Just out of interest, as a general proposition, how severe would a crime have to be for the “family to support” defence to become irrelevant?
If i did something that was, legally, identical to what lieu did, do i deserve a harsher sentence because i lack a wife and kid?
I am of two opinions, actually, on that, mhendo. I think a couple of things that need to be considered in determining that decision are:
[ul][li]Likelihood of repeating the act.[/li][li]Completion of court ordered treatment (if applicable)[/li][li]“Standing in the community” (i.e., job, community work, etc.)[/li][li]Was it mutual assault?[/li][li]What was the “trigger” for the event? How valid is it to a reasonable person?[/ul][/li]
Now, if he’d gone over and lopped a finger or two off, well, of course jail time would be in the cards!
Found it! From http://www.thespokenword.org/safe_riding.htm
[quote]
(bolding & italics by Monty)
Violence on the roads has become a serious problem - more and more motorists are acting out their aggressions on the freeway. If you encounter road rage (or suffer from it yourself) keep the following in mind.
[ul][li]Be aware that many drivers get angry if you follow them too closely. Allow at least a three-second time interval between your car and the car ahead.[/li]
[li]Don’t slam on the brakes if someone’s tailgating you. Instead, signal and pull over to let them pass.[/li]
[li]Clarify your intentions by using your turn signals and brake lights. If someone cuts you off, slow down and give the car plenty of room to merge into your lane.[/li]
[li]Don’t offend other drivers. Make sure you have plenty of room when you want to merge.[/li]
[li]If you are in the left lane and someone wants to pass, move over to the right and let him or her by. Remember, you may be “right” because you’re traveling at the speed limit, but you can also be putting yourself in danger by enraging someone behind you.[/li]
[li]Keep as much distance as possible between yourself and another driver who wants to pick a fight. Motorists you might have offended can “snap” at any time, and it’s better to be a live chicken than a dead macho man.[/li]
[li]Give the other motorist the benefit of the doubt. A driver who’s speeding or constantly changing lanes may be a volunteer fireman responding to a call, a physician rushing to a hospital or an undercover cop.[/li]
[li]Allow more time for your trip. Instead of trying to “make good time,” try to “make time good.” Listen to soothing music or a book on tape. Adjust your attitude and forget about winning. For too many motorists, driving becomes a contest.[/li]
Ask for help if you have a problem with aggressive drivers or if you yourself are getting angrier behind the wheel. Courses in anger management have been shown to reduce heart attacks.[/ul]
p.s. to mhendo: I also lack a wife and child.
I think there’s something to be said for all those criteria, but none of them speaks directly to the issue of a family.
What if the answers to all those questions were the same for me and for someone with a wife and kid? Do we still take the wife and kid into account when handing down a sentence?
Hmmm. Some legislators jump on a popular band wagon(three stikes) and vote YES! Anti-drug strikes a memory as well. As does “Wellfare mom” crap. How low will we let a person fall before we help? It may be worse to let them slip through the cracks.
Yes Va. is a 3 strike state. What does that have to do with how I feel?
Ask a cop. ask a judge. Judy perhaps? Or my favorite the Judge Thomas? right.
My friend was beaten to a pulp by police on mistaken identity. I’ve watched cops lie in court. Just to win a bust. .
In Norfolk a lady was shot and killed from the result of a “low speed chase” and they said it was OK; She ran.
I’m not saying that a court will or will not see a pattern. I’m saying I don’t.
Pattern.
1
then 43
what comes next?
What can you deduce from this? they are two seperate things and will you connect with logic or emotion?
below one is logic, another emotion.
You may say they are connected because they are each violent.
You may say they are not connected because the threat is unrelated.
I will bet the poll would be split.
Consider this. (traffic stuff)Yes he is angry, he is ashamed also. He is also admitting later that he wishes he wasn’t that way. The “he Knows he shouldn’t have done it but Damn It Felt Right at the Time” kind of thing.
Could it be that perhaps he should have said to himself " I will give the benefit of the doubt?" That is what I do. (sounds like what he did in the tire iron thing)
20/20 is he did the wrong thing. He knows this. Would I do different? I don’t know. It would have to be my chest and my crazy neighbor and his weapon.
and suppose this! maybe the poor guy lieu after the traffic thing did realize he was not sopposed to hurt folks! Maybe after he came to this conclusion he came upon a real threat? I mean, you know, it could happen.
The two incidents may or may not be anger management. I don’t see evidence enough for myself that they are connected.
I have not struck anyone in anger since I was around 13. I knew then I was too strong to punch anyone. Broken home crap, I hit my stepfather and knocked him down. I was 13. He “spanked with his fists”. I felt so bad. You’re not supposed to strike back. 33 years ago. I changed. I stopped punching back. This is a large part of me that rejects violence on my personal level.
I do know what family means though. You never EVER threaten family. Bad mojo. Threaten a spouce or child and then LOOK OUT!
The Norski Berserker will not be sated until all is safe!
that said I don’t want to hit anyone at all right now.
except Tyson!
Their chicken sux!
mhendo: I guess I considered “Standing in community” to also include family for whom one’s responsible.
