Posted on 02/02/2011 9:45:12 PM PST by TruthHound
LONG BEACH -- After two days of deliberations, a jury found a Long Beach man guilty of second degree murder and four other charges in the vehicular dragging death of a 13-month-old Long Beach girl, and severely injuring her 2-year-old brother.
Neely Lejon Dinkins, dropped his head Wednesday afternoon in Long Beach Superior Court, and his family members wept as the verdicts were read. Dinkins was found guilty of murder and gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated in the death of 13-month-old Kaylee Alvarez and of several counts of causing gross bodily injury to Oscar Alvarez while driving drunk, and of leaving the scene of the accident.
Sentencing is scheduled for March 8.
Two special allegations of causing gross bodily injury to both Oscar and Kaylee also apply to the charges.
Jennifer Cops, the prosecuting attorney, said she hadn't added up the jail time Dinkins could face but it is substantial. She said the murder charge alone calls for a term of 15 years to life without other considerations.
The defense had argued Dinkins, who had a .20 blood alcohol content at the time of the accident, couldn't be guilty of murder because he was too drunk to know what he was doing. The legal blood alcohol limit is .08.
(Excerpt) Read more at presstelegram.com ...
BINGO! It was frustrating to be isolated from the jury room—especially knowing that the law and the facts of the case were black and white. I think the killer may actually have a case of malpractice from his counsel. This scumbag bastard attorney was basically calling for jury nullification, trying to get the jury to ignore the parameters of the law. His whole pitch was for manslaughter instead of murder 2 having ceded that all evidence to convict was indisputable.
The crime was done when Dinkins put the car in gear and ultimately wound up not just killing a baby, but dragging her under his SUV a mile and a half until her head was ground down like a pencil eraser. They couldn’t even find more than one tiny skull fragment, just one long bloody smear in the road from where he should have stopped to his girlfriend’s driveway.
As revolting as the coroner’s photos were, some ironically impacted me more than others. There were several DOZEN pictures of those plastic yellow numbers next to shredded pieces of pink fabric from her sweat pants. But the kicker for me (the one I can’t stop dreaming about) was one that showed her profile on her right side of her face. Only slightly bruised and scraped, she looked whole, angelic, peaceful. The others were ... I won’t describe it. God bless her parents who had to Identify her the day after it happened.
It should have taken 15 minutes to return the proper verdict. The law was clear. The evidence was clear. This was murder with malice aforethought. Textbook. Any other verdict would be a mockery of our system of justice. This was the very kind of act that this law was made to protect society from.
Right on. Nor should being a liberal.
IMHO...
There is no law that can be written to prevent this from occasionally happening. We must not fall for the siren song of passing some restrictive law in the name of “saving lives”. Accidents do happen and people die. People do all sorts of crazy things that endanger others, and sometimes the danger results in injury or death.
We have laws that define crimes and punishments and in this case a crime was commited and there has been a conviction.
That’s the process of justice, and it deters crime. Without justice we have chaos.
The convicted will now face the consequences of his action of driving while drunk; jail time, living with this the rest of his life, etc.
If we calculate the number of “drinking days”, i.e., the number of days per year a person has one or more drinks and add that up for every citizen, it’s probably north of 100 billion, as we have 300 million citizens and there are 365 days in a year. So, by and large, people are responsible in their drinking habits. Having DUI laws, or, preemptively punishing and removing someone from the road who has a certain blood alchohol level because of the higher risk they present is a stretch of common law because it is punishing what the law says they are doing which is a high risk. On the other hand, if a person is drunk enough, the risk is so high (when you know they have little chance of making it home in one piece) that it’s very difficult to argue against such a law, as injury appears imminent. The good news for those cases is that those drivers are often driving at night and weaving, and law enforcement knows fairly well exactly where to set up to catch them. And they do catch many of them preemptively.
Though not perfect at avoiding such a tragedy, the way laws are now probably strikes a decent balance between allowing us freedom and self-responsibility while preventing as much tragedy as possible. Our criminal justice system in this case seems to have worked well, and the fact that there are real consequences to our behavior has been reaffirmed one more time.
Not to play devil’s advocate, but what should the punishment be for drunk driving (assuming legal licensing, etc.)?
Not for causing a crash, or for causing injury or death, but for driving drunk without harm to anyone?
(I’ll hold my answer for now)
That’s exactly why I didn’t say he should be taken out back and shot before the trial. Now that he’s fairly tried by a jury of peers and convicted, they should take him out back and shoot him.
We only have the illusion of law in this country.
If you have enough money, power, connections, or celebrity, the law does not apply to you.
The reason drunk drivers have multiple convictions and are still out on the street is because too many judges drive drunk.
