Thursday, October 4, 2007

Four Years For Murder

Okay, technically I guess it's four years for manslaughter, since that's what the charge was after a plea bargain.

A woman who helped rob and kill a man in Tumwater pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a plea bargain and agreed to testify against two other defendants.

Thurston County prosecutors are recommending a four-year sentence for 27-year-old April Frazier in return for her cooperation.

She says she met 69-year-old Jerry Totten through Alcoholics Anonymous and was living in a trailer on is property. She says she brought two men to his house in January to rob him and they killed him.

She was arrested at a Las Vegas casino in February where she was gambling with stolen money.

I do understand that sometimes it's worthwhile to pursue a plea bargain with one individual in order to get their cooperation and testimony against others involved in the crime. But still... four years? That just seems a little light to me.

And in Massachusetts, we have a judge vacating earlier convictions for a career criminal and then telling the defense attorney to consider it an early Christmas present. Instead of 262 months in prison, the repeat felon will only serve 21 months maximum. Apparently prosecutors agreed to a plea bargain where the defendent would plead guilty to drug possession, but there's no word on what the original charges were.

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