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naraburns  nihil supernum  3yr ago (text post)   30913 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 12, 2022

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Do you know why he was only sentenced to 8 years for a previous double murder and home invasion? What change in policy would you propose?

I'll jump in and propose a hell of a lot longer of a prison sentence for home invasion double murder. I see that there was some confusion if he or his accomplice actually pulled the trigger in that double murder. I don't care. 4 years for breaking into a home and participating in a double murder is abhorrent even if he didn't personally pull the trigger. The kind of person who chooses to participate in those acts is the kind who cannot walk free in society. I would propose at least a few decades in prison. 4 years was gross misjustice.

The US (including Illinois) already has in place the felony-murder rule which can be used as a very broad penumbra to charge any participants of a crime with murder, regardless of their direct action or intent to kill. This was used to nail Roddie Bryan with life in prison in the Arbery case, even though he was far away from the shooting that killed Arbery. So it seems to me there are already well established laws that can punish people, even if they are only tangentially involved in someone's death. Do you disagree?

Illinois already has a 25 years to life prison sentence for felony murder. To @vpn 's credit, they included a link about the 2009 incident and what the prosecutor said about that case:

As in all cases, this matter was litigated based on the facts, evidence, and the law. After a thorough review of the case, including the defendant's role for the crime that occurred in 2010, we concluded that the evidence did not meet the burden of proof to move forward with the murder charges for Samuel Salas. On September 19, 2018, Salas pled guilty to the felony charge of Home Invasion and was sentenced to 8 years in prison after the court accepted the defendant's plea as a resolution to this case.

According to the prosecutor, the issue was lack of evidence, but it's plausible the prosecutor is now either lying or being misleading to cover their ass. Do you find their justification credible?

Since the law on the books already has the prison sentence you desire, what would you want to see change to make it easier to get convictions? Are there any downsides to making it easier to get convictions?

[tagging @Hoffmeister25 for similar reply]

I mean, I feel like I made it pretty clear that I do not consider 25 to life a just sentence, insofar as he is still alive. I want him to no longer be alive anymore. I want not a single penny of Illinois taxpayer money to be used to keep this man alive. I have no idea why you or anyone else would actually care if he himself was the one who pulled the trigger in the death of those two people. He was invading an innocent person’s home with the intent to burglarize it. The appropriate penalty for that crime should be death.

The article in question also mentions that five years after the original home invasion which resulted in the murder of two people, Salas then plead guilty to a second home invasion in which yet another person was murdered. Surely even if you believe he deserved a second chance after his first deadly home invasion, the fact that he did it a second time should make it abundantly clear what kind of person we’re dealing with, and the right and proper steps should be taken to end his life, publicly and without delay.

The article in question also mentions that five years after the original home invasion which resulted in the murder of two people, Salas then plead guilty to a second home invasion in which yet another person was murdered.

I agree the article is worded ambiguously but I didn't read that as describing two separate incidents but the article was repeating itself when describing the charging timeline. Either way, the prosecutor's statement for why they offered home invasion plea deal is that they lacked evidence to proceed with murder charges. I understand what you desire in terms of punishment, but how do you deal with the evidence issue?

Parsons-Salas is already a convicted felon, released on parole in September after serving time for a 2009 home invasion in Albany Park in which two people were also shot dead.

Parsons-Salas was initially charged with murder in that case, but pleaded guilty to two counts of home invasion.

Five years later, then-23-year-old Parsons-Salas was charged with first degree murder, along with another man. But those counts against him were later dropped after he agreed to plead guilty to home invasion charges, which carried an eight-year sentence.

To me this obviously seems to refer to two separate crimes. He was charged with murder for the 2009 case, but pled down to home invasion and served an unspecified amount of time for that. Then in 2016 he was charged with murder, then pled down to home invasion and sentenced to eight years. Are you suggesting that he was tried twice for the same crime, five years apart, pled down to home invasion twice for the same crime, and served two different prison sentences for that same crime?

Either way, the prosecutor's statement for why they offered home invasion plea deal is that they lacked evidence to proceed with murder charges. I understand what you desire in terms of punishment, but how do you deal with the evidence issue?

