Donte Stallworth to plead guilty to DUI manslaughter charge

Grimace is right. Athletes and other public figures often get treatment that is more harsh than the average Joe simply because of the coverage it gets.

I'm not for a moment defending Stallworth driving drunk. But the fact remains, he was driving down the street when a dude ran in front of his SUV trying to catch a bus. Stallworth stopped and immediately cooperated. If he wasn't drinking he probably wouldn't even have gotten a ticket. So, you know, those calling for 10 years in maximum security should probably decide whether they want to let a murderer or child molester out to make room.

30 days seems light to me, too, but let's not pretend this guy is Jeffrey Dahmer.

 

That's why I said away from civilization. Think parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.

Better yet, try Alaska - in land area, it's more than twice as big as Texas, yet it has fewer than 700,000 residents. There's a whole lot of very remote areas there.

 

Actually, the stimulus did set aside $800 million for the Federal Prison System.

I couldn't find a good link, but here's one from Reason magazine that actually criticizes the money.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/131611.html

Oh and here's the actual bill:

http://appropriations.senate.gov/News/2009_02_09_Substitute_Amendment_to_HR1_%7BCollins_Nelson_Amendment%7D.pdf?CFID=5283191&CFTOKEN=

The stuff for prisons is on Page 43.

See! You ask for something, the good ol' guvmint delivers!

 

Of course, inasmuch as Stallworth was sentenced in Florida state court, a prison in New Mexico isn't a very likely destination.

Although there are for-profit prisons that take inmates from other states, so it's not unprecedented. Of course, evidence would suggest that you reduce the recidivism rate by putting inmates closer to their families, but the American mentality has never been one of actually trying to rehabilitate criminals. Because, as a dozen people will post in response to this, YOU CAN'T REHABILITATE CRIMINALS LOCK THEM UP FOREVER DEATH PENALTY FOR DUI CASES OMG!!!!111!1!ONE!

The guy ran in front of Stallworth's car. Period. If he doesn't do that, he doesn't get hit. We'll never know if Stallworth would have been able to stop if he hadn't been drinking.

 

I'm perfectly happy to let him rehabilitate. I'm happy to accept that he's a better person now because he owned up to his mistake and understands that what he did was wrong.

But I still want more than 30 days in prison.

 

To what end, though? What purpose would it serve? Would society not be better off using that prison space for someone who actually poses a threat?

Take away the guy's driver's license forever (or, excuse me, this is Florida: driver license). That's perfectly reasonable. But I just don't see that society benefits from having him locked up. In a world of infinite prison beds? Maybe. But that's not the world we live in.

 

Because giving serious prison sentences is part of the long process of convincing people that driving drunk is not acceptable.

 

How long will Stallworth be without a license? I haven't heard mention of that yet.

Most first-offense DUIs get a year with no license, right?

 

This is both sick and disgusting that the sentence is so low, and probably because he's a public figure and an NFL athlete. Like someone said earlier, this basically says that the killing of dogs is greater than the loss of human life. I don't defend Vick in his inexcusable actions, but don't understand how you can kill someone and be in jail for 30 days and receive a slap on the wrist.

Sure, he'll lose his license for an extended period of time, but that was to be expected. If anyone else on this board committed this same crime, it's almost guaranteed that that person would get the harsher sentence and gets years in prison.

 

Thing is, how do you know a criminal is truly rehabilitated? How do you know he/she is not just putting on a good act, or even that he/she might be trying to rehabilitate but will fall into their old habits upon return to society and the people they surrounded themselves with?

I'm certainly not saying that Stallworth should be locked away forever. But he should be locked up for a lot more than 30 days, and done so in a location and setting that will really send a message, both to him and every other celebrity who thinks they can do anything they want.

BTW, I am anti-death penalty because I don't think it punishes the people who are currently eligible for it enough. If you commit a crime heinous enough to merit capital punishment under our current laws, why should you get to be put out of your misery? Wouldn't it be worse punishment to be spend the rest of your life in near-solitary confinement in a maximum security prison in the wilderness, far away from civilization and the world you're used to? Nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing even to see. Just day after day, week after week, year after year of isolation from other people, with no chance of ever getting out.

 

but, but, but that would be cruel and inhumane

 

*sigh*

No, it doesn't fucking say that the killing of a dog is worse than the killing of a human.

Michael Vick ran and funded a criminal operation based on the torture and killing of animals.

Donte Stallworth had a guy run in front of his car. He was drunk at the time.

There's a pretty goddamn huge gulf between the intent of one and the intent of the other. Donte Stallworth wouldn't even have gotten a ticket if he wasn't drunk. And again, I'm hardly defending drunk driving, and I think the sentence is light. But it's not even remotely comparable to Vick's case.

And seriously, people need to get over this fantasy that celebrities get off so much easier than "regular" people. Ask Plaxico Burress, who has the mayor of New York vowing to make sure he gets a stiff prison sentence... while the regular guy doesn't do a minute of jail time for the exact same offense. Prosecutors target celebs because they want to look tough in high-profile cases. Cover courts sometime, and see what sentences people get in the real world.