Man gets 4 years for beheading man with guitar string
 

wtf????

LYNDON, Kan. (AP) ? A Kansas man was sentenced Monday to four years and two months in prison for beheading another man with a guitar string after a plea deal that prosecutors said they accepted because of problems with the case.

James Paul Harris originally was charged with first-degree murder in the 2011 death of James Gerety, but pleaded no contest in December to involuntary manslaughter.

The victim's brother, Tom Gerety, called the justice system "a joke" after learning how long Harris would serve, The Topeka Capital-Journal (James Paul Harris sentenced to just over 4 years for garroting killing | CJOnline.com) reports. But Osage County Attorney Brandon Jones said pursuing the more serious charge posed challenges because of problems with evidence and witnesses.

A former girlfriend testified last year that Harris told her he shot Gerety in the stomach, tortured him for two days, then cut off his head. Prosecutors allege Harris kept Gerety's head for months for some type of religious practice. Part of the skull was found in March 2012 in rural Osage County on land where Harris' father lived.

"You can murder somebody and get out in 50 months," Tom Gerety said. "What's that tell everybody on the wrong side of the law?"

Other than a portion of the victim's skull, prosecutors didn't have the victim's body, the murder weapon hadn't been recovered, not all of the prosecution's witnesses were available, and prosecutors faced "credibility issues" with a major witness, Jones said.

"It was going to be a tough case to prosecute," Jones said.

Harris declined to say anything during the sentencing. The judge asked if Tom Gerety wanted to say anything.

"It wouldn't do any good," Tom Gerety said.

Man gets 4 years for beheading man with guitar string - Yahoo News

he shouldn't fret it.

Then get out there and do your fucking job, like millions of other Americans do every day.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh


"I'm a guitarist, dammit...not a vocalist."

:1orglaugh sharp shootin right there.

what do you say to a guitarist in a 3-piece suit?

will the defendant please rise.

american justice! woo hoo!!

fill me in, he accepted the plea....his decision, granted guitarists make poor life decisions, nevertheless.

He probably got credit for originality.

Very sick....

Good thing he didnt run a revenge porn site.

He only had a portion of the victim's skull as the article says. They gave him a year for each square inch of skull found in his possession. Sounds fair.

If he had an ounce of weed on him, then he might be looking at some years.

Involuntary manslaughter; what do you want?

It's a good thing he wasn't posting pictures of ex girlfriends on the internet..

:thumbsup

if this guy killed 20 people i'm sure his sentence would be significantly extended.

:thumbsup:thumbsup:thumbsup

hahahahahahhaaa

Extort girls for money by posting their nude pictures online with links to their social media accounts = more than 10 years in prison

Chopping someones head off = less than 10 years in prison

Win :thumbsup

For real; we don't even know that did he do it, especially as it is unknown what were the "problems in the case", exactly I mean: "because of problems with evidence and witnesses."

So, it might be that he got 4 years for not beheading anybody, or at least not beheading that particular guy. Win for local legal system. :Oh crap

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:helpme

I'm not up on American law but if he entered a plea, then isn't he basically admitting to doing it?

Admitting doesn't mean that he actually did it. It is called making a deal for a reason; it is a deal. They should be more focused on finding the guilty one, than just throwing someone into jail, or making deals whatsoever.

I sign this:

"Plea bargaining is criticized, particularly outside the United States, on the grounds that its close relationship with rewards, threats and coercion potentially endangers the correct legal outcome.

Author Martin Yant discusses the use of coercion in plea bargaining:

Even when the charges are more serious, prosecutors often can still bluff defense attorneys and their clients into pleading guilty to a lesser offense. As a result, people who might have been acquitted because of lack of evidence, but also who are in fact truly innocent, will often plead guilty to the charge. Why? In a word, fear. And the more numerous and serious the charges, studies have shown, the greater the fear. That explains why prosecutors sometimes seem to file every charge imaginable against defendants."

Plea bargain - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

its like signing a check. a plea is an admission of guilt

Yes, but it doesn't mean that he actually did it; and finding the guy that did it, is kinda the job of a legal system when solving crimes. Not throwing innocent people into jail, or guilty people if there is no evidence about the guilt.

It is quite clear thing.

ok whatever :1orglaugh

of course it does. if you were innocent of chopping off a dude's head would you plead down the charges on a weak case? of course you would not.

Your reasoning goes to both ways; if the case is weak, there is also incentive not to plea guilty.

But for real; if the case is weak, there shouldn't sentence at all (other than liberating). Weak case goes in favour of the accused in working and civilized legal systems.

And there is always the possibility that innocent pleas guilty, weak case or not. If the case is weak, the prosecutor, especially in the scalp hunting US style has incentive to put heavy pressure on accused to make a deal.

And statistically there are lot of innocent people in jails in US; due to the shitty legal system. Add heavy and inhumane penalties into this equation; and you really have some sort of humanitarian cricis in US. Call the UN!

"Why Are There Up to 120,000 Innocent People in US Prisons?"

"'The system isn't geared to discover innocence or guilt ? it's geared to get people through the system as quickly and efficiently as possible.'

"Guilty pleas and false confessions by the innocent are counterintuitive phenomena, says Rebecca Brown, director of state policy at the non-profit Innocence Project. But of the 321 DNA exonerations that have occurred in the United States, 30 have involved people who originally pled guilty to crimes they didn't commit. It's hard to accept that people who are innocent would knowingly incriminate themselves, but it happens frequently.

"Our cases are almost exclusively rapes and murders ? very, very serious crimes ? and even then, innocent people are pleading guilty," Brown says. "Now spread that out across the entire system to include lower-level offenses, the vast majority of which are pled out, and the implications are clear."

https://news.vice.com/article/why-ar...-in-us-prisons


"Overzealousness can lead authorities to make careless, if unintentional errors, and cause some authorities to bend rules to get a known criminal off the street. Failure to keep an open mind can cause errors that become rubber-stamped by trusting colleagues as the case moves through the judicial process, Huff says. By the time the errors are discovered, the trail to the real offender is cold.

Public pressure to solve a case and the organizational culture of a police or district attorney's office can affect the process. While most errors are unintentional, the researchers say there are far too many incidences of unethical and unprofessional behavior.

"Our research has convinced us that such unethical conduct in the United States has not, in general, received appropriate attention, nor has it been adequately punished," Huff said. "

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/ronhuff.htm

People are spending more time than that in prison for marijuana possession. Kind gives you an idea where this country is headed. Republicans and Democrats keep on arguing over whose got the biggest #$%$, meanwhile, our country is falling apart. If the American people knew how bad is really is, there would be wide spread panic and chaos. The dude cut his head off with a guitar string! Looks like the prosecution dropped the ball, or there wasn't a case to begin with. And you know what the scary part is? He still has five more strings.

People losing their heads over one string guitar solos? What is this, the 60's?