Actually, there isn’t a single link to a blog anywhere in this thread, and none of the articles are only two paragraphs. Made up bullshit does make your argument seem stronger, though, doesn’t it?
Tyler is in Texas. Texas tends to impose severe penalties for breaking the law. Also, while this offense might seem overly severe, there is every chance that local law enforcement was simply fed up with the individual’s never ending streak of petty crimes **that we don’t know about **and saw this as an opportunity to simply get him out of their hair. That sort of thing does happen and not just in Texas.
The articles mentioned he’d been convicted of one other crime. But I guess there’s every chance that he was convicted of dozens of others that we just don’t know about and they simply forgot to mention them. Also, kudos on the Those Wacky Texans justification.
I think one thing that very few people are focusing on here is that this kid is 17 years old! All this talk of “sealed juvie records” is ridiculous…this should still BE a part of his juvie record. In my jurisdiction, it would be very rare that this kid would even be tried as an adult.
The sad thing is that this kid’s life is going to be completely ruined by this. For a crime that didn’t actually hurt anyone, this is a more than excessive sentence.
If he serves time in an adult jail, chances are he’ll come out far more dangerous than when he went in. That doesn’t serve him, or society, well.
I hope someone comes to their senses and reduces or commutes the sentence. I’m a law and order woman, but on the face of it, it seems like overkill to the nth degree.
Unless one has seen his sheet, heard what the trier of fact heard, and viewed that evidence in the context of the elements of the crime, there really is no way to determine whether the charges and sentence were appropriate, except based one one’s own sense of what ought to be.
And that sense tends to be inversely proportional to one’s actual involvement in the case.
Now, I’m all for oversight of the judicial system, but that oversight has to be informed. And there’s not a whole lot of “informed” oversight going on here.
“But Scrappy, can’t you see that this sentence is clearly WRONG?!?!!?”
Nope, and neither can you from the information you’ve got.
I hate to agree with 2.5, but this is much more than a prank call. After Columbine, Virginia Tech, and all the other school shootings that have been in the news over the years I can’t imagine how this guy could have thought this was just a prank. 8 years is a bit much, but if he JUST got out of jail not a month before for an unrelated crime he is obviously not learning much of a lesson from the short sentences. This was considered a terrorist action and he is lucky he wasn’t given the full 10 years and made to be an example for other people who might follow suit. Hopefully the sentence will be reduced and he can see a therapist and maybe work out a way to get mentally stable but I would hate for them to have given him another 70 day sentence of which he served 30 days and then he got out and actually killed someone instead of just making idle threats.
I’m sorry, but that’s bullshit. He threatened to gun down a group of kids. That’s preetty serious shit even if “nobody got hurt.”
And why shouldn’t he be tried as an adult? He’s 17 years old. If he doesn’t already know this kind of crap does not fly in the adult world then his life is already ruined.
I dont care if he’s white,black,poor or wealthy,he made a threat that he got caught for before he could carry it out.
Already at his age he’s got a criminal record though not one for violent crime.
It could well be that hes never used violence to achieve his ends in his life,or it could well be that he has but up until now hasn’t been caught.
Save your sympathy for the victims of people like him.
You yourself or someone that you love could one day be a victim of someone like him,think about it.
I can sympathize with the victims. I don’t often mention this because I don’t want to look like I’m playing for sympathy but I too have received a prank phone call. With time and support, my life has gone on.
Keep in mind that threatening to go on a shooting spree is not equivalent to going on a shooting spree. I’m not saying that threats should be ignored until somebody starts killing people. But don’t go to the opposite extreme of treating a threat as if the crime actually occurred.
I don’t see anybody saying that it is the same thing.
Threatening to murder a bunch of people = 8 years in prison
Murdering a bunch of people = lethal injection (or life in prison if you want to be a pussy)
And he totally meant to carry it out, which was why he didn’t even own a gun and made the call from a traceable cell phone instead of a pay phone.
