party all the time party......
ReplyDeleteParty at Landshark Monday!
Give me some picks for tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteCash money aint never gonna play out....
I got my flu shot Friday and I've been sick -real sick- ever since.
ReplyDelete12:33 here..........I was being sarcastic Rump. I was basically making the same kind of inane comment about Kathleen that you made about the Broward ASA.
ReplyDeleteis there anyone at MJB who is more annoying than mark eiglarsh?
ReplyDelete