It will be a cruel realization as it slowly dawns on Falcon that he's the most well-balanced, mature thinker in his entire family.
I say, give HIM custody over his parents and siblings: their family certainly can't fare any worse. #balloonboy
I don't get the viciousness of the attack. Whenever I burgle a home, if the inhabitants are present, I just sneak out through the same catflap I came in. #murder
How 'bout we make fame-whoring a Class B misdemeanor, like streetwalking, and go from there? Granted, half of California would have to make bail, but still. #balloonboy
Actually I blame Richard Heene for all of this. He's the attention whore, not so much her. She is so incredibly passive (which is probably why he chose her to begin with) that she's more of a passive participant rather than one to "deliberately threw her child into the middle of a self-generated media shitstorm."
Not excusing her, but it's really fucked up of the dad/husband to let it get so far as for her to be possibly deported because of all this. He's the one who needs to be punished fully out of all of this. And she needs to be away from him as much as the kids do. Seriously, almost everyone else interviewed who knew them just walked away from his bullshit but her - because she pretty much can't. I would like to see her as much as an abuse victim as those kids are, unable to defend themselves from his special crunchy sort of batshittery. #balloonboy
@The Real JR: Yeah, it's also kind of sad that she hasn't gotten her citizenship yet. I would think that with the amount of time she's been married to him she could have already applied for it. #balloonboy
I can never really get over the part of this story where a 26 year old's mother is calling her every morning to make sure she's up for her job. And when she doesn't answer, the mother rushes over there. Granted, if she hadn't, who knows how long this girl would have lain there dying but... I don't know. This makes too much of a case for Helicopter parenting. #murder
He didn't stab her - he raped her and beat her so badly with a piece of wood that her face was completely destroyed. The description of her injuries at the trial were so beyond gruesome I won't post them here. This was a particularly vicious crime. #murder
@blix: I vow to stop being vague just for you, blixy! It's just too bad they couldn't get a two-for-one deal with the Beltway sniper the other day. Save on paperwork, that sort of thing. #murder
@scroll_lock:
Yes, killing people is terrible. That's why we as a society need our blood vengeance... so that we can show people that killing people is wrong. #murder
@BettyCrocker: Well, he did kill her. I don't believe in the death penalty, but are you suggesting that it oughtn't to be applied in cases where it seems 'too obvious'? #murder
@chinaplate: I think the point is more that in the case of a black man, it's pretty much a certainty that the death penalty will be applied, where it wouldn't be a certainty were it a white man. #murder
@BettyCrocker: @BettyCrocker: Yeah, or someone murders someone and capital punishment works (well, works if you agree with it) like the law says it does. Not everything is about race, even in the south. Crazy, right! tl;dr - a nilla would have gotten the dealth penalty too. #murder
@Buttafooco, @Angriest Greek: I was ignorant of the law and statistics in this particular case, so I thank you, but I was just trying to give an interpretation of BettyCrocker's comment. But even so, from what knowledge I did have, it's been found that the death penalty is applied unevenly between blacks and whites (in general). #murder
@Lucky: Point well taken. I think one of the reasons for that may be because when it's applied to whites, we don't often hear about it in the media as much as when it applies to blacks, which is especially true if it's black on white crime. #murder
@Buttafooco: We heard about this not because he is a black man but because she was so loved by the community. The murder was gruesome and devastating to the area. I think the death penalty would be sought regardless of who did it because of the role of Anne Pressley.
@AlexSea: Oh, it totally works. Once they pump the poison into this fella, (1) Anne Pressly will come back to life and (2) homicidal maniacs with incurable sociopathic tendencies will stop in their tracks, so deterred from committing acts of violence they'll be.
@Buttafooco: Interesting chart. Did you look at the population numbers for the state by race? Because according to the U.S. Census bureau, the racial divide in Alabama is 71% white and 26% black, making a nearly equal division in executions by race disproportionately applied.
@Scooter34: I actually did not and I must confess I suck at statistics and maths. However, wouldn't you have to look the racial makeup of the prison population, rather than the general population? It may be a 71% white to 26% black in the general population but when you look at the prison population, the numbers are much different. However, there is no denying the fact that the media seems give more traction to crimes that involve black men against white women. #murder
@Lucky: From what I remember of the class on the death penalty that I took in college, it's applied proportionately between blacks and whites when you control for the race of the victim. A killer of any race is FAR more likely to be sentenced to death for killing a white person than for killing a black person. Tells you about which lives we value as a society, I think.
