Should this woman be extradited? (Fatal DUI, leaves US to avoid sentence)

Great Debates
21

[QUOTE=Malodorous]
She doesn’t need to undergo extradition though, as of right now, she’s a free woman in Peru. She just needs to get on a plane and turn herself in in Texas, and as the article seems to suggest the Justice dept. is uncertain of their ability to get her back, I imagine she could at least try and strike a deal to have her voluntarily turning herself over would limit the amount of extra time she would have to spend behind bars.
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I’d like to see that one being discussed at immigration.

22

[QUOTE=Mosier]
What good is going to come out of extraditing her? Other than we all get to pat ourselves on the back and say “justice was served!” we don’t get to say we improved life at all for anyone by putting her in jail, unless there’s a serious danger of her doing something like this again.
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Well, of course there’s a serious danger of her doing it again. How much d’ya wanna bet she’s never driven after having a few too many in Peru? I’d take you up on that bet, because she apparently isn’t very sorry about it.

The law is the law, and this isn’t some procedural matter; this is a killer who fled the country to avoid justice. So she’s bringing the administration of justice into disrepute AND she’s a killer who hasn’t faced the music. Drunk driving is a plague on society that the law must punish with alacrity and severity. All drunk drivers should be made an example of.

I admire the victim’s parents for their patience. I would have gone to Peru.

23

[QUOTE=Mosier]
What good is going to come out of extraditing her? Other than we all get to pat ourselves on the back and say “justice was served!” we don’t get to say we improved life at all for anyone by putting her in jail, unless there’s a serious danger of her doing something like this again.

I don’t give a damn about “fair”. Using the law to destroy a family for no reason other than revenge is not right. That’s not what the legal system should be for.
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There is a fairly good percent of people who have been convicted of a felony who wouldn’t do it again. Why limit this to people who have the ability to flee the country? Why not let everyone excape jail time unless there’s a serious danger of her doing something like this again?

24

On the Statesman site, there are quite a few comments arguing that nothing is gained by extraditing an expectant mother, the father thinks that she’s sorry and should not be punished - and even an argument that idiot judge Sharon Keller (the one who refused to accept a death row inmate’s appeal because his lawyers were late due to a computer glitch) proves that the Texas judicial system is vindictive and arbitrary.

Others have taken issue with the paper posting photos from her MySpace page, feeling it’s unfair to take issue with her wedding photos (which had her with a drink in her hand) as well as her quotes on the page. The argument there is that MySpace is a social site, and everybody has such pictures featured. It’s also been suggested that all three women were over the limit, and any one of them could have been behind the wheel when the accident happened. (In fact, the paralyzed woman, who now lives in Brazil, verifies that their car was being chased by another at the time of the accident.) I also believe she was found legally drunk at .1, which is exactly at the limit at the time in Texas, which some feel is a mitigating circumstance

Contra addressed my biggest issue upthread. She’s attractive, privileged (I don’t expect most Peruvians can come to America to study), intelligent, and apparently doing good in the world. So I suppose it’s easy to bend the rules in her case. But would a poor, overweight, unintelligent person without a job be treated the same way? I think not. The bottom line is, most of the arguments for leniency made sense 10 years ago when her only crime was manslaughter. What makes me angry is that she took advantage of the system and used her privileged status to evade the moment of reckoning where she would have to take responsibility for her actions. Who knows? She may have received less than six months. And if she had made an effort to return or be accountable a month, a year later - I’d be sympathetic.

But it seems as if she “closed the book” on this chapter of her life (which was the end for one person, and very close to it for another). If you served your time and were released, I think you have a right to live a full life - you’ve paid your debt to society - not individual people, but society. Mezzich is solely responsible for the tumult she will cause her child, husband, and career. There are many expecting mothers as well as mothers, period, in prison. Poor people who go to prison have to have their children taken care of by family members; I never see protests over their treatment.

The other issue is that she’s a psychologist. Talk about having issues of your own to work on. How could she give someone good counsel on morality, having skipped town after killing someone, albeit by accident?

