11 ms·

A Prison Lifer Comes Home

59 points by johnny313 7y ago

rayiner 7y ago
The article leaves out some facts. While Fennell’s participation in the attack (at the age of 17) was sufficient to convict him for murder, regardless of who ultimately delivered the killing blow, the jury may not have convicted him for murder (or a judge may have later commuted his sentence) had he testified against the man who directly killed the victim: https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=19706704&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjE4NjcxMTY0NywiaWF0IjoxNTY5Njg5OTAzLCJleHAiOjE1Njk3NzYzMDN9.P6iYNFC9X467ToUvyEFIQcNcmzzPKi8kco-0XMKEpiM https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=19706704&fcfTo.... He refused to testify even though he provided a statement to the police at the time of his arrest stating who had performed the stabbing. My beef with articles like this one is not that I think a 17 year old should get life in prison for a stabbing. I think nobody should. Our murder laws produce sentences vastly longer than Europe, where 15-20 years is a typical maximum sentence for murder, and longer sentences are reserved for people who are active threats. Rather, my problem is the attempt to draw lines between more or less egregious conduct that don’t make any sense. Someone who along with three other young men tries to rob and ends up killing a man is among the most dangerous and culpable of criminals. Such premeditated group violence is the greatest threat to social order. Being 17 or acting as part of a group don’t make you less culpable.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- coldtea 7y ago
  And when you refuse to testify that someone else did the murder, you become the murderer in that system?
  - alexis_fr 7y ago
    Maybe it was false and he stood on the side of only saying what is true and/or not condemning the wrong person for the crime.
  - DenisM 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule when an offender kills (regardless of intent to kill) in the commission of a [felony], the offender, and also the offender's accomplices or co-conspirators, may be found guilty of murder. Which is to say, he was guilty from the get-go.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      Is this common in western countries, or one of those "only in the US and/or some third world country" things, like the "three-strikes" and the "death penalty" (even for juveniles) laws?
      - nate_meurer 7y ago
        In this case, Mr Fennell watched a man get attacked, did nothing to help the man and even actively participated in the attack, and when the man died, Mr. Fennell protected the presumed killer by refusing to testify. I don't think it's a stretch, ethically or legally, to assign him significant blame for the killing, especially since his refusal to testify deprived his victims of any further justice. That doesn't mean I agree with the life sentence (I absolutely do not), but twenty-five years doesn't seem wildly disproportionate to me.
        xenophonf 7y ago
        Mr. Fennell protected the presumed killer by refusing to testify. Do you have any evidence for this, or are you assuming that protecting the murderer was Mr. Fennell's motive? Was he offered immunity for his testimony? If not, then he has very good legal reasons, not to mention the Constitutional right, to remain silent.
        nate_meurer 7y ago
        > are you assuming that protecting the murderer was Mr. Fennell's motive? Who gives a shit what his motivation was? The legal system sure doesn't. The effect of his refusal to testify was that the killer could not be brought to justice. His participation in the attack and his refusal to cooperate after the man's death makes him morally and legally culpable in that death. This is not controversial in any modern legal jurisdiction that I'm aware of. > Was he offered immunity for his testimony? If not, then he has very good legal reasons, not to mention the Constitutional right, to remain silent. You appear to be confusing this issue with our Fifth Amendment indemnity against self-incrimination. Mr. Fennell was not examined as a witness, but rather as a defendant. If you refuse to testify against an accomplice, and you expect to be somehow protected from a charge of accessory-after-the-fact, you're in for a rude surprise.
  - bluedino 7y ago
    Should you get less of a sentence because you testify?
    - mieseratte 7y ago
      Highly dependent upon context, I suppose. If you came forward to break an otherwise improbable or cold case, I could imagine that would warrant consideration. Of course someone could sing to save their skin, and in doing so lie. It’s a balance of incentives, I suppose? This is why we have a human system of law, not an algorithm.
