What a surprise. A fellow who gets early release for selling hard drugs is, within weeks, out selling hard drugs! At least he wasn't packin' heat.LANTANA -- About three minutes after two young Miramar boys on a weekend family visit went out for a walk around the block with relatives Saturday afternoon, Ida Cuevas said she heard "sirens, screeching tires and then a bump."
Rushing outside, Ida Cuevas, the boys' grandmother, found a nightmare unfolding. "My first thought was horror," she said. "Oh, my god. The children."
One of the boys, 5-year-old Jayden Readon, had been run down by an out-of-control car, great-grandmother Flor Cuevas was screaming while holding the hand of his two-year-old brother, Carter Readon, and police were chasing the fleeing driver of the car as he bolted toward a stand of trees across a dry retention pond.
Jayden Readon, the only one injured by the car, was taken to Delray Medical Center in Delray Beach, where he died, according to Teri Barbera, a spokeswoman for the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office.
Authorities identified the driver of the 2008 Buick Enclave that struck the boy as Lex L. Eugene, 20.
Caught after a brief chase on foot, Eugene is charged with vehicular homicide, felony murder, driving without a license causing death and leaving the scene of a fatal crash.
Additionally, he is charged with heroin trafficking, possession of heroin, resisting arrest without violence and fleeing and eluding police.
Oh.......wait......cancel that last part.Eugene, of Boynton Beach, was on probation for carrying a concealed weapon, according to court records.
Hey, look, at least the guy is a "non-violent, low risk, first time offender." We know early release is going to be limited to inmates like that. They're going to be careful about this stuff. They've promised.Eugene was sentenced to prison following convictions for cocaine possession and a weapons charge. He was released Dec. 19, 2015, after serving a little more than five months of a one-year sentence, according to Florida Department of Corrections records.
Eugene's record of arrests began in 2011, when he was 16 and charged with aggravated battery, according to Florida Department of Law Enforcement records. Over the past five years he has also been charged with disorderly conduct, traffic violations, drug possession, resisting an officer and carrying an unlicensed firearm, records show.
This lady needs to get with it. It doesn't matter how the family is doing. It matters how the big shots who authorized early release are doing. And they're doing fine. Haven't they been invited to a big ACLU banquet to celebrate the war on "mass incarceration?"He is due in court Monday for a bond hearing.
"This was a tragic accident that did not have to happen," Ida Cuevas, 50, said Sunday afternoon as relatives and friends came and went from the family's home. "We are not doing well."
Family members said Jayden's parents were too distraught to speak the media.
"He loved sports and dinosaurs," said Cuevas of Jayden. "He was a 5-year-old kid who liked to run around. And he was snatched from us, just like that."
Just an awful story--and it goes to show--the problem in America doesn't seem to be over incarceration of drug dealers, but under incarceration of them.
we'll see if Doug wants to call this guy a freedom fighter.
Florida is a state with badly overcrowded prisons because of a failure to consider long needed sentencing reforms. This tragic event is as much a result of the failure of sentencing reform as it is the result of reform. Moreover, it seems this guy was anything but a non-violent, first-time offender since he was charged with aggravated battery back in 2011. So much for words having meaning.
Where were the feds and the gun crime? Oh that's right, the Obama DoJ dropped it gun crime prosecutions.
But isn't this guy a freedom fighter?
federalist --
Now, now! Freeing Mr. Nicey here was a blow against racism! Haven't you heard? Blacks are over-incarcerated! And if the result of releasing Mr. Nicey is that a black little boy gets killed, well....ummmm....hey, look, I'll get back to you on that one. Right now I have to be off to my ACLU "Stop Incarceration Nation" Banquet.
Doug --
-- "Florida is a state with badly overcrowded prisons because of a failure to consider long needed sentencing reforms."
So which is better: (1) building more prisons or (2) letting Mr. Eugene out early?
Which, (1) or (2)?
-- "This tragic event is as much a result of the failure of sentencing reform as it is the result of reform."
It's considerably more than just a "tragic event." It's a preventable murder. It would have been prevented if Eugene had been in jail where he was legally sentenced and should have remained.
Should the people who engineered his early release have ANY ACCOUNTABILITY WHATEVER?
If so, what should it be?
-- "Moreover, it seems this guy was anything but a non-violent, first-time offender since he was charged with aggravated battery back in 2011."
As numerous, well-written entries on your own blog establish, sentencing reformers have no intention of stopping with non-violent, first time offenders. As Prof. Pfaff's work, among others, indisputably shows, to make any sort of significant reduction in incarceration, we're going to have to release guys just like this.
I mean, look, he's just 21. Brain development, second chances, redemption, etc., etc. Isn't that what I keep reading about?
And I note you say (correctly) that he was "charged" with aggravated battery. Is this a concession that just charges, as opposed to convictions, should count in determining the length of incarceration?
-- "So much for words having meaning."
I could scarcely agree with you more. That is why "sentencing reform" should be referred to as "sentencing reduction for felons."
It's also why the main sentencing reduction-promoting groups are lying through their teeth when they tell us -- as they have 100 or 300 or 800 times -- that we'll be "just as safe" with early release.
