Whoop that trick Wednesday:
Wide Recievers just have it easy these days.
I don’t know if it’s possible to make whoop an entire county in the state of Florida. But in the wake of Donte Stallworth’s ridiculously light sentence for taking a life, I’m going to give it a try this Wednesday. In March of this year,Stallworth, a Cleveland Browns WR, was boozing and cruising in his 2005 Bentley late one evening in Miami Beach when he struck and KILLED a pedestrian, Mario Reyes, a 59 year old construction worker. Stallworth was arrested and charged with a DUI and vehicular manslaughter. Now different states have different laws when it comes to DUIs. And in Florida, vehicular manslaughter is vehicular manslaughter, whether the driver was drunk at the time or not. So, despite Stallworth being smashed with a blood alcohol content of .12, the legal system in Miami-Dade County treated this case as they would any other negligent death in which a careless driver hit a pedestrian.
Wide Recievers just have it easy these days.
I don’t know if it’s possible to make whoop an entire county in the state of Florida. But in the wake of Donte Stallworth’s ridiculously light sentence for taking a life, I’m going to give it a try this Wednesday. In March of this year,Stallworth, a Cleveland Browns WR, was boozing and cruising in his 2005 Bentley late one evening in Miami Beach when he struck and KILLED a pedestrian, Mario Reyes, a 59 year old construction worker. Stallworth was arrested and charged with a DUI and vehicular manslaughter. Now different states have different laws when it comes to DUIs. And in Florida, vehicular manslaughter is vehicular manslaughter, whether the driver was drunk at the time or not. So, despite Stallworth being smashed with a blood alcohol content of .12, the legal system in Miami-Dade County treated this case as they would any other negligent death in which a careless driver hit a pedestrian.
After posting bail, Stallworth was extremely contrite about what he’d done, as expected. The humble and well respected wide receiver offered public apologies to the Reyes family over and over again, and made a point to work swiftly with his attorney’s to compensate the family for their loss. During the months leading up to his arraignment, he avoided any civil lawsuit by reaching a financial agreement with the Reyes family and he publicly announced his plans to plead guilty and throw himself at the mercy of the court. Well mercy ended up being an understatement. Yesterday, Stallworth was sentenced to just 30 days in jail for ending Reyes’ life, and he will reportedly serve just 24 days of that sentence.
I’m whooping Miami-Dade County for actually trying to convince themselves, and the rest of us, that 30 days in jail is punishment enough for taking a man’s life. I understand that accidents happen and sometimes those accidents end in death, but despite Stallworth’s contrition and heavy conscience, his crime was ridiculously hanus. Stallworth was smashed, doing 50 in a 40 when he popped a curb and hit a man waiting at the bus stop to return home after finishing his late shift. It was 7:15 in the morning, and the man he hit wasn’t even in the crosswalk. F how sorry he was after the fact, all Stallworth has to do is hire someone to drive his Bentley when he’s smashed and this hard-working crane operator gets to live to see 60. But of course, he’s a wide receiver in the NFL, so he has to stunt at all times. The maximum sentence for vehicular manslaughter is a year in jail. So 24 days is a joke in my opinion. Stallworth certainly delivered the maximum penalty to Mario Reyes when he struck him while driving drunk,….so a little reciprocation in the legal system would be nice.
3 comments:
If this is the agreement the family of the deceased made with Stallworth, then that's the way it is. Stallworth didn't try to fight this, didn't try to give Mr. Reyes any blame for jaywalking that night and is compensating the family which he is more than capable of doing. Obviously, 30 days is short, but the family wants this tragedy put in the past and I have no problem with the sentencing since the family had a hand in it.
First off Gray, get the facts right. He didn't just hop up on a curb and hit a man while he was sitting, minding his own business, the guy was J-walking. This is actually a HUGE fact, because its probably the biggest determining factor as to why they came to a plea bargain. Any good defense attorney, would be able to claim Comparative Negligence in this case, essentially a defense that says if the plaintiff (in this case the victim) is in any way at fault, then depending on what degree they were at fault, the defendant (Stallworth), might not have to pay anything and serve no jail time. This case was NOT open and shut. The plaintiffs knew that they could lose, so it was better to get something, rather than nothing at all.
Secondly, there is more than just 30 days in jail. He needs to serve only 24 days of his 30-day sentence because he was given credit for the one day he already served, which was the day of his arrest and booking. He also received an additional five days of credit because of a Florida state statute that says anyone who is sentenced to 30 days (besides civil, contempt, drug treatment and house arrest cases) automatically gets five days credit time served for every 30 days. Thats just the law there. He's also got to serve two years of house arrest and spend eight years on probation as well as undergo random drug and alcohol testing, will have a lifetime driver's license suspension and must perform 1,000 hours of community service.
Now, there's no way to compensate someone for their loss of a loved one, all the courts can do is try and make that family "whole" again through financial means. It hasn't been released, but reports say that the settlement was around $5 million dollars. Through this, the courts have ensured his family will be cared for for the forseeable future and Stallworth is going to do his time as perscribed by law. Just because we as a society think he deserves the electric chair or life in prison, doesn't mean thats the right thing to do. Florida law is what it is, and he's someone who was punished the way the law said he should be.
you misspelled and misused "heinous."
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heinous
sure it was awful, but hate-filled or evil doesn't really fit.
just saying.
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