- craigsmansion 7y ago
  > Being 17 or acting as part of a group don’t make you less culpable. Yes it does. Boys do strange things, boys in groups do stranger things, like not testifying against each other, especially if they feel society has abandoned them and the world is against them. Normal societies are set up to deal with that or prevent it. Fix your bloody society.
  - pmiller2 7y ago
    Sorry, but a 17 year old knows what it means to rob and murder someone and knows the difference between right and wrong. That’s the basic criterion for culpability.
    - TomK32 7y ago
      No they don't. Every human being is an effing idiot when it comes to group dynamics and you never know when a simple brawl or mugging turns into murder. First of all, if we are talking law and regulations: You don't know all of them and they are constantly shifting. And let's not get into the details of local legislation whether you live in a union of 50 or like me 28 states. Secondly morals, those are learned first through your family then friends, school, maybe a religious community and later on experience as you master your life on your own. Or rather you learn from your mistakes or the mistakes others make. The Supreme Court was right to disallow life prison for minors and your 18th birthday shouldn't be the hard limit for that.
      - pmiller2 7y ago
        Are you really trying to claim a 17 year old doesn’t know murder and robbery are illegal, much less wrong? I’m not saying anyone should necessarily go to prison forever, but any 17 year old of normal to somewhat below normal intelligence knows murder and robbery are both wrong and illegal.
    - mistermann 7y ago
      I sometimes think when we're all bitching about how the world is going to hell in a hand basket (which it is, on many dimensions - maybe not in the aggregate as people like Steven Pinker argue, depending on how you "measure" that, but I think it's fair to say we could do much better), typically because of the foolish behavior of one "stupid" group or another, do we maybe underestimate the significance of how differently each of us perceive and conceptualize the world? >> Being 17 or acting as part of a group don’t make you less culpable. > Yes it does. Boys do strange things, boys in groups do stranger things, like not testifying against each other, especially if they feel society has abandoned them and the world is against them. Both of these seem arguably "true" to me. > Sorry, but a 17 year old knows what it means to rob and murder someone and knows the difference between right and wrong. That’s the basic criterion for culpability. This seems arguably "true" as well. But then, what does the word "knows" mean in this context, precisely? For example, we all "know" we should be kind to others, and clean up our acts in general, but when your life falls apart as a consequence of not acting in the way you know you should have, does "know" have the same meaning as it did before? We use the same word for both situations, but is the meaning the same? > especially if they feel society has abandoned them and the world is against them There are all sorts of complications in life that we kind of just take for granted because our mind processes them subconsciously. If society has "abandoned" people, and they subsequently use that as a parameter ("excuse") during (conscious + subconscious) judgement of what to do in certain future situations, whose fault is that, and why? Shall we deal with reality as it "should" be, or as it is? Another example is laws. Should we follow the law? Well of course. But then, are all laws just? Are all people equally/fairly impacted by our vast collection of laws? Are all laws enforced fairly? Are all people equally able to defend themselves? Should these and other questions have any bearing on how we organize our societies and planet, or how we judge others when they've "clearly" gone astray? The world is an infinitely complex place, and each individual is infinitely complex in their own right. Different people, or even the same person, will often react in completely opposite ways under seemingly identical inputs. We all can clearly see this sort of thing when we're discussing the phenomenon in a philosophical context, but how well do we remember it when we're dealing with an incident in the heat of the moment? How should people behave? How, precisely, do we even determine what is right and wrong, under various circumstances? Sure, we can write all sorts of complex legal regulations, but how do we know they're right? What does that word even mean in this context? Is everything a matter of fact, or are some things matters of opinion? I believe until we start to get serious widespread appreciation of these complexities (which are rapidly grower larger every day in our hyper-connected and globalized world), and start to put as much effort into studying and mastering the soft sciences as we've done with the hard, we will continue to stumble around like overconfident but naive children until the complexity we've built (while spending no time learning how to wield it wisely) starts to collapse upon us. I like this story about Richard Feynman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsgBtOVzHKI&feature=youtu.be&t=98 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsgBtOVzHKI&feature=youtu.be... > You see, I have had in my life