That’s the way I see it. Even if Esparza had no foreknowledge that the other three planned on killing Ramirez, she certainly knew it after the fact. Yet she concealed the identity of three murderers.
Ahh, no, it doesn’t.
Firstly that right has to be invoked, and she failed to invoke it.
Secondly, the right only provides a guaranteed right to silence. It gives no right to lie or to pervert justice. By speaking to the police, she actually waived her right to silence.
Finally, she didn’t remain silent, she lied. That is not a right that the 5th guarantees.
I’m not even a lawyer and I know this shit. In layman’s terms, you either shut up or answer truthfully. You don’t have any right to cover up for yourself or other criminals by lying or to collude in a sham marriage in an attempt to thwart justice.
All those things are crimes in themselves. A fact that she just discovered the hard way.
She knew it at the time. She could have saved the victims life after she saw him being dangled form the ceiling and tortured. She did nothing.
At the very least the facts makes her the instigator of a crime (assault in company at the least) an accessory before the fact/accomplice to the crimes of torture and kidnapping and and accessory after the fact to the crime of murder.
Let’s see.
On the one hand we have an innocent, hard working and honest young man.
On the other hand we have a woman who we know as a fact murdered him. In order to have him murdered she told an ex boyfreind that the man raped her. In order to reduce her sentence she told the police the man raped her.
Which of these people is credible?
Is there any reliable evidence at all to believe a rape occurred?
Seriously. OK, first you tell us that you can’t think of another dozen reasons why someone would want another person dead, and we’ll provide them for you.
But just for the record I want your admission that you can’t think of a single reason why one person would want another dead aside from rape. Because otherwise you are just playing dumb to make you opponents work.
There are probably a dozen people in this age range murdered by acquaintances every week. Either you think they were all rapists or else you know damn well the possible reasons she could have to want this guy murdered.
Seriously? She watches a man being tortured to death on her behalf, and she doesn’t even call an ambulance, much less the police. OK. she may not be a textbook sociopath, but she has such a depraved disregard for human life and human suffering that it makes no difference.
On the issue of her guilty: Either she was charged with manslaughter or with murder (which includes manslaughter as a lesser included charge). Manslaughter doesn’t require you to have wanted to kill the other person; Recklessness and willful blindness can be sufficient for the mens rea. When you see vigilantes force someone into a van, thinking that only roughing up is in the cards is using a fair amount of wishful thinking.
It’s possible that some of what she says is true but when you’ve engaged in deceptive or manipulative tactics, the downside is that your word won’t be enough.
Reading up on the story, I must have missed something: How did the police know to question her and the 3 men who did it? They found a body dumped by the side of the road. Then what followed that led the police to the 4 suspects?
Well said.
The woman has proven herself to be willing and able to make up the most astonishing lies to cover her tracks, up to an including getting married to avoid being questioned.
The idea that anybody would believe her story about being raped without even a shred of corroborating evidence beggars the mind. It’s a really nasty peek into the way that some people view men and women.
She knew her victim. The police found the murderesses name and phone number next to her victims phone in his home. His housemate told the police that he had been having sex with a woman with the same first name as the murderess.
Standard police procedure in any murder cases is to question the spouse/girlfriend, which they did.
I disagree that rape, or any other crimes of violence against a person that fall short of murder, are on the same level as murder.
With these crimes, of course, any injuries, psychic or physical, may not necessarily be made whole, but there is at least the possibility of significant improvement. I don’t want to downgrade the seriousness of rape, for example, or other grievous bodily harm. But those people are still alive and still have the opportunity to get some enjoyment as they can out of the rest of their lives. A murdered person has nothing, no opportunity for joy or pain or anything. Just death. I think that this categorical, qualitative difference is worth a categorical difference in the way these crimes are treated by the law.
Who, the dead guy?:dubious:
How on earth would you come to that coclusion? Far from being silly it’s highly useful. The word imparts added information to the reader or listener. Would you have us use ‘female murderer’ when we need to inform somebody of the killer’s gender? That’s what strikes me as silly.