Having said that, I do feel badly for the unborn child, who isn’t, and shouldn’t pay a price for his mother’s reprehensible behavior. There isn’t a easy solution to that.

It certainly isn’t always the case, but I believe the law should strive to be blind and to treat those who have broken society’s rules equally. I have no doubt that the stereotypical bad guy who runs into a busful of nuns is not the typical drunk driving fatality. But it shouldn’t matter if you kill your best friend or an innocent two-year old. You’ve taken a life and there is a consequence for doing that.

25

I’m not interested in a blind legal system, but a legal system that seeks to do the most good while causing the least harm. Extraditing and imprisoning this woman would be traumatic and expensive, and it isn’t likely to prevent any other crimes from happening. I say let it go.

26

** Mosier**, I’ve got a few questions for you.

Prison is traumatic. Locking people up is expensive. If putting her in prison is going to ruin her family, how do we justify putting anyone in prison?

How do you draw the line between people who didn’t get away and ones who do?

Should we reward people who run away and still punish people who don’t?

Going through appeals processes is expensive. If the person isn’t likely to repeat the crime, should we then not imprison them if they appeal, in order to save money?

How do you make decisions on who gets imprisoned and who doesn’t?
.

27

I agree with this. I don’t really give a shit about Mezzich’s career or pregnancy or MySpace page or callousness or remorse or potential vulnerability to traumatic experience, and I think it was absolutely ethically wrong of her to skip out on the legal consequences of her irresponsible actions ten years ago.

However, at present she poses no threat to American society. Her crime was not heinous enough, nor is her sentence likely to be long enough, to justify the expense and red tape required for our legal system to haul her out of Peru. Yes, if she ever voluntarily comes back to the US she deserves to be arrested, but at present she’s Peru’s problem, and I think we should leave it like that.

Well, let’s not forget that there’s some privilege on both sides of the issue here. The news articles on the subject frankly concede that this case would probably still be dormant if it weren’t for the decade-long persistence of the manslaughter victim’s mother, Marilyn Datz, who has sought out local and state politicians and media hosts to take up her cause. The pictures of the lovely young honors-student victim (all three girls were 18 at the time of the crash) are heart-wrenching and doubtless inspire lots of sympathy for Datz’s mission.

Would the death of a poor, overweight, unintelligent person without a close family member willing to dedicate her life to the quest of extraditing a DUI driver provoke the same amount of outrage and sympathy on the part of politicians, the media, and the public? I think not.

So I can’t get too upset here over the unfairness of Mezzich’s escaping her long-delayed punishment because of her privileged status. If her victim weren’t also a person of privileged status, there wouldn’t be a hue and cry out after her now in the first place, which is also unfair.

28

[QUOTE=Mosier]
I don’t give a damn about “fair”. Using the law to destroy a family for no reason other than revenge is not right. That’s not what the legal system should be for.
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The fairness of laws stems from them being applied (at least in theory) equaly to everyone.

29

[QUOTE=SpoilerVirgin]
No other reason than revenge? What about deterrence?

Specific deterrence – According to the OP, her MySpace page currently celebrates her drinking. She clearly didn’t learn much from being responsible for a fatal DUI if “Life’s too short, live it up!” (with drinking photos) is her motto. Should we wait until she’s killed or maimed a few more people before we say, “How come this woman wasn’t thrown in jail the first time?” like we usually do when these multiple DUI killers are finally caught?

General deterrence – Part of the purpose of the justice system is to make people aware that there are consequences to their actions. The tremendous reduction in drunk driving fatalities over the past 30 years is due to the new stigma and awareness, and to the new much tougher drunk driving laws. “If you just go back to your country of origin and lay low for a while, you won’t be punished for driving drunk,” is not a message I want to be sending.

Finally, I think revenge, in the form of punishment, is a perfectly appropriate means of dealing with crime. That’s what justice means, that people who violate society’s rules are going to be punished. I say Ms. Mezzich deserves to be sent back so that she can serve whatever sentence is deemed appropriate.
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I agree with this.

