So Plaxico Burress has agreed to a plea bargain, and will be going to prison for two years for sticking a loaded pistol in his sweatpants, taking it to a crowded nightclub, and shooting himself in the thigh. He also lost something like $27 million when the Giants dropped him, and may have lost his NFL career as well. He will be 34 when he gets out.
I don’t quarrel with the sentence. Plax was incredibly stupid, and he broke the law.
But our justice system does seem seriously out of whack. Plax gets two years for carrying a concealed weapon and accidentally shooting himself, Michael Vick gets two years for dog fighting, and Donte Stallworth gets thirty days for driving drunk and killing a man.
If I were king, I would have sent all three to jail, but Stallworth would have gotten the longest sentence, and Plax the lightest. Yes, Plax might have killed someone too, if the gun had gone off in the nightclub and the bullet had gone someplace other than his leg. But, ah, it didn’t. We don’t usually sentence people on the basis of what might have happened. Donte Stallworth actually DID kill another human being, no “might have” or “could have” involved.
And on the same note, I think Ray Lewis should have gone to prison too. Two people died that night, and I believe that Lewis knows who killed them, but won’t say.
But there you go. Sometimes I wish Justice would take off that blindfold.
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