As I said, I’m of two minds about it. Why should any of that be taken into account? I guess one possible answer is that if one does take it into account, then the probationary period should be of a serious enough length to be an actual deterrent to repeat misbehaviour.
I’m a bully to some guy in a truck that’s late and taking it out on me with his large truck, consequently issuing a physical challenge with a hearty “Fuck you!”
I’m a bully for defending my daughter’s right to go to the park safely with her nanny, not to mention him wielding a tire iron and further threatening each of us.
Heehee, you’re goddamn straight.
I’m not kidding, this has given me the first real opportunity to laugh today.
Dj, sorry if I don’t respond to whatever you might have said above. Don’t take this personal but like always I bypass your posts. Sorry. Email it to someone that doesn’t bore the fuck out of me and have them post it.
Speaking as a man who considers himself a family man and the question of:
“What if the answers to all those questions were the same for me and for someone with a wife and kid? Do we still take the wife and kid into account when handing down a sentence?”
I don’t think that would be fair. I mean I love kids and family but to give licence to forgive crime because a criminal has obligations is a bit much for me.
It’s a hard question when kids are involved though. Judges do make exceptions. There are programs of reunification that only help parents.
I like this question a lot. Who do we think of? The Child(ren) and the parent who may or may not reform, or the person who may or may not reform? Which is more important?
Equality is equality. If you can’t judge then don’t. Problem is so very few think they can judge others, the rest know they can.
tunabreath: Nowhere did I say, nor imply, forgiveness of crime. Yes, equality is equality. However, justice is justice.
lieu: I’m starting to think you might be missing dj’s point. All that’s available for the SDMBers to peruse is what you’ve posted in this thread and the one dj linked to.
The road rage wasn’t the result of a physical challenge, apparently. It appeared to be the result of (a) his aggressive driving meeting up with (b) your aggressive driving and © your aggressive actions, culminating in your slugging him.
The broken nose incident appears to be the result of (a) an unspecified & undescribed event referred to in this thread’s OP as “almost hitting.” Someone earlier in this thread mentioned that it was the neighbour trying to run your wife and child down with his car. I don’t see that mentioned by you. You also don’t mention your size in relation to Bill–perhaps Bill felt threatened by you? None of us knows. Perhaps the “almost hitting” them with the vehicle was because they had a momentary lapse of attention and walked in front of his vehicle whilst that vehicle was in motion. None of us knows. And that’s because we didn’t witness it. Nor did you.
& if dj doesn’t mind, I think that’s what his points are.
A “physical challenge”?? by flipping you the bird and saying “fuck you” ???
Your neighbor: you “had enough” of listening, and punched him in the nose.
You’ve really lost it… I see no sign at all of remorse anymore. Just total self-serving self-justification. Now you’re fucking smug about what you’ve done.
If we were in the same room with you (say, Monty, Rick Jay, and I) you would have hit one us by now.
You ARE a bully. You’ve committed multiple violent assaults. The more you open your mouth, the more dangerous I think you are.
You haven’t learned a damn thing. Like I said earlier, stay off the witness stand. You’ll fuck yourself badly and end up in jail.
I see jail time ahead for you, if not this time, the next. I have confidence in you, lieu – there will be a next time.
Coupla things and I’m going to bed. Tomorrow’s kinda big. I’ll come back then or Friday with a verdict. To those that have been understanding, thanks. To everyone else, seriously, I honestly know where you’re coming from. I’m trying. Understand, these were more than simple assholes.
I first call the police if given a chance in road situations, both to report dangerously agressive behaviour and apparent drunkeness. I’d say I make about 6 or 8 calls a year. Search for “smoking coprolite”. It’s the thread about how I quit one job for another just so I could avoid a commute fraught with agressive drivers, one prima in particular. Yes, I did call him in. I never subsequently saw any police at the time or exit he took that I detailed in my report. As far as I know, he’s still out there picking fights with, I think, an F250.
I’ve every hope the previously referenced conflict caused that driver to give pause before he was so damn agressive to the next hapless person on the road in front of him. That was my intent.
Our neighborhood ass, aside from spraying poison in my backyard has, since the incident, driven like a model citizen. I’m not kidding… the change has been dramatic. Now if he wins tomorrow, all bets are off.
I get exactly one result for “smoking coprolite” and that’s this very thread, lieu. BTW, I did have the thing set on searching for “any date.” Did you post it before “the Winter of Lost Content” (aka “The Big Crash”)?
I think you might be mistaken as to what the police did or didn’t do in that case. They do, after all, have the name and last known address of the registered owner for a registered vehicle.
Personally, and IANACriminal Lawyer so take this as you will, I think you’d be hard pressed to suggest enough correlation between a road rage incident and the situation with the neighbor.
Think about it this way – you go to have a conversation with your neighbor and find him in his garage. You’ve come to talk, he comes up to you with a tire iron in hand. Do you leave? Maybe he just has it in his hand. He taps you with it. Do you want to turn your back on him now? He’s telling you that he meant to scare and threaten your child. You stay, you try to talk him down and when he raises the tire iron higher, you swing to keep him from hitting you, hitting him in the process, breaking his nose and knocking him on his ass.