a number of pleasant experiences. One of the earliest ones was when I was a kid I invented a problem for myself, the sum of the powers of the integers, and in trying to get the formula for it I developed a certain set of numbers, the formula for which I couldn’t get, and I discovered later that those were known as the Bernoulli numbers and discovered in 1739. So I was up to 1739 when I was about 14 you see. And then a little later I discovered something that I’d find out I just may have invented a thing which we now call operator calculus. That was invented in 1890-something. Gradually I was inventing things that came later and later. > But the moment when I began to realize that I was now working on something new was when I read about quantum electrodynamics at the time and I read a book, and I learned about it. For example, I read Dirac’s book, and he had these problems that nobody knew how to solve that were described there. I couldn’t understand the book very well because I really wasn’t up to it. But there in the last paragraph at the end of the book it said, “Some new ideas are here needed.” And so there I was. Some new ideas were needed? OK! So I started to think of new ideas. Hundreds of thousands of scientists and technical people have been thinking (and collaborating) really hard for centuries, and marvel at what they've built! Do we have anything remotely comparable in the social sciences, which is arguably a much harder problem space? Where would we even look for new ideas? I think at least part of the answer lies within the ideas of people who are often considered the oddballs of society. I like this video of Terence McKenna interpreting Plato's ideas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-J09gk0mJk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-J09gk0mJk > How can you tell one theory from another, and is science better than religion and this and that? After a lot of arm waving it should be conceded that the final call is aesthetic. That, because we are monkeys, because we are so far from God, we cannot set knowing the truth as the standard for choosing among the models we can produce. We must set our aesthetic compass towards the more true. What Wittgenstein called the true enough. And then the question is well how do you how do you recognize that? Well, this is a rich field of human study called philosophy of science, or theory, epistemology, and ontology. How do we know what is real? > But Plato, who all the rest of philosophy is a footnote upon, Plato said that the key lay in the concepts the good, the true and the beautiful. The good, what is it? Tricky, tricky, tricky... The true, what is it? Trickier, even trickier... The beautiful, what is it? Easy to discern! The beautiful is easy to discern. You are going to be condemned to live out the consequences of your taste, really, really, and if you have no taste, you know, God help you! Because you are you are self condemned to an appalling nightmare. You won't be getting it, all the subtle stuff will go by you, while your head is filled with Kant, nonsense, foolishness. So again, the the metaphor of the dream and of making choices based on beauty and beauty is downloaded into the human cultural milieu largely through dreams. So that's the way to set the compass, not toward truth, not toward the good, not because these aren't fine things, but because they're so slippery.....but toward beauty, and with that in place, to my mind, life hope follows as a natural consequence. Spiritual jibber jabber and woo woo as a result of excessive drug consumption? Sure, at least somewhat. But what if it is also simultaneously true, at least to some degree, but as a result of mankind's hubris (also a powerful drug), no one bothers to take a serious look into it? It would be kind of cosmically hilarious if the answer was right in front of us, but we were too stubborn to look.
- candiodari 7y ago
  > Rather, my problem is the attempt to draw lines between more or less egregious conduct that don’t make any sense. Someone who along with three other young men tries to rob and ends up killing a man is among the most dangerous and culpable of criminals. Such premeditated group violence is the greatest threat to social order. Being 17 or acting as part of a group don’t make you less culpable. Welcome to moral systems, like the law. None of them make much sense at all (even though they're necessary), but laws are particularly bad. Laws + governments saving money are a recipe for total disaster. But mostly the poor and socially weak are victimized so nobody cares. And of course, whether it's a third world dictatorship or a modern "european democracy" as if that's an ideal: the state protects it's own enforcers. Even when they shoot a slowly moving van that refused to stop for border patrol, then refuse to bring a 2 year old they shot that was dying to the hospital for 20 minutes, their parents in chains (totally not to avoid responsibility, not at all), and then when the child went unresponsive, tried to free everyone they arrested (again, this had totally nothing to do with attempting to avoid responsibility) ... https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/may/25/belgian-authorities-accused-of-botching-inquiry-into-death-of-mawda-shawri-two-year-old-shot-by-police https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/may/25/b...