Was Jaydon Readon just as safe? Does his black life matter? How many more black lives, and other lives, does the sentencing reduction movement propose to sacrifice to its agenda?
That does not call for an essay. It calls for a number.
Let's see if I can give you some quick answers to your many questions:
1. The GOP controlled legislature and executive branch apparently decided to go with early release over building more prisons --- I have to assume because the GOP elected officials do not think Florida voters are willing to pay even more $$ to further grow what is already one of the largest and most expensive prison systems in a state which has one of the higher violent crime rates. In your call for accountability, do you place any blame on the GOP officials who have controlled the legislature in Florida since 1996?
2. As I have often tried to explain to federalist in this setting and others, I think these kinds of incidents ought to be examined closely to see what could have been done to prevent this "preventable murder." I say the same thing whenever these is a mass shooting or a wrongful conviction: we ought to use the benefits of hindsight to see just how foresight failed us and try to continue to improve our foresight.
I am all for accountability in all settings. But I genuinely wonder what kind of accountability you have in mind here: (1)a tort suit against the state and its officials, or (2) firing of officials formally responsible for public safety (e.g., prosecutors, judges), or (3) some kind of outside investigation by, say, DOJ?
3. You are right that "sentencing reformers have no intention of stopping with non-violent, first time offenders." But at issue here was your peculiar description in your post of Eugene as a "a "non-violent, low risk, first time offender." That is not what he was, and usually you are better than most at staying honest and clear with the facts while you attack others for not doing so. I was only trying to note that, at least this time, you are failing to be honest and clear with your rhetoric. And, as I often tell my kids, the fact that the people around you are not being honest and clear does not give you license to stop trying to be honest and clear.
4. I believe that most (but likely not all) persons who advocate for sentencing reform genuinely believe that sentencing reform can and will help produce a safety society in the long run. Similarly, I believe that most (but likely not all) persons who advocate against sentencing reform genuinely believe they are advocating for a safer society. I could likely say the same about those who advocate for and against gun control, for and against marijuana reform, for and against mens rea reform, and so on. Indeed, one reason I like working in the criminal justice reform space is because there is a near consensus, despite lots of disagreements on means, that everyone is eager to have less violent crime.
Though I do not speak for others who advocate for sentencing reform, I do say that every life cut short by the actions of another is a tragedy that I would like to avoid/prevent. This is why I am eager for much greater investments (and more dynamic, evidence-based) in combatting drunk driving and other like harms that, sadly, cut short "many more black lives, and other lives," every day than early releases. It is also why I favor smart gun technologies that could have the potential to save "many more black lives, and other lives."
Doug --
Very briefly for now.
-- As to Point 3, my description was pure sarcasm, a spoof of the usual sentencing reform sales pitch. It was like my referring to this awful thug as Mr. Nicey.
-- I asked for a specific number of murders by early-released criminals that the sentencing reform movement is willing to accept to advance its agenda, not an essay heading off into more abstruse thoughts.
What I got was an essay and no number.
I am still interested in the number, as the country should be (and, I think, is).
We can't decide if sentencing reform is a good idea without knowing both its benefits AND ITS COSTS. When I seek a specific statement of costs, I am only doing what anyone with half a brain would do.
Do you not count Forbes as part of the national media, because Forbes ran an op-ed reporting on the Callahan murders and their context in the sentencing reform debate four days ago
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2016/02/11/opponents-of-sentencing-reform-recklessly-conflate-drug-offenders-with-murderers/#5f8f42461977
You know the difference between a news "story," which is what I said in my entry, and an "op-ed" -- right?
Informing on the scandal through an op-ed doesn't qualify as a story, fair enough.
This likely means news stories on the crime itself without Callahan's early release status are out, so the Assosciated Press, NY daily news and CBS stories are likely out too.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/0acd61c5926f465ca4d910853d940cd9/mother-2-kids-fatally-stabbed-ohio-ex-beau-suspected
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-boyfriend-is-suspect-in-fatal-stabbing-of-ohio-mom-2-kids/
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/children-killed-early-morning-ohio-stabbing-article-1.2493712
The national media qualifier probably would exclude the politico, dailycaller, Washington examiner and realclearpolitics stories that reported on Callahan and his early release too.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/criminal-justice-tom-cotton-218121
http://dailycaller.com/2016/01/14/man-charged-in-triple-murder-was-released-from-prison-early-under-new-drug-sentencing-guidelines/
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/01/31/reformer_sen_cruz_and_brutal_mr_hyde_129501.html
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/why-i-oppose-the-sentencing-reform-and-corrections-act/article/2583066
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/criminal-justice-tom-cotton-218121
Well, I guess you are right, the NY Times, WaPo and CNN didn't report on the specific crime. Luckily, politicians, blogs and a variety of media outlets reaching a not insignificant number of Americans did report on the scandal.
If it's any consolation pro-criminal articles don't appear to dominate the most read articles in national media either, that belongs to important issues such what dog won a show award (Times), why Scalia was staying at a Texas resort for free (WaPo), and the Bachelor reality contestant's death (CNN).
If you can get Beyoncé to tweet something I bet every national media outlet would pick the story up and report on it.