🚀 go-pugleaf

gronke@acpub.duke.edu (Paul Gronke) wrote:
>In article <43q5ge$ic0@redstone.interpath.net>,
>   paradigm@mercury.interpath.net (David Briggman) wrote:

>Let's see: the guy has no record, he has a steady job, and, yes, his 
>parents are stable members of the community.  How high could the 
>bail have gone to make it unpayable?  1,000,000?  10,000,000?  Thos 
>kinds of bails are almost never set, are they?  Certainly not in a 
>first offense case.

Believe it or not Paul, people who have no prior criminal records commit 
violent crimes like this hairball is accused of doing...A prior criminal 
record is taken into account during sentencing (as is his job and his 
parents)...which is why courts run PSIs (pre-sentencing investigations) 
prior to their sentencing if they are found convicted. Obviously you 
have become affixed with the "Gothic Wonderland" and the magic border 
you and others believe that Duke possesses. I could name countless 
numbers of people who committed violent acts with no prior criminal 
record and were not given the privilege of house arrest prior to his 
court hearing (Timothy McVeay, Colin Ferguson, Blanch Taylor-Moore, 
anybody involved in the Little Rascals case [all of them were no-bail 
holds], the law school student who shot up Chapel Hill)...there goes 
your argument about high/no bails on first offenses.

>Dave, the story in the Herald Sun, which you claim you read, says 
>quite clearly that the District Attorney *requested* house arrest as 
>a greater restriction on his movements.

Wednesday's Herald Sun article made no mention of that...and how does 
one assume that being on house arrest is MORE restrictive than being in 
a cell with guards?

The only thing the bracelet does on this guy will alert the Sheriff';s 
Department that he's left the confines of his house...it doesn't shock 
him and it doesn't provide for tracking him so once he's gone, he's 
gone.

>>book smart, no common sense.
>
>Dave, weren't you the person who told us not to stereotype schools a 
>few weeks ago when someone made a disparaging comment about GMU?  Go 
>look this word up in the dictionary: "hypocrite"

Actually, Paul, if you'll go back and read the posting, what I said was 
that most state colleges and universities (both in Virginia and 
nationwide) could provide a better undergraduate and graduate education 
in most any field of endeavor (with the possible exception of the 
Medical School) and that Duke lives off of it's reputation it earned 
quite a while ago (long before any of the current crop of students 
arrived here) and doesn't really live up to today. I also said they live 
off of their alumni and that there are better educational values to be 
had, I should know, I paid for the law school tuition of my girlfriend, 
who attended and graduated Duke Law.

Lord knows that for the money, most state colleges provide more 
education and knowledge for the dollar.

One of the departments I am contracting for has a fourth year EE who 
doesn't know what formatting a hard drive does and doesn't know what the 
operating system of a computer does for the computer...yet he's going to 
be designing microchips - makes sense huh? Most ten year olds know what 
that does - my daughter knew when she was five - as do most children 
nowadays.

>Uh, isn't probable cause part of "the totality of the 
>circumstances."  Am I missing something?  Just a dumb Dukie, ya 
>know.

You said it, not me...probable cause is determined by the totality of 
the circumstances in the alleged criminal offense...what you have is a 
19-year old white male with a gun who kidnapped three people and raped 
one of them after giving her the option of rape or being shot (gee Paul, 
which would you choose)...it has NOTHING to do with whether the alleged 
perpetrator has committed a crime before or the fact that his parents 
are both physicians or that he works in Duke Medical Center or that he 
is an NC State Student - NOTHING, ZERO, NIL.

It's amazing how none of the liberals have made any reference to my 
opinion that had he been black he'd still be in the Orange County jail 
(a regular term is "pre-trial detention") where the community would be 
guaranteed to be safe from him and he would be guaranteed to show up for 
his trial. No such guarantee exists with him on house arrest.


Dave