- eternalny1 7y ago
  I agree with everything you said, but I am amazed I've never seen "newspapers.com" before today. That is a great idea. Archive old newspapers and let people link to clips. Brilliant.
- gumby 7y ago
  This I corollary to the plea bargaining system in the US (make a confession in exchange for a lighter sentence than you'd get if you went to trial) which is illegal and considered a human rights violation in most other countries.
- parthdesai 7y ago
  You conveniently glance over a key paragraph as well. > According to later testimony from one of those officers, Fennell sat with him, and no lawyer, for about an hour that morning before agreeing to make a statement about the night in question. Fennell later testified that the officer told him that if he made a statement, he would not get more than a year in jail. He felt pressured and scared. “Nobody there was my color, nobody my age—all cops,” he said later. “They took advantage of my ignorance, of my family’s ignorance of the legal system.”
  - nate_meurer 7y ago
    Why is this a key paragraph? What the cop told him was bullshit, but that's not illegal. All I see here is that Mr. Fennell was briefly questioned by police, and gave a statement that appears to have been largely or entirely accurate. It seems he hasn't significantly recanted any of it to this day, except possibly to add some uncertainty to his recollection of a murder weapon. When he laments that "They took advantage of my ignorance, of my family’s ignorance of the legal system", is he saying that if only he'd lawyered up then maybe he could have beaten the felony murder rap? Even though he plainly admits to assaulting the man and watching while someone else possibly stabbed him to death? We're supposed to be sympathetic to that?
- intenex 7y ago
  The article directly addresses the idea that "Being 17...doesn't make you less culpable." "Of just over 200 released, six have faced new charges, but only one has been convicted of a new crime, contempt. That’s less than a 3 percent recidivism rate. “When you’re looking at the percentages of the guys who’ve come back in court, and compare that to our overall, which is around 40 percent, you really know you’ve done a good job,” Johnson said. That outcome supports a theory the U.S. Supreme Court first advanced in 2005, when it outlawed the death penalty for juveniles. The Court took stock of “evolving standards of decency,” as well as a growing body of neuroscience suggesting kids’ immaturity makes them less culpable than adults. It also emphasized that kids, more than adults, are amenable to change. The low recidivism rates likely also reflect the reality that criminal behavior declines dramatically as people age out of their teens and early 20s." There are a million things incredibly unwise things I would have been far more likely to do at 17 than 27 now - I imagine this is a trend that will continue to likely progress for me individually, and I also imagine this isn't a phenomenon singular to myself. The shockingly low recidivism rate seems to empirically support this notion as well, particularly when contrasted with the general recidivism rate. If these juvenile offenders were just as culpable as anyone else when they had committed their life sentence crimes, presumably their recidivism rate should be similar. 40 percent for the general population and 3 percent for this cohort so far suggests otherwise.
  - BurningCycles 7y ago
    >There are a million things incredibly unwise things I would have been far more likely to do at 17 than 27 now Yes, I too made very stupid choices in my younger days, which could have killed me many times over. I have not however, done things that could have hurt/killed others. That doesn't make me a saint, it just means I understand the value of human life and that I have no right to jeopardize the lives of others. These 'kids' took it upon themselves to rob a person while armed, and stab him to death. This person, named Joseph Hayes, had his life forfeit for no doing of his own, his family and friends having him removed from their lives in a most brutal way. I think the penalty should fit the crime, if you attack and kill someone unprovoked, I don't care if you are 17 years old, or if you were in a group. Your lack of regard for other human life means you should be locked away, both in order to keep people safe from you as well as a strong deterrent. Haywood Fennell is not a victim, the person he and a group of his friends decided to rob and kill is the victim.
