09-06-2007, 09:02 AM
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pixie of the wood
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Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 10,575
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I didn't say it is double jeopardy, just that it comes too close, at least for me – “moral double jeopardy” is the term being bandied about here, I believe.
Barnes is an ass, he's had a long history of criminal activity and parole violations, what he's done in his past is despicable and reprehensible but just because our state law allows murder charges to be filed 41 years after a victim has been assaulted (attempted murder is aggravated assault here in PA, boog and scotz) and given the perpetrator had been convicted of lesser charges and has served time for the offense, as barnes has done, doesn't mean I hafta agree with it. In my not so humble opinion, it’s more that our state law doesn’t precisely spell out in legalese that you can’t.
You'd be hard pressed to find cases like this one where the victim was not a cop, and even harder pressed to find a case where the verdict was in favor of the prosecution. Judges don’t like it and the public doesn’t like it. The prosecutor is using flimsy logic and loopholes to waste the taxpayer’s money on a trial for a guy who’s NEVER going to be convicted of murder in the first degree, which would mean life imprisonment, and who’s even unlikely to get murder in the second, which carries a life sentence with parole possible after 20 (I think), but who would – if convicted at all which is extremely unlikely - get murder in the third, a sentence that carries a minimum of 5 years, which barne’s has already served four times over.
The murder in the third and aggravated assault minimum sentences are the same, i think, lou. It's just that judges and juries use their own discretion and the facts of the case to either impose the minimum sentence or opt for a more severe (up to certain limitations) punishment.
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