Skip to main content

Why was full justice not done after Delaware girl was beaten to death in her high school bathroom?

© Jennifer Corbett, The (Wilmington, Del.) News Journal
Today I read the news about the disheartening end result of a trial in my native Delaware: "A 17-year-old Delaware girl will not serve prison time for last year's fatal attack of a classmate in a high school bathroom." This is a good example of "incomplete justice" as described in The Reptile by Don Keenan and David Ball.

 To get justice we must arouse the Reptile. The Reptile does not care about lost causes. The Reptile will not dispense justice if she feels it will do no good. From the comments made by the presiding judge, it seems like his Reptile had thrown true justice out the window because according to him, it would benefit nobody:
"It is a case in which no one is looking to determine who wins and who loses because everyone has lost," said Family Court Judge Robert Coonin. "The community has lost, the defendants and their families have lost, and most importantly, Amy's family has lost.
"Nothing that any of us say or do here can ever change that — myself included."
Now it seems that this case was decided by bench trial - in other words, His Honor Coonin served dual rules as both the judge and jury. This is different from the jury trial process, where both sides have the opportunity to select the people who will decide the case.
I agree with the prosecutor and the victim's family that this case should not have been tried in Family Court - the attacker should have been tried as an adult in Superior Court. This should also have been a jury trial.
I emphatically disagree with the judge here for failing to dispense true justice. A sentence which reflected the appropriate punishment for the crime would have been more likely to prevent future tragedies as this from happening. I grew up in Delaware and the schools/neighborhoods there can be very rough, just like anywhere. But the Delaware community is smaller, and if a just verdict had been issued by the judge, I am sure the community would have taken notice. Just punishment in this case would have had an impact in my childhood community. Kids would know that if they acted the same way, the same punishment would await them too.
In a case where the facts were undisputed, that this girl assaulted the victim and caused her death, the judge's inadequate verdict only serves to perpetuate the tragedy. As Ball and Keenan warn, incomplete justice forever denies the victims and their families of closure. And regrettably, that is exactly what happened here: "I don't think there will ever be anything such as closure as it pertains to this situation because Amy will never come home..So while one of the assailants gets to be at Grace Cottage and her parents can come visit her on a regular basis that is not something Amy's family can do."
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 22 - Beck Diet Solution, Say “Oh Well” To Disappointment

Inigo Montoya: Who are you? Man in Black: No one of consequence. Inigo Montoya: I must know... Man in Black: Get used  to disappointment. Inigo Montoya: 'kay. The Princess Bride (20th Century Fox 1987) Just as Inigo shrugs off the disappointment of the Man in Black’s declining to reveal his identity and gets right back into the duel, so too must we shrug off those discouragements that go hand-in-hand with losing weight and keep truckin’ down the weight loss trail.   It’ll go easier for us if we do.  What if we just lay around bellyaching about how horrible it is that we can’t have that donut, can’t eat/drink exactly what everybody else does at parties, can’t just open the fridge and eat whenever we felt like it?  How much would we really accomplish that way?  Even if we do stick to our plans for a little while under that mindset, we’d be fighting an exhausting battle with ourselves every day and eventually give in.  Even the patience an...
Post a Comment
Read more

Day 18 - Beck Diet Solution, Change Your Definition of Full

Sacha Chua via Flickr Naturally-thin people are usually good at the skill of eating to the point of normal fullness.  In general, this means being just as able to take a brisk walk after a meal as before the meal.  Eating past fullness doesn’t feel normal to thin people – it feels uncomfortable to them, says BDS.  But for people with weight problems, this overfull sensation may actually feel normal for a number of reasons – wanting to prolong the eating experience, taking advantage of food being around, wanting to load up to avoid being hungry between meals, and so on. If you’re worried about getting hungry before your next meal, just remember what we’ve learned about hunger – that it’s never an emergency and that we can withstand the sensations.  We have plenty of distractions and anti-craving techniques at our disposal to deal with cravings as well.  If you’re triggered to eat more because there’s food sitting around, like at a dinner or party, you c...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Ogre

By Joseph Jacobs John Dickson Batten [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons Shelley and I were friends almost immediately.  However her father did not like me.  The only reason I can imagine is that my family was too poor for him and that he did not consider me fit to be around his daughter.  Despite how her father felt about me, the moments when he was away at work as a lawyer, and when Shelley and I were together were the thrill of my life.  We did everything for fun, it seemed like there was nothing we couldn't do, no fun that we couldn't have.    Her house was an entire wonderland within itself.  An enormous granite-walled mansion, there were four floors of enchanting adventure for us.  The first floor held a kitchen where we made all kinds of goodies, an adjacent playroom where we played house, Barbie, watched "It's A Living," "Silver Spoons," "Small Wonder," "Dukes of Hazzard," "Laverne & Shirley," two mag...
Post a Comment
Read more