I am sure you meant to write “imparts added information to the reader/readeress or listener/listeness.” In the interests of getting all the information across we could want. How do you feel about priestess and Jewess? Or doctoress and lawyeress, or senatoress or pilotess? We seem to get along just fine in ordinary discourse without readeresses and listenesses having that vital piece of information regarding gender where these terms are concerned. It’s hard for me to see why the gender of a person who murders is more important than any of these others.
As for the question at hand, yes, a prison term is perfectly reasonable. This is not the sort of behavior about which society does itself a favor by saying “oh, it was a long time ago, and she’s been a model citizen ever since!” First, she really hasn’t been, given that she’s been keeping things secret that she’s had no business keeping secret; second, even if she were, this is murder we are talking about. As others have noted, someone died.
And I’ll just add that I’ve heard debates like this before, and it seems that the dispute is always over a person who has gone on to become an academic or other professional after committing the crime. The outrage over prison sentences doesn’t seem to take place when the offender has gone on to become a bricklayer, a garbage collector, a handyman. I’m sure this woman has been a useful member of society as an academic in her post-murdering career, but I wonder about the class issue; if she’d gone on to be a bricklayeress, a garbage collectoress, or some other less prestigious job, would anyone be up in arms about the sentence she got? (I can’t point to any particular case here, but “He/She is now a professor(ess)/doctor(ess)/principal(ess)!!!” sounds very familiar.)
Anyone can think of millions of reasons why someone may want other people dead. The movies are filled with them. However, there must be a specific motive to each murder. If there wasn’t a rape just exactly what is the motive for this murder? Not one I can think of but the actual, specific one to this case?
Nevermind… it would prob be a hijack.
They went on a date and he dumped her.
They went on a date and her jealous and violent not-so Ex BF found out &got all jealous and threatened her so she made up a rape story.
They had a argument, so she siced her Ex on him with a rape story.
She is clearly a sociopath and liar so who knows?
No, the dead guy is dead. I’m talking about Esparza. She’s an eyewitness who said Ramirez raped her.
Granted she might be lying. But in any other crime, the eyewitness statement of the victim wouldn’t be dismissed as not even existing.
You have not indicated what the substantial difference is between saying ‘female murderer’ and ‘murderess’. Suppose it is essential that you convey the gender of the killer are you really going to avoid murderess because it’s somehow tainted and use some circumlocution instead? All in the name of … er, what again?
I’m having trouble figuring out when it might be essential to convey the gender of someone who murders someone else.
And if I did feel I needed to, English is a highly flexible language which allows phrasings such as “She’s a murderer!” and “Jane murdered somebody!” and “The killer, a woman of short stature…” Each of these leaves little doubt as to the gender of the criminal; two of them even provide extra information.
I mean, I’ve gotten well into middle age without ever needing to use the word “murderess” and I haven’t missed it. Any more than I need a specific word to convey the gender of the person who took my ticket on the train, cooked my meal at a restaurant, or played the flute at my wedding. You’re welcome to use the word, and along with LHoD I’m welcome to think your use of the word is silly. (Also unnecessary and inconsistent.)
If I believed my (theoretical) son or brother (I actually have several of these) had raped a woman not only would I let bygones be bygones in regard to his victim in acting just revenge, I would lend her the weapons and be willing to assist in disposal of the body. Many years ago I had a relative arrested for war crimes (of which rape was probably one facet). My only regret about that day is that the officers declined my offer to stay for dinner (they could have left the criminal safely locked in a hot car).
So she made up the story about being raped in order to get someone else to murder him so that she could then make up a story about being raped… do you not see that you have fudged the timeline badly here on events?
:rolleyes:
I would have given her an even ten years.
As noted upthread, she’ll be a minor celebrity in some circles, as soon as she gets out.
It certainly does but economy in words can be useful. Horses for courses. I’m in my 60s and I’ve used the word, when I thought necessary, all my life. I’m English so perhaps it’s a British/American thing. But each to their own and the English language can accomodate all of us quite comfortably.