I suppose that if somebody skipped on a jail sentence for shoplifting or some other property offense, there might be a case to be made for leniency. But if somebody’s crime caused death or serious injury to another person, I don’t care if the person was Mother Theresa for the last 50 years - they must answer for their crimes.

30

I’ve got horribly mixed feelings, here.

On the one hand the costs involved are both real and not insifigant. Assuming that the punishment for flight is another six month added to the sentence (and that the original sentencing deal holds) that’s going to be a cost of about $28,000 to house this woman for a year. Plus court costs, the time of the State minions who have to work on this, etc. etc. I can see an argument for simply letting her stay in Peru, and declaring her persona non grata. Whether we like it or not, passing international boundaries has often been seen as a way to avoid sentences for relatively minor crimes.

And while we’re talking manslaughter, the court, at the time, seems to have been treating it as a relatively minor crime: I’ve read longer sentences for burglary after all. And no one would advocate extradition for burglary, I don’t think.

OTOH, she did kill one person, gravely injured another, and seems to have learned nothing from it, based on the reports of that MySpace page. Making her face consequences for her actions would be pretty satisfying. And if going to prison, now, is going to be inconvenient for her, what word would one use to describe what happened to her victims? Inconvenient doesn’t begin to cover it.

What tips it over, IMNSHO, is a metaphor going to Realpolitick. Political capitol is not something that should be used without considering whether the benefit gained from that expenditure is worth the cost. Assuming that the US has only a finite amount of politcal capitol with the Peruvian gov’t* I’d rather see it saved for things that I view as more important. Like retrieving children who have been taken out of the US to get out of court-imposed child custody arrangements.**

In the end, it’s something that was being treated as relatively petty crap by the courts, and I don’t think it’s worth making the effort to extradite her. However, if the State of Texas, and the Federal gov’t does extradite her, I’m not going to feel that it’s an injustice, either.

*At least at any given time, we’ll get more next turn.

**No, I don’t know of any cases where the kidnapping parent is residing in Peru, but I would be surprised to hear there weren’t any.

31

[QUOTE=Kimstu]

However, at present she poses no threat to American society.
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This is not about some future crime- this is about requiring her to serve the sentence she earned with the original crime, plus whatever sentence comes from the flight from justice.

Not heinous enough?!? Someone is dead. Are you kidding me? :dubious:

And it doesn’t matter what the victim’s father thinks.

32

Those who think maybe she should be left alone, don’t you think that there is a moral obligation to recognise the importance of the person killed?

I mean importance in the sense of being a live, sentient human being, surely there should be some recognition of the rights of the victim, and acknowledgment of a life ended in a criminal way.

Its not just about cost, when we get a serial killer, and sentence someone to a thousand years jail time, its not a practical sentence, it is symbolic in recognising the rights of the victim, so each victim gets their ‘say’ in court.

In this case, although the victim is silent, theirs is the right to have a say in court, for their circumstances of their death, and life too, brought before us.

Perp gets extradited, and the judicial process takes its path.

33

Would she have served the full 6 months?

Chances are she’d have been out in 3 (?) and then deported back to Peru.

Is it really worth the cost for 12 wks jailtime?

There are better things to spend American tax dollars on.

Every DA will tell you they make compromises all the time in the interests of cost, politics or expediency. This is just one that happens to have caught the public interest.

34

casdave, the problem I have with your thesis is that, at this point, the woman if extradicted is probably going to be facing a longer sentence for fleeing the jurisdiction, than she’ll be facing for vehicular manslaughter. At which point it becomes hard for me to believe that she’s being punished for the death and injury she caused, rather than for the injured pride of the judiciary.

I’m not trying to argue that such charges, which I’ll lump for sake of convenience in the category of judicial contempt, are without merit. What I will say is that I need to be convinced that the US should extradite someone to serve a sentence that seems likely to be mostly for such charges.