coldtea 7y ago
>Imprisoned for decades for a crime he committed as a juvenile So, for a single, first time, first degree murder, Pennsylvania gives "a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole, including for juveniles"? What kind of medieval backwater has such laws? And how is that working out for them? [1] Compared to e.g. countries which have much smaller sentences for the same type of crimes (especially for juveniles), in much more humane prisons, and achieve much lower crime rates... For comparison, the guy who methodically mass shoot and killed 77 people in Norway, only got 21 years in prison (and in a vastly more humane prison, more like a Motel 8 than the hell-holes in the US, at that). Perhaps that's another extreme, and I'd be OK if he went in for life, but the Pennsylvania extreme is medieval, inhumane, and depraved too. Too much Old-Testament inspired morals... [1] Rhetorical question, I've checked the Pennsylvania homicide rate: https://patch.com/pennsylvania/abington/crime-falls-u-s-here-s-what-happened-pennsylvania https://patch.com/pennsylvania/abington/crime-falls-u-s-here...
- throwawaysea 7y ago
  I can’t tell if your post was being sarcastic or sincere. It’s a first degree murder. Putting him away for life is what he deserves and others (law-abiding free citizens) should not have to bear the risk that he would commit more extreme crimes given the extreme nature of the crime here. That’s not medieval or inhumane, it’s appropriate and common sense. The relation you imply between laws, sentencing, and crime rates between different locations and demographics is not causal and doesn’t account for various other factors, and is therefore irrelevant.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Right. Homicide rate in the UK went up significantly after hangings were abolished: https://fullfact.org/news/has-murder-rate-doubled-hanging-was-abolished https://fullfact.org/news/has-murder-rate-doubled-hanging-wa.... Europe had much lower homicide rates before criminal justice reforms. Arguably, the causation runs the other way. Europeans were willing to have more lenient sentences because homicides were less of a pervasive problem.
    - 7y ago
PhantomGremlin 7y ago
Okay, as they used to say on slashdot when I frequented it (and maybe they still say it), "I know I'll be downvoted for this ...". But I'll say it anyway: Mr Fennell was a good candidate for parole. I'm not opposed to parole for him. He didn't need to be in jail any longer. But ... Why oh why can 5 un-elected people be allowed to decide that his incarceration was "cruel and unusual punishment". As one of the dissenters on the court noted, mandatory life sentences "could not plausibly be described" as unusual when a majority of states endorse them. Giving the Supreme Court the power to do this is IMO very bad. People simply love love love it when the result is something they agree with, but what about all the other decisions? I really don't like this court decision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_v._Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_v._Alabama
superflit 7y ago
I think they should do as the laws in Brazil. In Brazil, It is not allowed to give sentences for more than 30 years, and if the prisoner has good behavior, he is out in 1/6 of his sentence. And still, if he is not caught in 24h, was his first murder and has a job he may wait for the final judgment outside prison (after all appeals). Brazil is big, multi-diverse and is very nice. The Brazilian penal code is the most human and modern criminal code. And it brought great success as [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Brazil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Brazil) Nowadays we have a "repressive", "gun-loving" president that wants the revert our success. [2](https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/22/brazils-murder-rate-finally-fell-and-by-a-lot/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/22/brazils-murder-rate-fin...) [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Brazil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Brazil [2] - https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/22/brazils-murder-rate-finally-fell-and-by-a-lot/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/22/brazils-murder-rate-fin...
- echelon 7y ago
  Brazil has one of the highest murder rates in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate I'm not an expert, but at face value I'm not sure their system is effective. I'd like to see data on reoffenders and deterrence.
- brazilman123 7y ago
  Brazil has a big crime problem, a huge murder rate. There are people who simply aren't fit to be in society. There are people who get out of prison after their 5 years of good behavior, and immediately a week later are raping someone again. Why do the victims have less value than the violent murderer/rapist criminals? It is simply shocking to me you think it's ok for murderers to be out of jail if they have a job. What do you propose to do about this, besides blaming Bolsonaro - btw the criminals already all have guns, it's only the lawful citizens who have a hard time getting them. There's a reason everyone in brazil has to hide behind electric fences, security systems, etc.
