In stark contrast to Michelle’s recent post (regarding a guy who was sent up the river for 30+ years for the crime of nicking a television set) FOX News tells the story of a New Jersey guy who beat his girlfriend to death with a hammer and dumped her in the river, only to walk away a free man. He was tried for the murder, but it seems that nobody told the jury that a conviction on a lesser charge of manslaughter would result in no punishment at all, due to a screwed-up statute of limitations law. You would think that the judge or the prosecutor might have said something (!?).
Of course, this kind of thing can damage a person’s reputation. It could make it hard to get work, or find a wife. It could dog a person to his or her grave. Such a thing might even happen to the murderer in this case, Marc Ferarra. That’s MARC FERRARA. Are you listening, New Jersey? M-A-R-C F-E-R-A-R-R-A. This is not a nice person. You might not want to, say, loan him a book. He is likely a spine-cracker.
Hey, just what are you implying about spine crackers or creasers? That they’re criminals??
But if I don’t loan him the book he might hit me with a hammer! And what if he wants to borrow Surprised By Truth?
Judges and prosecutors are not allowed to say anything to the jury regarding the sentence that may result from their verdict. It is a basic principle of our criminal justice system that the jury ONLY determines guilt and NOT punishment. If the jurors knew what punishment could result from a particular verdict, it might sway their decision, when they should be concerned only with whether or not the government proved all the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Your complaint that they should have convicted on some other charge so that he would actually get punished simply proves the problem that our system tries to avoid.
As for the statute of limitations, that is a fundamental aspect of our system of justice as well. For certain crimes, there is no statute of limitations (e.g. murder), but apparently the jury wasn’t as convinced as you are that the government actually proved the murder charge. They were convinced on the manslaughter charge, but the statute of limitations applies there. You could argue that there should be no statute of limitations for manslaughter either, but you’d be overthrowing a fundamental principle of our legal system that has been in place for hundreds of years.
Before you take swipes at judge, jury, prosecutor and legal system, it’s a good idea to know something about how they work and why they are designed that way.
I know this breaks century old tradition, but juries should be permitted to decide questions of law as well as questions of fact.
Suzanne, I was thinking the same thing! I’m a cracker/creaser, but i’m pretty much a pacifist…unless there’s a bug of some sort that needs to be dealt with.
God bless.
I freely admit I am mostly ignorant of the details of our system of justice or courtroom procedure, hence my perplexity at the fact that apparently the jury in this case remained ignorant concerning the actual consequences of their decision. I don’t consider that I took a “swipe” at anybody.
I’m sorry, but I consider a criminal walking away after being found guilty of violent manslaughter to be a problem. So did the New Jersey Supreme Court, I guess, since the old 5-year statute of limitations for manslaughter was revised upward before this case was ever tried. Trouble is, the change was not made retroactive.
Should we change the system when it doesn’t work, or stick with it because it has always been that way?
Oh, BTW, While I am not a spine cracker, I confess to being a page creaser. I judge no one.
The U.S. Constitution prohibits retroactive changes in the criminal law. This is easy to understand. If it wasn’t a crime when you did it, it would be grossly unfair to punish you for it because the government later decided to make the conduct illegal. I believe that a retroactive change in the statute of limitations for a crime would run into serious constitutional problems as well, because the statute of limitations is typically considered a substantive aspect of the law, not a merely procedural one, because it affects substantive rights. Indeed, as this case demonstrates, it is outcome-determinative. Even if a retroactive change in the statute of limitations would be constitutional, I think courts are extremely reluctant to make any change in the criminal law retroactive. It’s part of the general principle that the power of the government to punish must be kept under very strict limits, lest the government acquire too much control over the lives of free people.
The statute of limitations, like so many other protections for defendants, is counter-intuitive, but there are excellent reasons to have one for most if not all crimes. Witnesses can no longer be found, exculpatory evidence is lost or destroyed, and all sorts of other problems arise when much time has passed since the alleged crime occurred. Of course, people can reasonably disagree about whether the limitations period should be 5 years or 7, and whether all homicide should be exempted, or only homicide with proof of intent to kill. There will always be line-drawing problems, so there will always be cases that come up just on the other side of the line, but that is an inevitable cost of having bright line rules, not a fundamental flaw in the system. Doing away with bright-line rules isn’t so attractive either. It puts all the power in the hands of the judge. It’s always galling to see somebody get away with a crime, but our system tolerates that result in order to protect other important values. Again, that’s not a fundamental flaw, just a reflection of the fact that there are conflicting values involved and trade-offs have to be made.
Well said, decker. I do think that a 5-year statute of limitations for manslaughter was just not long enough and, as I said, so did the supreme court. I mean, someone was killed, their life is over and if the perpetrator can eek out five years without getting caught he goes free? Very galling.
There are those, I’m sure, who would argue that it is too easy to send someone to jail. In this case, though, my sense of justice is just outraged on behalf of the victim and her family.
I don’t know that juries should be deciding questions of law. Sounds like a recipe for chaos.
I would like to point out that the statute of limitations of “aggravated manslaughter” was changed in 1989, 7 years too late, I’m afraid.
Actually, I do not know the other charges that (ugh) Marc was charged with. What bothers me is that I was not allowed to testify to everything that had transpired over 3 days of my life.
He took me with resistance (kidnapping), had someone else watch my 15 month old baby (endagering the life of a child), threatened to “put my dead body on top of her” (terrositic threats), then, threatened to take my 15 month old baby and “cut him up and feed him to the dog” (another terrositic threat). Arent these also felony charges? And he wasnt charged with any of these.
Whatever, a vote of murder 1 or 2 must be unanimous…isn’t it? So, Marc could have got off spending life in prison thanks to just ONE MEMBER of the jury.
ummmm, I looked at them, I think I know who that person is……yup, I certainly do.
I cant wait until Inside Edition interviews the members of that jury.
>marc’s “sister” and it isnt Phyllis or Phyliss, according to the newspapers: apparently detecitives and jury members are the only people who suffer from the lack of listening or observational skills.