You can’t make this shit up.
Shouldn’t we be asking him this?
I wouldn’t be overly surprised if this completely blows up in his face. Paula Deen may be an idiot, but at least she never maimed anyone.
His PR guys are either having fits or are asleep at the switch.
He has received sufficient forgiveness to attain a music career, a movie career, wealth, fame, celebrity and family.
Yet somehow, that’s not enough.
His victim will live the rest of his life without his eye. As it is he didn’t do much time in jail, he was very lucky indeed. Him living the rest of his life with a record seems an awfully small thing.
A trivially small thing when compared to the loss of an eye, in my opinion. And as it has proven no hindrance to the success he has attained, he should put on his big boy pants and suck it up, in my opinion.
It’s like when prisoners are being considered for release. My question is “Is the person you murdered still dead? Then you should still be in prison.”
Wahlberg assaulted a man when he was sixteen years old. That man is still disabled and presumably will be for the rest of his life. So I don’t see why Wahlberg should be able to shrug off the consequences for his crime.
It can be used as a weapon.
I’ve been aware of this for a number of years now. At first I thought, “the victim lost an eye and that’s forever” but nowadays I’m leaning towards the past being the past and that’s just the way it is. He did his time. Don’t like it, make criminals pay forever. Personally, I think that’s a shitty attitude towards criminal justice. He’s donated millions to charity. That’s millions more than I have.
He might still be a jerk, but he’s not the same jerk he was at 16. I won’t go out of my way to see his movies, but if he ends up in a good one, I won’t punish him more and deliberately boycott it.
Who knows? He may have reached out to the victim at some point, and was rebuffed or maybe there are good legal reasons why he can’t. I don’t know. It bothers me a bit when he says “I sleep well at night” but then I think if it were me, it’d be none of anyone’s business how I deal with it, and whether I sleep well at night or not, my answer to people who keep bugging me about it just might be, “I sleep well at night.”
I don’t know. He wants to open 27 new restaurants, that’s a lot of jobs for people who might need them.
I don’t think I could feel good about myself for putting the ax to all those potential jobs just to prove a point over something Mark did 26 years ago as a teenager.
What does his getting a pardon have to do with him opening 27 new restaurants? Will he be unable to open them if he’s not granted the pardon?
According to the linked video, his record could prevent him from getting the proper licensing he needs to expand his restaurant business.
I’d have some respect for him if he accepted the consequences of his actions, including the fact that some of those consequences may be permanent. As it stands, it looks like an already-successful man wanting special treatment because of his status.
Philanthropy is great, but it’s largely the domain of the wealthy. Some guy working 60 hours to feed his family often doesn’t have the resources to be some mentor or saviour to others. So Wahlberg’s claim of doing good would be more impressive if he wasn’t already cashed up.
And he thinks that having four children is some laudable achievement in itself?
It’s all about his restaurants, and nothing more. Fuck him.
Morally, I agree with you.
Legally, not at all. Just ask Richard Nixon, Marc Rich and Don King.
It’s not the past for Hoa Trinh. It’s the past, the present, and the future. If Hoa Trinh will still be dealing with this is ten years, why shouldn’t Wahlberg still be dealing with it in ten years?
No, Wahlberg has said he has never spoken with Hoa Trinh or any of the other victims of his crimes. He’s just said he decided to stop feeling guilty about what he did in the past and moved on with his life.
The only licensing I can think of that would be threatened by a felony conviction is a liquor license. So he can still open a restaurant; just not one offering beer or liquor.
Bingo.
It’s a concessionaire’s license. I don’t know why a restaurateur would need that, but that’s what it said. It also said something about law enforcement positions. I can believe he’d have a problem with LE background checks or if he wanted a security clearance, but I don’t know why he’d want to work for law enforcement or some sensitive government position. As for some sort of business license, I can’t believe criminals can’t get business licenses. Maybe federal firearms dealer or something. Hopefully day care center operator, but who knows?
I agree he did his time, and I don’t think his life should be ruined by his past. But he’s not suffering some great hardship as far as I can tell. His success speaks to him being on the receiving end of a lot of opportunity to make better choices, and forgiveness.
I’m all for forgiveness, but part of the consequences here are having a record. Hardly a hardship it seems.
Liquor licenses are often highly discretionary with the local board, and can be denied on very thin pretense. I think from earlier posts in this thread, under Massachusetts law, Wahlberg isn’t considered a felon due to his sentence being less than 24 months (in most States it’s over 12 months I believe for felony status, or the State code explicitly defines which crimes are felonies and misdemeanors.) But it’s just any stain on your record at all can get your liquor license shot down.
I don’t really feel any sympathy for Mark Wahlberg individually, although I do think the one thing that should be kept in mind is until the “super-predator” scare of the 1980s it’s likely Wahlberg’s crimes would have been handled as a juvenile matter, he was 16 years old.
I’ve never been able to pin down my own feelings on juvenile crimes and how to handle them. I think we err on being too harsh generally, but I also think some kids of a certain age (late teens particularly) have enough moral development and intellectual development, that when they commit extremely heinous crimes, they should be punished as adults. I’m not sure I’d put Wahlberg’s crime in that category, it’s borderline to me. Stuff like the teenagers that shoot up schools are the clear cases in my mind, Wahlberg’s caused a life time disability to his victim though, which makes it fairly serious.
I think I’d probably say no pardon to Wahlberg specifically, no one else has been pardoned in Massachusetts in years and he’s not a good poster boy case for special treatment. Instead I’d probably say in general juveniles charged and convicted as adults who then have say, ten years of clean criminal history in adulthood should have their crimes from pre-18 expunged. FWIW I’m not sure that would apply to Wahlberg considering he continued to get in trouble in his 20s. I would also probably discount certain crimes from being expunged (like say, murder or very serious other offenses.)
I favor a path to expungement for non-recidivist felons. For non-violent felons, I would make it automatic after x number of years of good citizenship. For those convicted of violent felonies, the path would be far more rigorous. Any documented acts of violence, involving arrest or not, would result in disqualification. The acts Wahlberg admitted in an interview would set back his eligibility for another 20 years.
The current process of governors granting pardons is far too political and unworkable. Politicians are terrified of “looking soft on crime” and they have no expertise in the first place. Encouraging re-integration and restoring civil rights has obvious benefits, imo. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need to offer incentives for good behavior, but since we churn out shitty kids growing up in shitty environments doing shitty things, it’s in all our interest to be creative.
Wahlberg is an unrepentant asshole. Fuck him and his restaurants. People aren’t going to stop going out to eat/drink if he isn’t granted a liquor license, so there really isn’t an economic or job loss. It just goes elsewhere.
No beer or liquor? But he’s Catholic!
You act as if he is going to burn his money instead. The money, whether it’s being invested in restaurants or something else will likely benefit others and create jobs. Furthermore, he can invest in restaurants without owning them. This idea that it’s okay that rich people hold society hostage by refusing to do things without concessions and dispensations is really troubling to me.