Why not just throw him in jail for a few weeks to teach him not to be a moron? No need to ruin the kids life.
I can’t defend the length of the sentence. I don’t know all the facts, obviously, but on the surface it seems excessive. No, but what I can state is that I don’t believe you’re right when you say that it “didn’t actually hurt anyone.” Having been involved in school lockdowns before, let me tell you, while maybe nobody got physically injured, people were affected by this. Ignoring the cost to the community (police, fire, etc.) and school involved, there’s a bit of emotional baggage there, too. Teachers and students don’t laugh it off after they find out it’s a prank - it’s scary, especially if you have to lock your classrooms and hunker down for an hour or two.
Now, think about this, one school launches a prank at another school. Do the kids at the second school chuckle good-naturedly and say, “You got us!” No, there’s retaliation…and we’re not talking about painting football fields or kidnapping mascots here. If you’re operating at a level where people reasonably think gunfire and bombs are part of the equation, you’ve gone beyond pulling the fire alarm.
My gut feeling is this is a “Don’t Fuck Around” sentencing - send a message.
I’m not defending an 8 year sentence…but I’m not going to say this kid’s “prank” didn’t hurt anyone.
If you think I was trying to justify the sentence because it was handed down in Texas, you are quite mistaken.
Remember Lionel Tate?
*Lionel Alexander Tate (born January 30, 1987)[1] is the youngest American citizen ever sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole. In 2001, when Tate was 14, he was convicted of first-degree murder for the 1998 battering death of 6-year-old Tiffany Eunick in Broward County, Florida.
Tate was left alone with Eunick, who was being babysat by Tate’s mother, Kathleen Grossett-Tate, while she took a nap upstairs. Tate’s defense argued that the then-12-year-old, 166-pound boy was playing with the 6-year-old, 46-pound girl, and had accidentally killed her while showing her professional wrestling moves he said he had seen on television.
Tate was convicted of killing Eunick by stomping on her so forcefully that her liver lacerated.[2] Her other injuries included a fractured skull, fractured rib and swollen brain. These injuries were characterized by the prosecution as “similar to those she would have sustained by falling from a three-story building.”[3] In sentencing Tate to life imprisonment, Judge Joel T. Lazarus of Broward County Circuit Court said that “The acts of Lionel Tate were not the playful acts of a child […] The acts of Lionel Tate were cold, callous and indescribably cruel.”[4]*
It was later overturned and he was set free. Dayum, bet he learned from that!
Uh, no:
On September 3, 2004, Tate was detained and held in prison for violating the terms of his house arrest when he was found out of his house and carrying a four-inch knife. On October 29, the Associated Press reported that Tate was placed on zero tolerance probation, for an additional five years.
OK, **THAT ** must have taught him his lesson, right? Nope…
*On May 23, 2005, Tate was charged with armed burglary with battery, armed robbery and violation of probation, the Broward County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office said.
Tate greeted Domino’s Pizza deliveryman Walter Ernest Gallardo with a handgun outside a friend’s apartment after phoning in an order. Gallardo dropped the four pizzas and fled the scene. Tate then re-entered the apartment, assaulting the occupant who did not want Tate inside.*
I.e. it’s possible that in the case stated by the OP, the youth was serious (but stupid). I don’t think we know enough from what’s been presented in this discussion about the circumstances to assume he wasn’t serious.
They already did that. He had gotten out of jail about a month before this where he had been sentenced to 75 days for auto theft (or attempted auto theft, I’m not sure exactly.) He didn’t learn too well from the short stint in the slammer apparently.
Two, before you advocate the idea of sending people to prison for saying something stupid, you might want to consider the effect it would have for you personally.
He already was in jail for a few weeks. Almost as soon as he got out, he threatened to murder a bunch of children.
Agreed. Threatening to kill people is not a prank. A prank call is asking someone if their refrigerator’s running, or asking for Mike Rotch. Threatening violence, in a country that’s been through Columbine, Virginia Tech, etc. is a serious offence.