Well, the kid is 17 and the other creep is 61. They'll both die of old age in prison so it's kinda equal in that respect.

Just because he sucks at killing people doesn't mean his punishment should be any less. Maybe you should bitch more about the 30-year sentence, although the article does say that guy is also effectively jailed for life because of his age.

I'm pretty sure the kid will be out of prison by the time he's 40.

Me too, just bein' snarky.

The other guy is already serving a murder term for another crime, and he submitted an Alford plea. The kid sprayed a downtown street with bullets. And you weren't at either trial. There are a lot of factors that go into sentencing. This kind of bitching about soft justice makes you sound like Bill O'Reilly; knock it off.

Fnarf beat me to it. It's complicated stuff, made doubly so by sentencing guidelines (which are only recently crumbling).

At least you didn't point out that many of the judges were "unelected."

Since when does the Stranger endorse random drive by shootings of crowded bars?

I say gut the fucker and hang him upside down in the town square as an example to others.

Let him down when the crows and rats have picked his bones clean.

And, if you're a cop unloading three full 30 round mags of 30.06 rounds into a crowded bar, but you shout "Police!" right when you depress the trigger ...

0 years.

Yup.

Just sayin.

What the fuck? Here's the fuck: in Washington, prosecutors, not judges, determine the sentence. Yeah, the judge signs the document, but the amount of discretion a judge has is miniscule. The prosecutor has 100% discretion to determine the charge and the number of charges. If convicted, all the judge can do is calculate the offender score which is based upon the number of current and prior offenses, move to the other axis and look at the offense level of the highest crime and sentence within a fairly narrow range. The judge does have the power to impose a sentence less than the range if the judge finds that there a mitigating circumstances. The judge does not have the power to go over the range unless the prosecutor submits an aggravating factor to a jury and the jury finds that the factor was proved.

Clarification: I meant to say the shooter.

Not Dan.

And the cop situation is different. They were probably brandishing wallets or cellphones inside the bar.

"The O'Savage Factor". has a familiar ring to it. welcome to the sit-n-spin zone.

Here's the fuck:

-one dude made a plea bargain.

If you're going to attack sentencing for making no sense, find better examples.

Here's an interesting and infuriating example of sentencing comparisons from BC. In one case, a man remains in prison without parole, already having served seven years, for a "mercy killing" of his severely disabled daughter. In another case, a man who strangled a woman in Stanley Park, leaving her with severe brain damage and paralysis, has been granted parole after only five years. The difference? The former refuses to admit that his act was wrong, while the strangler feels remorse.

Yep, each case is different and should obviously be treated that way, but sometimes it's worth pointing out that there are awful discrepancies in how these decisions are made.

will. wtf. that is the dumbest comment, evar.

Sorry, Dan. I have to agree that this is a bad comparison. While I do think the 92 1/2 year sentence for counts of assault (not even attempted murder) is excessive and cruel, comparing it to the case of a young criminal to an old guy who 1) is already in prison, 2) filed a plea and 3) committed the murder almost 30 years ago doesn't really hold up. If both crimes were committed by young people and the difference was only race or income level, I'd be with you, but these two aren't comparable.

Please excuse the grammar mistake in the second sentence of my comment. That should say "comparing the case of a young criminal to that of an old guy ..."

The kid has a lot more life left to live than the guy who killed the 15 year old, who is 63. The quantities are contextual, and both sentences have the same purpose.

Not that sending a kid to the slam for 92 years for firing shots into a window is right, but there you go.

its just simple math. Everybody knows that for every 100 shots a gangsta takes, he will graze only one person. These sentences are there to discourage gang activity because, when you think of it, a larger gang could have caused more damage. If it had been a gang of 10 and they all fired into that bar, they might have actually hit one person in the leg while missing 50 others. They would also have probably hit 3 fire hydrants, a stop sign, and a few construction cones which were in the opposite direction of where they were aiming. The better solution would be to sentence all gangstas to go fight in Iraq. That way they would end up shooting each other while trying to shoot iraqis.

what a story he will have to tell his cellmate! "Hey homie...what are you in for?" "Yo, I shot a bottle of jack daniels, a keg, a bar stool, AND a pitcher of Miller!"