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Friday, April 06, 2007

It's Not A Time To Kill



If indeed we do have the actual killer,the time is what is prescribed for the charge. I'm not happy that an admitted killer has received a slap on the wrist, but neither am I pleased when gang members get off either. Some citizens want a justice system that they make the rules up as they go along. If the D.A's office settled for a second degree murder charge. They probably didn't have much of a case. We have yet to find a body, and they didn't have a witness. The description of how he killed him and disposed of the body, doesn't offer closure. It still doesn't produce a corpse. Some might say "why would he confess to a crime he didn't commit"? When faced with the alternative sentence. People confess to crimes they didn't commit everyday. Considering the racial climate in Memphis. A person on the wrong side of the fence could easily be convicted.

Look how the citizens have raised the level of this case to national prominence. Last I heard someone had called Jesse Jackson to intervene. Like what is he supposed to do about this? This is a race baiters smorgasbord. Let's see what the Black preachers will be talking about this Sunday? According to the anonymous witness, Mardis was seen driving the code enforcement truck with something in the passenger seat covered with a sheet. That doesn't even sound right. If this were the other way around, what would citizens say then? This wouldn't be enough evidence to satisfy them. They would swear this was a conspiracy against the Black man. The same loopholes and liberal judges that have repeatedly allowed criminals to go free. Don't disappear just because the defendant is White.

We better hope they don't start locking people up for saying stupid things. We will have to start building more jails. If Dale Mardis had kept his mouth closed. He could vey well be going free. What we should do is plan for the future. We can't change what has already been done. I sincerely hope nothing happens to make that niece have to eat her words. It would be ironic if she found herself in the same situation as the accused. In spite of emotions running high, this is not a time to kill.

10 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:02 AM

    Criminal prosecutions aren't always clear-cut. Rather than take a chance that a jury could convict Mardis of a lesser charge than first-degree murder or he could win acquittal on appeal, prosecutors accepted a deal that also lets Wright's family know for sure what happened to his body. This monstrous case began on the morning of April 17, 2001, when Wright went to a car lot on property Mardis owns on Lamar. Ten days after he went missing, his Memphis-Shelby County Code Enforcement truck was found torched in a field in Marshall County, Miss.

    Mardis never gave a formal statement admitting the murder to authorities. He did tell acquaintances that he killed Wright in self-defense after the two argued about a courtesy citation Wright issued Mardis. Wright's body was never found. There were no eyewitnesses to the murder. Despite that, state prosecutor Thomas Henderson was prepared to argue that the killing was racially motivated. But, that argument was undermined when two black men told prosecutors they would testify that they had been best friends with Mardis since childhood.

    In the real world of criminal prosecutions, what you know and what you can convince a jury to believe don't always mesh. Henderson explained Friday that because there was no direct evidence that Mardis didn't act in self-defense, a jury could have convicted him of voluntary manslaughter, which carries a three- to six-year sentence, or he could have been acquitted. Another factor prosecutors considered was the possibility that an appellate court could rule that the state's evidence was not sufficient to prove Mardis didn't act in self-defense, overturning a guilty verdict. If that happened, there would be no retrial.

    The prosecutor's office has a "No Deals" policy that bans reducing charges on certain violent crimes. But in this case, Henderson says, "Ethics trumps policy. It's unethical to prosecute someone if we don't think we can get a conviction," in this case a first-degree murder conviction. Henderson is a bulldog of a state prosecutor who has handled some of the most infamous murder cases in the county over his long career. He deserves to be taken at his word when he says getting a first-degree murder conviction wasn't a sure thing.

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  2. The reaction in the courtroom was very raw and understandable. It was obvious by their reaction they did not know a plea bargain was taking place in court that day. Bill Gibbon’s office was WRONG not to consult with the family before hand and explain to them WHY the DA’s office had to offer Mardis a deal. Therefore, it was a lack of respect to the family for not doing so and having them find out in open court is questionable.

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  3. Blinders -Off,

    Out of all the arguments I've heard so far. You have the most valid one. In all the reasons given that the D.A.'s office didn't do their job.This is the only one that holds up to scrutiny.


    P.S. Read where are they now?

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  4. Anonymous8:07 PM

    I talked to someone earlier today about the Mardis sentence. It was a prime example of the old addage "The White mans ice is colder". Bill Gibbons told him the same exact thing I did, only difference is he believed it now.

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