oliver_babish

oliver_babish t1_iyd85gm wrote

Reply to comment by delcocait in Philly DA files motion to reconsider sentence for former officer convicted of voluntary manslaughter by redeyeblink

Let's take a look. (2019)

A Philadelphia judge on Friday sentenced a former Center City real estate agent to 3½ to seven years in state prison in the fatal shooting of her boyfriend in her Fishtown apartment building two years ago.

Common Pleas Court Judge J. Scott O’Keefe had convicted Jeanette Wakefield, 39, of voluntary manslaughter and possession of an instrument of crime after a nonjury trial in July. He added two years of probation and ordered her to get counseling.

Another (2018), but with guilty pleas:

Saying that three Philadelphia women had "unleashed a savage act" on a homeless man when they brutally beat him outside an Olney gas station three years ago, leading to his death seven months later, a judge on Friday sentenced the women to prison terms of more than a decade.

During a nearly three-hour hearing, Common Pleas Court Judge Sandy Byrd said the beating death of Robert Barnes, 51, which was captured on surveillance video, "is one in which we all witnessed the very worst attributes of humanity."

The three women — Aleathea Gillard, 37; Kaisha Duggins, 27; and Duggins' sister, Shareena Joachim, 26 — pleaded guilty Jan. 29 to charges of voluntary manslaughter, conspiracy, and possession of an instrument of crime in Barnes' death.

Byrd sentenced Gillard and Duggins to the maximum term of 22½ to 45 years in state prison. He sentenced Joachim to 12½ to 25 years.

Next link (2009), again after guilty pleas:

Three men who pleaded guilty to beating a Phillies fan to death outside Citizens Bank Park in 2009 have been sentenced. The altercation followed spilled drinks in a crowded bar, and there were running alcohol-fueled brawls that ended in the parking lot.

After a mistrial was declared in September, the following month, all of the defendants pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. ..

Each of the defendants received different sentences, based on culpability. Judge Shelley Robins New sentenced Francis Kirchner to 9-18 years, for meting out what could have been the fatal kick to the victim's head. Charles Bowers received 5-10 and James Groves got 2-4 years.

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oliver_babish t1_iyd3jk1 wrote

Reply to comment by collectallfive in Philly DA files motion to reconsider sentence for former officer convicted of voluntary manslaughter by redeyeblink

Here's the first other case I could find:

In 1989, when John Blount was just 17, he was convicted of a double homicide. Blount was sentenced to death, and later re-sentenced to life in prison without a chance for parole. While incarcerated, he started a mentoring program for kids, kept a nearly spotless disciplinary record, and got his GED. He was written up only once, for owning a contraband radio. In 2016, following a series of Supreme Court decisions deeming mandatory life-without-parole sentences unconstitutional for defendants under 18, Blount was made eligible for a resentencing. Before his resentencing hearing in 2018, his lawyer had worked with the Philadelphia district attorney’s office to negotiate a 29-year-to-life sentence. The judge, however, disagreed. “I cannot discount two lives,” said Judge Barbara McDermott after rejecting the negotiated sentence. “I believe in proportionality in a sentence.” Her sentence, 35 to life, will make him eligible for parole at the age of 52. (Blount’s attorney is now petitioning the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to consider the case.)

It used to be unheard of for Philadelphia judges to reject a negotiated sentence in these resentencings—until Larry Krasner, arguably the most progressive prosecutor in the country, took over the city’s district attorney’s office in January 2018 and started delivering on a promise to minimize incarceration. In response, several Philadelphia judges have shut down his attempts to keep people out of prison or release them earlier. Some, such as McDermott, have overruled resentencing agreements.

Second:

Judge Barbara McDermott — who has in a handful of other cases accepted deals for juvenile lifers negotiated by Krasner's administration — has begun to reject some of the agreements she's reviewed.

One was for John Blount, who shot and killed two men as a teenager in 1989. The district attorney offered 29 years to life. On March 26, McDermott rejected that deal and imposed a sentence of 35 years to life, the minimum set by current sentencing law for a first-degree murder by a juvenile. The other was for Omar Dennis, who according to Daily News reports from 1994 shot and killed a man who'd beaten him in a "fair fight." McDermott rejected a 24-years-to-life deal and imposed a 28-year minimum instead.

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oliver_babish t1_iyck0h5 wrote

Reply to comment by SBRH33 in Philly DA files motion to reconsider sentence for former officer convicted of voluntary manslaughter by redeyeblink

Judges sentence, not juries:

A former Philadelphia police officer was sentenced Thursday to 11½ to 23 months in prison for the 2017 fatal shooting of Dennis Plowden Jr., a conviction prosecutors called the first for an on-duty killing in recent city history.

The penalty fell years below the minimum state sentencing guidelines for the voluntary-manslaughter conviction that a jury handed Eric Ruch in September, leading Plowden’s family members and criminal justice reform advocates to say he got a sweetheart deal. District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office said convictions on identical charges have yielded 5½-to-11-year sentences on average since he took office in 2018.

In sentencing Ruch, Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara McDermott said that he had demonstrated good behavior since he was charged two years ago and she believed a longer sentence would not offer him rehabilitation.

”Nothing he is going to do in prison is going to make him a better person,” McDermott said to a courtroom packed with family, friends, and colleagues of Ruch and Plowden.

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oliver_babish t1_iy1rtrk wrote

Reply to comment by prozute in Who works in city hall? by Stavhoe

Every civil court judge in Common Pleas. Criminal is in the CJC on Filbert.

added: I found an old directory of the building online which has to be ~20 years old, and so while many of the names are outdated (or dead), the offices which are in the building remain. Of note, and I should have said this the first time: the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has a gorgeous courtroom in the building which it uses a few times every year.

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oliver_babish t1_iu22f47 wrote

Reply to Trolley Question by MedicCrow

One place, and it is much closer to Dilworth Plaza / City Hall than it is to the 16th and JFK/regional rail end of the station.

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oliver_babish t1_iu1jsi5 wrote

Reply to comment by dirtymatt in Is it unethical to vote if you're moving shortly afterwards? by [deleted]

This took about a minute to find:

"Whenever it shall appear by due proof that any absentee elector or mail-in elector who has returned his ballot in accordance with the provisions of this act has died prior to the opening of the polls on the day of the primary or election, the ballot of such deceased elector shall be rejected by the canvassers but the counting of the ballot of an absentee elector or a mail-in elector thus deceased shall not of itself invalidate any nomination or election."

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