Posted on 12/19/2005 6:40:52 PM PST by mcg2000
MARYVILLE, Tenn. A mother charged in the shooting death of a man she said raped her young daughter was sentenced to four years in prison today.
Authorities say Kimberly Cunningham must serve nearly a third of the sentence before being eligible for parole, The Knoxville News Sentinel reports.
Her attorney Bruce Poston told Blount County Circuit Court Judge D. Kelly Thomas that he would appeal the sentence.
In October Cunningham was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter in the death of Coy Hundley, her daughter's uncle.
Cunningham was tried on a charge of first-degree murder in April in the case, but the jury acquitted her of that charge and deadlocked on all lesser charges.
Cunningham has served about two months in jail since the October 7th 2003 killing and Poston said that would be deducted from her sentence.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press.
All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
I'm sorry for your situation early in life, but that stat is just BS.
What happened to you sucks, but now you are advocating that the burden of proof on any sexual crime be lowered to a mere accusation. That is not justice, it's misguided revenge on people that weren't even involved in your situation. This is no different that a black person that had a bad experience with a white racist in their youth and now sees racism behind around every corner.
Oh, and children have always had the mental complexity to fabricate accusations. This doesn't mean that all accusations are false, but to put a person in prison, the accusations should have corroborating evidence.
In your case, if corroborating evidence wasn't available, your parents still should have separated you from the family member. Your parents decisions sucked - it's their fault - not yours, but it's not the fault of other people that are falsely accused either.
Then you are a very dangerous person. A parent cannot go around killing people that they think may have hurt their child.
If so, that could have been presented to the police and used at trial.
I guess you have no problem is this mother is gunned down by one of the family members of the person she shot do you? The person she shot was someone's son too - she would only be avenging her child who was never even charged with the crime.
What makes you say that? The reason I'm asking is most of the incest/molestation survivors I know, few if any have faced their molestor. So the 'diminished' capacity of a child doesn't play when you're dealing with a 45 y/o Ex Navy Seal who is just now admitting to being molested by the adults in his family. I've discovered that most keep it to themselves or 'in the family'. But all have the scars and the problems to deal with.
When I was younger, I would have agreed with you. But now, I can say those numbers sound, 1 in 3, sound about right. In my circle of friends and family, its on the money.
OK,
I'm a dangerous person.
Next question.
They acquitted her on the first degree murder charge, and they did her over on the lesser charges the 1st jury hung on. Thats right.
We recently had a similar case here in Green Bay.
A man was sent to prison for 18 years and was freed a couple of years ago when DNA evidence cleared him.
On Halloween a woman went missing after taking some photos for Auto Trader magazine of a car he had for sale. A couple of weeks later they found her remains in a burn pit near his house, her car hidden in his family's junk yard (with his blood inside), and her car key in his bedroom (his blood on it). So much for his wrongful imprisonment case against the county.
I'm not in favor of killing the perp based on someone's accusation, but if it were my daughter, I would confront the bastard. If he laughed at me and asked me what I was going to do about it, I wouldn't hesitate to cap him. Innocent people don't react that way.
True, but we don't know if he actually said that - that is just the mothers story. The mother showed up at his work and started leveling accusations which may or may not have been true - thanks to her temper no one will ever know.
Anyway, if someone showed up at my work and starting leveling accusations of something I didn't do, I'd probably tell them to "do whatever you want just hit the road".
I don't quite follow - on what grounds was he released?
Cue the banjo music....
The stat that was originally posted was 2 in 3, not 1 in 3. In any event, 1 in 3 is still an unsupportable high number.
God bless you and all the children like you and your cousins who have suffered at the hands of someone and yet their families still won't allow that guilty party to be prosecuted. I can't imagine that.
Uell if someone approached me about such an act I sure would not laugh and say what are you going to do about it. I would be asking questions and clearing my name ASAP.
Mamma may have known uncle had done this before to someone else. But the ones who do such acts in general have an arrogance as what can you do about it. Prove it. It's my word against yours etc.
Not in these cases they are usually among the first to know. They might lie about the homework but it takes a lot of doing to make up a molestation. A parent with a good ear can pick up on truth real quick. BTW it happens much more than you think. Likely in your own family. What would you do if your daughter told your wife she had been molested? Laugh at her? No you see in general the perp follows a quirk ritual and THAT is the give away. The next kid can likely describe the exact same act. Their goal is to steal a childs innocence.
If my arms were long enough, I'd give you a big ol' empathetic hug....:)
It made me into the person I am today and I'm quite pleased with that.
I'm not like them.
No defenseless creature within my sphere of influence will be harmed without redress.
Regretfully, this is just more evidence that you come from a very screwed up family.
Many families have high incidents of alcoholism. The proportion of alcoholics in one family is in no way indicative of the number in the general population.
Three out of the four males in my immediate family are doctors. By you logic, that would mean that three out of four males in the general population must be doctors. You see how silly that reasoning is?
That is horrible.
In MD a "mentally handicapped man" with a history of molestation/sexual assault [both child and adult] was paroled.
Within one week of his release, he snatched a beautiful little boy from a Frederick 7-11 and took him to a nearby baseball field dugout.
He sodomized him and then beat him to death with a bat.
I never heard whether the death penalty argument was settled or not.
Some felt it cruel because he was something like mildly retarded.
He knew enough to bait the child outside with a Slurpee, take him to a place where no one would see and then commit murder to cover the rape so, IMO, he knew he enough to be killed for it.
What can I say?
I guess this is just an innately silly issue to some people.
Here's hoping that you [and yours] lead a life charmed enough that you'll never have to eat your own words.
It's so easy to semantically dispute that which you have never lived.
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