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Or what the He!! is going on thread. Four idiots with long criminal backgrounds break in a house, while the home owners is at home. Rob it and burn it. Get caught in the bushes outside armed with guns, and the judge dismisses charges against three of them because the eye witness can't identify three of them. Witnesses put four men fleeing the home, police catch four armed men together one of them is positively id by the home owner. Read the article here.
http://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/index.pl/article_home?id=17630102
This judge should be put in a cell with these idiots over night.
Jay
PS. by the way one of the idiots dad's who has worked as a maintenance man a Golden Grove was arrested for trying to smuggle drugs into the prison for his son.
http://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/index.pl/article_home?id=17630099
You can't make up stuff this stupid.
Posted : November 4, 2008 10:26 pm
If they'd been before Kendall here in STT, he probably would have pinned medals on all 4.
Posted : November 5, 2008 7:40 am
In all fairness to the judge, his hands are tied. What he needs to make the robbery charges stick is clear evidence putting all the men inside the house. All he got was one witness putting one of the men inside the house. Sure, he could have found reason to uphold the robbery charges against all the men, but an appeal to a higher court would have found the charges lacking in evidence and would certainly overturn the ruling.
One of the criteria used to evaluate a judge's performance is how often his rulings are overturned by a higher court. The appeal process is lengthy, ties up resources, and is costly to the taxpayer. If a judge's ruling is overturned by a higher court it means he did not do his job correctly.
I'm guessing here, but the real problem is probably lack of forensics in being able to place all of the accused inside the house. Since it does not mention it in the article, I'm guessing the men were not found in possession of stolen property. Hiding in bushes and being found in the company of the man positively identified by the witness is not against the law.
The judge did what he could within the framework of the law. Fortunately, three of the four men will be charged with illegal firearms. Lets hope that when the time comes for sentencing on these charges that the maximum allowable sentence will be applied.
In the meantime, better training and better forensics equipment needs to be a priority so that criminals aren't allowed to go free simply because someone didn't catch them in the act.
Posted : November 5, 2008 4:09 pm
