Plaxico Agrees To Two Year Jail Term

[jsarno]

Originally Posted by Lotus

I think that Burress's penalty is overly stiff. But I also see two mitigating factors:
1) it was NYC, where they have a serious gun crimes problem. In a way I can understand why the penalties are so tough.
2) since the gun went off accidentally, what if it had been pointed accidentally in a different direction and an innocent person had been hit? What if a ricochet had hit an innocent person? Plax can hardly say that he could have prevented such events.

We do not punish harshly for "what if" crimes, we punish harshly for actual crimes. Just like a first DUI offender gets more of a slap on the wrist...but IF he killed someone (and his name was not stallworth) he'd go to jail for a LOOOONG time. There are all sorts of "what if" scenarios. We ALL speed, so "what if" we sped and lost control and hit someone? We would be punish MUCH more severely than if we got a speeding ticket.

Punish the crime, not the potential crime.