- curiouswanderer 7y ago
  The law is too lax. I also want to kill someone and then my sentence reduced to 1/6. In fact, I'd like to rob all brazilians from their taxpayer money through my corrupt construction company and then go to "home prison" at my 32 million square feet mansion without giving a single dime back. That's what I call a good application of the law! All hail the "great success" that it is.
hogFeast 7y ago
I don't understand how these people are supposed to re-integrate. You commit a crime...cool, we are going to send you to a boarding school for criminals, where you are subjected to a ton of violent behaviour, that is heavily structured and limiting on your freedom...and in twenty years (or whatever), you are going to come out and be expected to be like everyone else...okay... It would be interesting to ask how the behaviour of those who work in these institutions is effected by this environment...if this is the case then it is clearly non-rational to believe that people in that environment 24/7 are going to be fine after they come out. (I don't have a solution to this either...just a chimp throwing peanuts from the gallery).
Stratoscope 7y ago
> His $830 a month included a few hundred in Supplemental Security, but he mostly relied on close to $600 in Social Security spousal benefits, thanks to Bernadette’s years in the workforce. He said he’s offered to refund her a portion of that, but she declined. It's generous of him to offer to give her part of his spousal benefits, but the word "refund" makes me wonder if there is some confusion over how spousal benefits work. They aren't taken from the other spouse; their benefit remains unchanged. A somewhat simplified explanation: if one spouse (or ex-spouse in some cases) is receiving more than twice the Social Security benefit of the other, the one with a smaller benefit gets theirs "topped off" to be half of the other's benefit. It this case Bernadette may be receiving $1660/month in benefits. Haywood's benefit of several hundred dollars is increased to half of that, or $830. Bernadette still gets her full $1660. There are various requirements and conditions that may change this amount; I'm assuming both spouses are of full retirement age. Anyone receiving or about to receive Social Security benefits where one spouse earned significantly more than the other would do well to look into this. https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/applying6.html https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/applying6.html
without_words 7y ago
A confession from one redditor: I was sentenced to 3 years with 2 suspended at the North Dakota State Penitentiary. I sold a quarter pound of ganja to an undercover after an informant introduced me to him. Mind you now, think of a quarter pounder cheeseburger patty. It's not THAT much. I was in my third year of college at UND for pre-health sciences. I went to prison and it threw a wrench in the machine that is my life. Now let me tell you the best way I can: Some guys are gay for the stay as they say. For the most part, RAPE is very rare. Unless your in a federal prison. Then duct tape your buttcheeks. I compare prison to being in detention. Except in this detention, imagine the WORST, I mean the BIGGEST problem child from your memories in school. Now, briefly imagine the number of schools in your state. Imagine that number of problem people. Now, the detention lasts 24/7. And they are all in a cage together. Like a problem child / man zoo. I thought I'd go to prison meeting good guys who made bad choices like me. What I learned is that there are an obnoxious amount of BAD MEN. They are chronic liars and they are VERY selfish. They are bad because they care nothing for anyone but themselves, and yet they all feel sorry for themselves. I hope none of you fine folks have to find out what the experience is like.

59 points by johnny313 7y ago

The article leaves out some facts. While Fennell’s participation in the attack (at the age of 17) was sufficient to convict him for murder, regardless of who ultimately delivered the killing blow, the jury may not have convicted him for murder (or a judge may have later commuted his sentence) had he testified against the man who directly killed the victim: https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=19706704&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjE4NjcxMTY0NywiaWF0IjoxNTY5Njg5OTAzLCJleHAiOjE1Njk3NzYzMDN9.P6iYNFC9X467ToUvyEFIQcNcmzzPKi8kco-0XMKEpiM https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=19706704&fcfTo.... He refused to testify even though he provided a statement to the police at the time of his arrest stating who had performed the stabbing. My beef with articles like this one is not that I think a 17 year old should get life in prison for a stabbing. I think nobody should. Our murder laws produce sentences vastly longer than Europe, where 15-20 years is a typical maximum sentence for murder, and longer sentences are reserved for people who are active threats. Rather, my problem is the attempt to draw lines between more or less egregious conduct that don’t make any sense. Someone who along with three other young men tries to rob and ends up killing a man is among the most dangerous and culpable of criminals. Such premeditated group violence is the greatest threat to social order. Being 17 or acting as part of a group don’t make you less culpable.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
coldtea 7y ago
And when you refuse to testify that someone else did the murder, you become the murderer in that system?
