Must be nice to be above the law.
I’m not rich or famous so I wouldn’t know.
30 days… and two years of house arrest, and eight years of probation and 1,000 hours of community service…
What do you think the punishment should be?
About nine years on average, apparently.
Can I have two years house arrest at Dante Stallworth’s house? That’s ridiculous.
(Think he’ll put a plastic baggie around his ankle monitor before relaxing in the pool? :rolleyes:)
I can’t really get too mad (aside from the fact that he plays for the Browns) without knowing all the circumstances surrounding the accident. Yeah, he was drunk, but from the article it says the guy he hit was out of the crosswalk. Maybe he darted out in the middle of the street to catch his bus. I think if the accident had been really egregious he would have been vigorously prosecuted.
At any rate, they suspended his driving privileges for life and I’m sure he’ll end up paying through the nose in a civil suit.
I don’t know how fair this punishment is. But, this seems especially egregious to me.
“Stallworth later told police at the Miami Beach police station that he had time to honk his horn and flash his headlights to warn Reyes.”
He had time to honk and flash headlights. But, not time to stop or get out of the way? If the guy was running out and it was a surprise. I doubt he would have time to honk and flash his lights.
Stallworth already settled with the Reyes family. (We don’t know how much he’ll pay, of course.) It seems like a very light sentence, but maybe that’s an acknowledgment that even though he was very drunk, the accident wasn’t all his fault.
I can flash my lights and honk in less than a second, even as I’m slamming on the brakes and plowing into somebody.
That nine year average doesn’t list the actual time served. (It’s also 15 years old, but I’m okay assuming that it hasn’t changed much since) If that includes parole time, Stallworth’s time seems to be about average when you consider the time under house arrest and probation.
Yeah. I guess you are right. I suppose I just can’t get the idea out of my head if he weren’t driving drunk, the guy wouldn’t have been killed. But, that is possibly an unfounded assumption.
I guess it is impossible to know, with the info we have, whether he got a good deal because of fame and money, or, because of the circumstances. And, even with that. Not being able to drive for the rest of his life is a severe punishment. As, for the house arrest. How does that work? He can only leave his house for work? He’ll be out of town for extended periods of time with his work.
I hate drunk drivers. IMO, Stallworth and anyone else who takes a life while driving drunk should be prosecuted for felony murder, i.e. a murder that happens during the commission of a felony.* I think a 15-year minimum sentence is appropriate for this. 30 days in actual jail is a travesty.
*Of course, I know that is not the case in reality. IANAL and most of my legal knowledge comes from Law & Order. I am not making a point about what is, but about what should be.
It is. DUI manslaughter appears to be treated the same as Felony Murder in the third degree in Florida.
Felony Murder
DUI Manslaughter
It does say “Prison sentance” – not parole, not house arrest. In fact, there is another table in there called “Prison vs Non-Prison Sentence”.
So it appears he got a real sweet deal. I’ll look around some more and see if there’s any other onformation that looks relevant.
He was convicted of manslaughter, not nearly as serious as murder. I do like the “no DL for life” part, though.
A woman I know was charged with gross vehicular manslaughter; child abuse and endangerment; and felony drunk driving causing bodily harm in the DUI death of her six year old son, and she was facing 10 years. I think she ended up with 4, and served at least 2 years IIRC. Don’t know about her probation or DL status.
That cite is massively out of date. Sentences in Florida (and moreso, time actually served) has dropped a great deal in Florida over the last 15 years because of our 10-20-life mandatory minimums for gun crimes and increasingly harsh drug laws- not to mention the fact that our population has grown more than that of any other state over the period in question.
It is about right for a person with money.
In addition, he should be prosecuted by the Browns for stealing their money.
Well, you CAN have two years house arrest at my house. 
Certainly sentences for DUI/manslaughter may have gotten somewhat shorter over the last decade , and it certainly does sound like the victim was partly at fault, which may have justified a shorter sentence (though Stallworth was still driving drunk, and still killed a guy, even if the guy was being an idiot by running through traffic).
But Stallworth’s sentence isn’t half of the '96 average, or even a factor of five or ten shorter, it’s one one hundreth of the '96 average.
The Browns have a long list of players ahead of Stallworth for that particular crime…