When a bastard like this perp is pulled from his vehicle at the scene and beaten to death, then we will have a civilized society.
Immediate loss of license, permanently. Plus a $1000 fine.
Don’t like it, don’t get behind the wheel after tipping back a few.
Driving is a privilege, not a right. If a person shows they have NO sense and is ready to endanger me or my children by driving drunk, then they just told society they’re not smart enough or decent enough to be entrusted with the privilege of driving on our streets again. Ever.
The line of reasoning is like saying, “Sure my client purchased a handgun illegally. Sure he loaded it, he hid it on his person, he walked into a bank, he robbed a teller with it. But it wasn’t his fault and it wasn’t his intent that he shot and killed a security guard who tried to stop him. That wasn’t part of his plan.”
Actually your post is incorrect and illogical.
The more alcohol you consume, the more your judgment and coordination are impaired. So in your first statement, the issue becomes how much you have consumed and how much that consumption has eliminated your ability to make sound decisions. (intent)
While in your second example, absent some mental impairment, each step you outline are examples of intent - including the decision, made while unimpaired by any substance, to shoot someone that tries to stop you.
Your analogy is flawed.
The defense attorney, who has an obligation to make sure the State has met it's burden of proof, made a legal argument that due to the high level of intoxication the defendant was unable to form the specific intent to kill. Specific intent to kill is an element that the State must prove in a normal murder trial. Most states have a specific statute regarding homicide by motor vehicle while intoxicated that contains no intent requirement for just this reason. All the state must prove is that you were operating/in control of a vehicle, you were intoxicated and you killed someone with the vehicle.
I won't bore you with the discussion on whether voluntary intoxication should/should not/is a defense to a specific intent crime, however that issue is germane as well.
However you might try removing emotion from your analysis.
No then we will then have Egypt or Pakistan.
Yours is a good answer, provided ONE thing.
If the individual was observed driving unsafely - as in, they committed some moving violation.
I would opine that some people are impaired in their driving at 0.05%, and others not until 0.12% or higher. It is the result of the driving, not the arbitrary measure, that counts, in my mind.
The permanency of the revocation of license is a bit problematic to me. If there is no hope of recovery (no matter whether anyone was hurt or not), we have thrown away the incentive to ability from our own mistakes. One strike and your out is not a system I’m entirely comfortable with.
We have a civilized society when we can routinely put scumbags like him in prison.
Here’s how they do it in Norway:
OSLO — A rich Norwegian has been ordered to pay a 700,000 kroner ($109,000) fine after driving his car 400 yards while drunk. Police stopped the 49-year-old man in October near the airport for southern Norway’s Kristiansand. Tests showed he had a blood alcohol content of .188 percent. Norway’s maximum is .02 percent.
The man pleaded guilty in court on Tuesday.
Norwegian courts set drunken driving fines based on income and personal wealth. Tuesday’s ruling said the man’s income is 751,769 kroner ($117,000) and personal wealth is 228 million kroner ($36.6 million).
It also revoked his license for two years and three months.
We have so spoiled our society that *adults* are blaming the victim. In this case, the infant didn't die until the perp got back in his vehicle and drove off...which not a single sane person could blame on the infant's mother.
Disgusting.
If this really is the best your lawyer can come up with...plead out. You are boned.
>>>>, however that issue is germane as well.<<<<
The g*d d*mn Germans got nothin to do with it!
TH, your post just made me throw up.
That isn’t an indictment on your post — it is acknowledgment of its stark frankness. Anyone who reads your account DOESN’T throw up is of pretty indifferent stuff.
What say you, counselor Clump? I know you fill an important role, but how can you traverse the distance from the abject to the reality?
Do you throw up when you see what your clients have done, as in this case?
Or, if you win on a legal technicality and a 13 month old child’s death and whose head became a smear on the road goes without recourse, do you and your client go to the nearby bar and clink a glass of scotch?
Thank you for serving on the jury. FReepers, serve if you can. Look up “jury nullification” before you go. You have tremendous power as a juror. Serve.
“That’s why we need zero tolerance for drunk drivers!
And Freepers who defend them should get the ZOT!”
Some Libertarians argue that you should be able to drive drunk or high, and only get penalized once you do property damage and/or hurt or kill somebody.
Which is one reason why I am not a Libertarian.
A drunk driver and a parent jaywalking with her children. A recipe for disaster.
I’m glad the driver got convicted.
Every time I see little little Hispanic children being jaywalked across major streets, most of time walking several paces behind the adults, I fear for something like this.
Looks like an ironic case in which some liberal suggestion/requirement to buckle kids into toy wagons resulted in more danger to the kid who was buckled in than to the kid who was not.
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