This where obviously I need more information - information which the article does not provide - in order to comment on the evidence issue in this particular situation. There’s a big difference between these two scenarios: 1. Salas and one or more accomplices invaded someone’s home, and in the commission of that home invasion somebody was shot. Police couldn’t determine, given the evidence at their disposal, which one of the home invaders fired the shot, so they couldn’t pin the murder on Salas specifically. 2. Police could not muster the evidence to actually place Salas at the scene of the home invasion.

In scenario 2 I obviously don’t want him executed, but scenario 2 seems wildly implausible given that Salas did in fact plead guilty to the home invasion. (I’m aware that there is the possibility that he took a plea deal for a crime which he didn’t commit in order to avoid the possibility of being convicted of an even worse crime that he also didn’t commit. The probability of this just seems far lower than I think you believe that it is.)

In scenario 1, again, it makes no difference whatsoever to me who actually directly committed the murder. If Salas committed a home invasion and nobody died, he should be executed. Don’t commit home invasions, or it’s curtains for you. I genuinely do believe this. Yes, there are edge cases; divorced couple, nasty custody battle, husband technically isn’t supposed to be in the home even though he lived there for twenty years, he still has a key, lets himself in to see his kids while ex-wife isn’t home, overzealous prosecutor charges him with home invasion. This is the sort of non-central case that is so far from what I guarantee that Salas did, I don’t think it’s worth discussing them in the same conversation.

There’s a big difference between these two scenarios: 1. Salas and one or more accomplices invaded someone’s home, and in the commission of that home invasion somebody was shot. Police couldn’t determine, given the evidence at their disposal, which one of the home invaders fired the shot, so they couldn’t pin the murder on Salas specifically. 2. Police could not muster the evidence to actually place Salas at the scene of the home invasion.

With felony-murder rule, they wouldn't need to prove who actually fired the shot at all, only that 1. someone died 2. while Salas was intending to commit a felony 3. the felony had the likelihood of getting someone killed. Given that someone died and that home invasions are inherently risky, the weakest link in that chain seems to be whether Salas was "intent on committing a felony" when the people were killed. So the reason they lacked evidence could also be "3. Police could not muster the evidence to indicate that Salas was at the home with the intent of committing a felony." There are a number of ways this could be the case, and I'm happy to rattle off some hypothetical examples if you're interested. Also, even plain vanilla murder charges don't need proof about who specifically fired the shot. More than one person can be convicted of committing a murder and if you're interested I can look up some real life cases.

I’m aware that there is the possibility that he took a plea deal for a crime which he didn’t commit in order to avoid the possibility of being convicted of an even worse crime that he also didn’t commit. The probability of this just seems far lower than I think you believe that it is.

This is a possibility, yes. What probability do you place on it? My anecdotal experience from my work is that the "factually innocent" client exists but is extremely rare. What probability did you think I placed on it?

Setting aside the questions above about evidence for the moment, if I was to summarize your position it would be: you agree with the felony-murder rule as it is but that you'd rather see the death penalty rather than the current "25 to life" sentence. Is that a fair characterization?

My anecdotal experience from my work is that the "factually innocent" client exists but is extremely rare. What probability did you think I placed on it?

I apologize, I believe I probably imputed to your beliefs that you don’t actually hold. I’m aware of your choice of career and of your left-libertarian/anarchist-adjacent worldview, and I extrapolated that to assume that you’re more pro-defendant/anti-justice-system than you may actually be.

You agree with the felony-murder rule as it is but that you'd rather see the death penalty rather than the current "25 to life" sentence. Is that a fair characterization?

Yes, it is fair, although again I want to stress that my support of the death penalty in Salas’ case is independent of felony murder jurisprudence, and that I would like to see the death penalty expanded to a significantly broader range of crimes than that to which it is currently applied.

No worries, you were at least correct about my worldview and how that might extrapolate to "pro-defendant/anti-justice-system", so that was at least a reasonable assumption. Very very few of my clients are innocent. The main grey area is usually "yes they did the thing, but is it a crime?" scenario, most often self-defense cases. I wrote about how useless I generally am for my cases if you're interested: Eleven Magic Words

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