This is Freakin’ Insane!
Jan 18, 2008 Uncategorized
Check out these two news reports I heard back to back on the radio this morning. Note the sections I have bolded.
Gordon Douglas Leathers, 51, faces up to life in prison if convicted of armed robbery.
Kent County sheriff’s investigators said Leathers robbed the restaurant Jan. 6 by threatening the 19-year-old cashier with a hammer and demanding that she give him the cash in the register. The Grand Rapids Press said Leathers was arrested in his vehicle shortly afterward.
Gagnon faces up to 50 years in prison if he is convicted on five aggravated vehicular homicide charges and two aggravated vehicular assault charges. He will remain in the Lucas County jail.
Police say Gagnon, whose blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit according, was driving north on the southbound lanes of Interstate 280 on Dec. 30 when he slammed into the minivan of Danny Griffin, a former Livonia resident driving back with his family to their home in Parkville, Md.
Killed in the accident were his wife Bethany Griffin, 36; her children Lacie Burkman, 7; Haley Burkman, 10; and 2-month-old Vadie Griffin, all of Parkville, Md.; and her stepdaughter Jordan Griffin, 10, of Redford Township. Danny Griffin, as well as his daughter Sydney Griffin and stepson Beau Burkman, 7, survived.
Does this seem odd to anyone else?
A guy robs a Subway with a hammer and may go away for life.
Another guy gets hammered, drives down the highway the wrong way, kills a family and is only faced with 50 years?
That seems whack to me.
January 18th, 2008 at 9:46 am
What we have here is malice and then lack of it. Their ages and histories could be weights too. It’s about as easy to over look as having law on stone versus having it on one’s own heart. 3 times the legal limit could be a 6 pack right? It’s a shame.
January 18th, 2008 at 11:09 am
A six pack is NOT three times the legal limit. If Gagnon weighed 200 lbs, it would take TEN drinks to get to 0.2, and this guy was above that. Above 0.2 is where blackouts start happening; he was not far from alcohol poisoning. I don’t buy the “whoops” factor. The public has been educated. You drink, you drive, you will murder someone. It’s as if the guy walked through a crowded room with a machine gun.
The man who murdered Meg Hughes (21, dreaming of being a missionary to India), Ben Hughes (16-year-old who loved serving on the greeting team), and Jennifer Carter (NC State Freshman) - three members of Grace in Raleigh - in October 2006 only got four years in prison. He crossed the yellow line into oncoming traffic on a small highway, drunk at 5 PM.
He’ll be out of prison (and deported) before I get my PhD, which I started two months before they died.
There’s absolutely no excuse for drunk driving, and the courts should start treating it like the crime it is. Like prison time is going to convince these guys NOT to do it again.
January 18th, 2008 at 11:48 am
This kind of stuff makes me so enraged, while at the same time makes my hurt hurt, physically hurt. What is everybody and everything comin’ to?
We need some help down here, God. Help people to open their eyes to You, and not just the eyes are their face, but also the eyes to their heart.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
I only grew up thinking it was normal and Spuds got the hot girls… driving drunk countless times from 15-26. Sober since, theres much to it but a 100lb female in an hour would average at 3X MI’s limit hence “could be”. 1in10 Americans are alcoholic right… “whoops”? So Noel, what would Jesus do?
January 18th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
What does Jesus do here? Jesus takes away someone’s keys when they reach for another. Jesus agrees to be the DD even when the bar isn’t his thing. Jesus calls a cab even if the person stumbling across the parking lot is a stranger, and pays for it if need be. Jesus hosts the party and makes sure everyone leaves with a sober driver. Jesus gives a friend his couch, or takes the couch himself. Jesus asks about the DD when his roomie heads out the door with friends.
January 18th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I also think Jesus would model biblical moderation.
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:52 pm
A life sentence in Michigan doesn’t mean the length of the prisoner’s life by any means. He’ll be unlucky if he even gets 20 years. That’s the difference.
And as far as the system cracking down on drunk driving, believe me they have.
It’s ridiculous to compare someone who drinks and drives to someone walking thru a room shooting a machine gun. My friend had 2 beers within 2 hours, supposedly that’s ok to do, he blew right at the limit and got the book thrown at him. Where’s the justice in that? He endangered no one. 5 years ago his level would have been legal.