Although I don't think this is a clear case of that bias since the white victim was prominent and well-liked in the community, and the brutality of the murder combined with the victim's visibility probably means that anyone convicted of it would face death. The statistic overall is telling, though. #murder
@pssshwhatever: It has been a while since I've read anything about it, though I'm sure one of my classes will cover it at some point as I'm a Soc/Poli Sci major (I know...). I almost took criminal justice this quarter.
And that the divide is revealed when you look at the race of the victim is very telling indeed. I'll have to look out for info on that. Thanks! #murder
@Lucky: The death penalty class I took was really fascinating, one of the best that I took in college. There are a lot of BS "facts" out there about the DP and it was nice to cut through some of that. I had always heard black offenders were disproportionately executed, and I was surprised to find that that's not exactly the case. #murder
@Buttafooco: I didn't mean this as a be-all, end-all of the discussion. Statistics are manipulated from many points of view.
One of the dirty little secrets in law enforcement is crime reporting. For years, we have reported under Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR), which allows us to report only the most serious in a series of crimes. So, for example, a rape and robbery that end in murder are reported as a murder. The FBI is pushing hard to switch to NIBRS, which is National Incident Based Reporting System, which would count all three offenses in the above example. So, you're already comparing apples to oranges if you're looking at crime statistics, because you're probably looking at UCR vs. NIBRS. #murder
@Scooter34: actually, I have zero interest in comparing any sort of crime stats. I was merely pointing out that if you're speaking about comparisons regarding death penalty cases as it relates to fact vs public perception when it comes to race, it would be more appropriate to do comparisons within the prison populations when making the argument. And now I am off to eat an apple............and then.....perhaps an orange. #murder
Dear Gawker Community,
We are unable to comment on this post due to numerous publication constraints.
I knew I shouldn't have given the editors the right to check my quotes.
Actually, the NYT should be familiar with this sort of quote-check pre-publication approval. John Cook showed last week how reporter Jeremy Peters entered into a similar deal with Paterson chief of staff Charles O'Byrne. [gawker.com]
I'm so tired of (Democratic) campaigns that don't have the guts to go negative and twist the knife when they have got the goods. Whatever Plouffe did to help derail Edwards should be a point of pride for him, as I suspect it is. Anyone who refuses to educate the voters about his opponent's liabilities has failed his obligation as a candidate. #davidplouffe
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I say, give HIM custody over his parents and siblings: their family certainly can't fare any worse. #balloonboy
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Not excusing her, but it's really fucked up of the dad/husband to let it get so far as for her to be possibly deported because of all this. He's the one who needs to be punished fully out of all of this. And she needs to be away from him as much as the kids do. Seriously, almost everyone else interviewed who knew them just walked away from his bullshit but her - because she pretty much can't. I would like to see her as much as an abuse victim as those kids are, unable to defend themselves from his special crunchy sort of batshittery. #balloonboy
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Yes, killing people is terrible. That's why we as a society need our blood vengeance... so that we can show people that killing people is wrong. #murder
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[quickfacts.census.gov] #murder
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Although I don't think this is a clear case of that bias since the white victim was prominent and well-liked in the community, and the brutality of the murder combined with the victim's visibility probably means that anyone convicted of it would face death. The statistic overall is telling, though. #murder
11/12/09
And that the divide is revealed when you look at the race of the victim is very telling indeed. I'll have to look out for info on that. Thanks! #murder
11/12/09
11/12/09
One of the dirty little secrets in law enforcement is crime reporting. For years, we have reported under Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR), which allows us to report only the most serious in a series of crimes. So, for example, a rape and robbery that end in murder are reported as a murder. The FBI is pushing hard to switch to NIBRS, which is National Incident Based Reporting System, which would count all three offenses in the above example. So, you're already comparing apples to oranges if you're looking at crime statistics, because you're probably looking at UCR vs. NIBRS. #murder
11/12/09
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11/11/09
We are unable to comment on this post due to numerous publication constraints.
I knew I shouldn't have given the editors the right to check my quotes.
Actually, the NYT should be familiar with this sort of quote-check pre-publication approval. John Cook showed last week how reporter Jeremy Peters entered into a similar deal with Paterson chief of staff Charles O'Byrne. [gawker.com]
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