Who is really the violent, aggressive party here? The guy being menacing with a deadly weapon in hand, or the guy who breaks a nose defending himself from that guy with the weapon?
p.s. It’s not your neighbour taking you to court, is it? I was under the impression it was the prosecutor, and thus the state.
Lieu, in both cases you’ve confronted a person who you feel has wronged you and when they don’t back down and admit they were wrong, you escalate and assault them. You may have been in the right to begin with but it didn’t end that way. Based on your neighbor’s behavior I think it’s much more likely that he’ll harbor a grudge against you rather than back off. I hope you get off with probation but if not, please consider the fact that you’ll have put your family in a potentially worse situation by assaulting him.
On preview I see the comment about the neighbor driving like a model citizen. Based on what you’ve said about him, I’d assume it’s because he’s aware of the trial and is on his best behavior until a judgement is rendered rather than a true lifestyle change.
A voice of reason. Ahhh, thank you tlw.
“If we were in the same room with you (say, Monty, Rick Jay, and I) you would have hit one us by now.” Boyo, this is silly and you know it. I’ve received some good advice from you and I appreciate it. I’ll come back later and really read some of the points you’ve made tonite but please understand I’m extremely stressed right now, gotta concentrate on tomorrow and need some sleep. Plus, I’ve put on about 5 or 10 and I’m not sure my suit’s gonna fit.
I wish you all peace, including myself. It’s blatently obvious it what you and I both prefer.
I’m sorry Monty,
It wasn’t a specific reply to you. I did not mean to offend anyone by that remark. It wasn’t a judgement of anything anyone wrote here. By the time I replied there were more than a couple new posts to this than my slow hands had time to press the send button.
I’m not talking about forgiveness. mhendo posed a very good question. A troubling one at that. Give more extra chances to a person because they are a parent? or not? “Think of the children” we quote and hear (not me, never me)
A difficult question as I see it. The single person may be a better person and get the harsher senetence.
Ofcourse we all know the legal system is perfect
I don’t really see it as an extra chance, tunabreath (well, sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t–as I said, I’m of two minds about it). It’s more of an alternative in sentencing. Still a price to be paid, just a different price than getting a striped suntan.
lieu: “Poison?” Do you mean “lawfully obtained and used pesticide to protect the foliage in your neighbour’s yard?”
Well, now that you’ve spoken further, I’m convinced that you started out stupidly and progressed rapidly to the ultimate stupidity of thinking that the police cared what your motivation was, and continued behaving stupidly to this day.
Why? Because your whole reason for your line of action was to “keep your family safe”, and every action that you’ve taken has actually put your family in more danger.
A guy, as you understood the situation, tried to kill your daughter. Did you call the cops and have them talk to him? No, you said “Hey, let’s go try and intimidate the crazy guy and see if he keeps any firearms handy.” Luckily, it was only a tire iron. If you were lucky with the cops, he goes ape-shit on them and taps the officer with a tire iron, and your problem is solved.
OK, so you punch him and go home. At this point in time, you’ve humiliated a bully. Bullies don’t like being humiliated, and tend to strike back. You’ve proven that you’re not an easy target. That makes your family a bigger target, and your family is now in danger whenever you’re not around. And, since you punched him, your family is now undefended while you’re being booked. Stupid.
Here’s a clue as to the police behavior: They didn’t give a shit about “you’re side”. Their job is to keep you talking until you admit to a crime, which they did by showing empathy to you. The only story you ever tell police without a lawyer present is “I didn’t do nothing”. If you did do somethng, and you don’t want to lie, then you don’t say crap until a lawyer gets there. Stupid.
Here’s another hint: They likely ‘forgot’ about you because they were afraid that you were going to get out and finish the job you started. Something in your manner lead them to believe that you were angry enough to beat a man sensless. Still think you’re managing your anger correctly? Your family went undefended for an extra 10 hours because you couldn’t cool down. Stupid.
Then, because confessing to the police wasn’t stupid enough, you confessed on a public message board, one in which you’ve published past stories about punching people. Stupid, as you put yourself in greater danger of being jailed, where you cannot defend your family. You have the thread deleted. Smarter.
THEN, you start a completely new thread where you confess AGAIN, just when it looks like you’re going to have a good trial experience. Stupid, as you’ve AGAIN put yourself in danger of being put into a place where you cannot defend your family.
What I don’t understand completely is your need to do all of this confessing. I hope it’s because you’re looking for justifcation for your actions amongst your peers. Then you’re just stupid for not waiting until after the trial, and for mistaking the police for your peers.
But what I fear is that you’re bragging about your physical ability to defend your family. That’s not only stupid, but a little bit scary as well.
So there you have it, you’ve behaved stupidly at every step of the way, and you’ve done nothing that has actually made your family any safer. He’s not going to stop being a crazy loon just because he has a broken nose, he’s just going to stop targeting you directly, which is the exact opposite of what you wanted to happen.
Stop, take a deep breath, and just think about it.
-lv