Plaxico Burress: Libertarian Martyr?
Rough first day in prison for former New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress. Burress, for those who may not remember, is the man who accidentally shot himself in the leg while carrying an unregistered firearm in a New York City nightclub.
I had not given the matter a lot of thought following the initial crime report, Burress’ guilty plea, or the sentencing. However, Bill Simmons makes an excellent point in this column, one worth expanding on. Namely:
* Burress is accused of hurting nobody other than himself; his firearm was actually registered in another jurisdiction (New Jersey); the crime took place in the context of an environment in which professional athletes have become frequent targets of random criminal violence and murder.
* Meanwhile, another wide receiver, Donte Stallworth, killed a pedestrian while speeding. He was incontrovertibly drunk at the time and reportedly may also have been high on marijuana.
And for these two crimes…
* Burress is now serving a prison sentence TWENTY TIMES as long as Stallworth’s.
Perplexing at best. More likely, if you believe that the legitimate function of the law is to prevent people from harming one another, this really is something of an injustice.
Didn’t the victim’s family have something to do with Stallworth’s light sentence, ie they got rich and he got off?
I think it’s a shame, particularly when you hear all the time about people who are not rich and famous going to prison for 5-10 years or more for the same crime.
As far as Plaxico, I think the whole thug life thing perpetuated by black athletes and musicians is completely idiotic, and I have trouble mustering much sympathy for someone who shoots himself because he thought he was a thug, but his sentence is definitely excessive. And like Vick, another stupid thug who I have trouble feeling sorry for, the punishment goes beyond prison, it is costing him many millions of dollars and probably his career.
I’d like to see a comparison of sentences handed out for the same crime to lower profile offenders.
Comment by Dingle — 9/25/2009 @ 9:06 am
My impression is that the payoff to the victim’s family forestalled a civil suit; there’s no reason it would have anything to do with the criminal prosecution.
As for Burress: there is certainly some element of the “thug life” mentality among certain athletes, but attitudes are not illegal. I actually think it is pretty reasonable for athletes to carry some form of protection in this day and age, and again, it’s not as if Burress were brandishing the weapon at the time it went off.
I’m also curious about the high profile/low profile discrepancy. The problem is that it’s impossible to generalize the data; some jurisdictions (New York in particular) are a lot more harsh than others where nonviolent gun offenses are concerned, and the data are skewed by race, by prior offenses, and in every other manner imaginable.
The discrepancy between Stallworth’s and Burress’s punishments is noteworthy, I think, the rest of it aside. Regardless of the criminal’s “attitude” and the jurisdictional differences, one should not be punished more harshly for carrying a gun than for killing someone while driving drunk.
Comment by Rojas — 9/25/2009 @ 11:16 am
I believe this is known as the NRA-MADD Alignment Singularity.
Comment by Jack — 9/25/2009 @ 12:39 pm
the NRA-MADD Alignment Singularity
After thinking about this, I think this would lead to the exact opposite result. MADD, which is usually very effective, dictates strong penalties for drunk driving, while the NRA pushes less restrictive gun laws, which would imply lower penalties.
What I think we have here is unintended, but predictable, consequences from liberal do-gooders.
When they pass these anti-gun laws they have an image of catching some gun rack totting white hick within the confines of NYC.
What they end up catching is mostly black and poor people who don’t know any better.
Nothing sells better in liberal NYC than “stronger guns laws” with mandatory sentences.
It is a SWPL type of thing.
Comment by daveg — 9/25/2009 @ 12:59 pm
I remember the drunk driver who killed Malik Sealy got 5 years in prison. I’m sure everyone here regularly reads stories of drunk driving homicide cases where people end up in prison for extended periods of time, a quick Google turns up many cases of people sentenced from 5 to 15 years for vehicular homicide under the influence. This isn’t a case of the laws being too lax on drunk drivers and too harsh on gun offenders, the real question is how did Stallworth manage to skirt the sentencing guidelines that would have put anyone else in prison?
Comment by Dingle — 9/25/2009 @ 1:37 pm
NYC city politics is much less liberal than you imagine, at least on the crime spectrum. It is not anti-gun liberalness that drives this sort of thing—it is Tough on Crime posturing. Even before Giuliani this was the case (in fact, after Dinkens beat Rudy the first time, his next term he became fanatical about trying to shore up his Tough on Crime cred). This is a city where a guy like Bernie Kerick plays very well. It is a very liberal city in many senses, but the crime spectrum is pretty well separate from the paradigm it plays out in nationally (the right/left thing).
As to who they imagine when they write these laws—you think they imagine poor white rural hicks coming to town? No, they imagine exactly who they end up catching—poor black people. There is absolutely no illusion on that score; they know exactly what they’re doing there.
Comment by Brad — 9/25/2009 @ 5:07 pm