If I thought that this effort would be coming without affecting any other business, I would say go for it. However, I am of the belief that State Department human resources are limited. And in countries like Peru, which are not seen as very important to US national interests, they are very limited. So, in the effort to give this woman the punishment she was sentenced (Which is less than I think would be deserved, IMNSHO.) other business will be postponed or put aside. In that case I’d rather work on living business first. Be they adoptions, child custody cases, or even trade negotiations.

35

[QUOTE=Mosier]
I don’t give a damn about “fair”.
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Good call. It wouldn’t be “fair” to rip a mother from her child, but since we don’t care about fair then I hope she’s extradited.

36

[QUOTE=TokyoPlayer]
** Mosier**, I’ve got a few questions for you.

Prison is traumatic. Locking people up is expensive. If putting her in prison is going to ruin her family, how do we justify putting anyone in prison?
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I think we can’t really justify imprisoning many (most?) of the prisoners we have now. Cold statistics show us that prison time does not make someone less likely to committ crimes. The only case for prison that I can think of is to physically remove someone from society in order to prevent them from committing more crimes.

This is not what’s happening now. Prison is used to punish people. When prison is used as punishment instead of deterrent, it’s misused.

I don’t know. There’s definitely a personal, human element to it, though. We all want to pretend that an uncaring, blind legal system is the ideal, but we are outraged when a perfectly legal conviction and sentencing seems “unfair”, like the 19 year old kid who went to jail for 3 years for having sex with his 17 year old girlfriend. We already feel that there’s something wrong with an impersonal system that operates blind to individual circumstances.

Do you feel like she’s being rewarded? I’m sure that she doesn’t feel that way. Also, I mentioned earlier that “punishment” shouldn’t be the goal of the legal system anyway.

I think after clarifying my position on what the role of prison should be, this question might have been answered already.

I don’t know. That doesn’t mean that we can ignore individual circumstances, though. Obviously there’s a line somewhere that we wouldn’t cross to extradite her, a price high enough that we wouldn’t pay. All we’re doing is drawing that line at different places. Some people might advocate sending in the Marines, but I think most of us realize that’s just silly because the price we would pay to make sure she gets justice would be too high. Others might be willing to spend a hundred million dollars getting her back. I’m just someone who wouldn’t be willing to spend anything, because I don’t see the benefit in it.

37

[QUOTE=ArizonaTeach]
Good call. It wouldn’t be “fair” to rip a mother from her child, but since we don’t care about fair then I hope she’s extradited.
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Would you like your pound of flesh grilled, or raw?

38

[QUOTE=Mosier]
I’m not interested in a blind legal system, but a legal system that seeks to do the most good while causing the least harm. Extraditing and imprisoning this woman would be traumatic and expensive, and it isn’t likely to prevent any other crimes from happening. I say let it go.
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Why not make drunk driving, manslaughter, and fleeing the jurisdiction legal for everybody? What makes this woman so special?

39

Mosier, let’s say I find your comments here so appalling that I hunt you down and shoot you in the face.

What’s the point in punishing me? It isn’t going to bring you back, and I don’t plan to kill anyone else, so I’m no longer a threat. Besides, my cat really loves me, and it would be really traumatic for her if I went to prison. Does she deserve to be punished? And think how expensive a trial would be!

I presume you’re on board with all this. I don’t actually plan to kill you, of course, but maybe you could PM me your home address just in case.

40

Otakuloki

You comment still does not address the rights of the victim.

The loss of a life is pretty fundamental to the victim, you can look at costs, you can find plenty of flaws in the judicial system, but for the most part the rights of the criminal are protected, who is going to speak up for the dead ?

The financial cost my well be high, but governments find spectacular and frivolous ways of wasting money, and this does not strike me as being one of them.

How much are we talking ? The cost of a few hours flight time of Air Force One - when you add up the security costs and those of aircraft diversions etc, its probably rather less.

Fine, talk about the rights of the child, talk about the rights of the criminal, the dead need a voice too and that is provided in the courts.