- alexis_fr 7y ago
  Maybe it was false and he stood on the side of only saying what is true and/or not condemning the wrong person for the crime.
- DenisM 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule when an offender kills (regardless of intent to kill) in the commission of a [felony], the offender, and also the offender's accomplices or co-conspirators, may be found guilty of murder. Which is to say, he was guilty from the get-go.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    Is this common in western countries, or one of those "only in the US and/or some third world country" things, like the "three-strikes" and the "death penalty" (even for juveniles) laws?
    - nate_meurer 7y ago
      In this case, Mr Fennell watched a man get attacked, did nothing to help the man and even actively participated in the attack, and when the man died, Mr. Fennell protected the presumed killer by refusing to testify. I don't think it's a stretch, ethically or legally, to assign him significant blame for the killing, especially since his refusal to testify deprived his victims of any further justice. That doesn't mean I agree with the life sentence (I absolutely do not), but twenty-five years doesn't seem wildly disproportionate to me.
      - xenophonf 7y ago
        Mr. Fennell protected the presumed killer by refusing to testify. Do you have any evidence for this, or are you assuming that protecting the murderer was Mr. Fennell's motive? Was he offered immunity for his testimony? If not, then he has very good legal reasons, not to mention the Constitutional right, to remain silent.
        nate_meurer 7y ago
        > are you assuming that protecting the murderer was Mr. Fennell's motive? Who gives a shit what his motivation was? The legal system sure doesn't. The effect of his refusal to testify was that the killer could not be brought to justice. His participation in the attack and his refusal to cooperate after the man's death makes him morally and legally culpable in that death. This is not controversial in any modern legal jurisdiction that I'm aware of. > Was he offered immunity for his testimony? If not, then he has very good legal reasons, not to mention the Constitutional right, to remain silent. You appear to be confusing this issue with our Fifth Amendment indemnity against self-incrimination. Mr. Fennell was not examined as a witness, but rather as a defendant. If you refuse to testify against an accomplice, and you expect to be somehow protected from a charge of accessory-after-the-fact, you're in for a rude surprise.
- bluedino 7y ago
  Should you get less of a sentence because you testify?
  - mieseratte 7y ago
    Highly dependent upon context, I suppose. If you came forward to break an otherwise improbable or cold case, I could imagine that would warrant consideration. Of course someone could sing to save their skin, and in doing so lie. It’s a balance of incentives, I suppose? This is why we have a human system of law, not an algorithm.
craigsmansion 7y ago
> Being 17 or acting as part of a group don’t make you less culpable. Yes it does. Boys do strange things, boys in groups do stranger things, like not testifying against each other, especially if they feel society has abandoned them and the world is against them. Normal societies are set up to deal with that or prevent it. Fix your bloody society.
- pmiller2 7y ago
  Sorry, but a 17 year old knows what it means to rob and murder someone and knows the difference between right and wrong. That’s the basic criterion for culpability.
  - TomK32 7y ago
    No they don't. Every human being is an effing idiot when it comes to group dynamics and you never know when a simple brawl or mugging turns into murder. First of all, if we are talking law and regulations: You don't know all of them and they are constantly shifting. And let's not get into the details of local legislation whether you live in a union of 50 or like me 28 states. Secondly morals, those are learned first through your family then friends, school, maybe a religious community and later on experience as you master your life on your own. Or rather you learn from your mistakes or the mistakes others make. The Supreme Court was right to disallow life prison for minors and your 18th birthday shouldn't be the hard limit for that.
    - pmiller2 7y ago
      Are you really trying to claim a 17 year old doesn’t know murder and robbery are illegal, much less wrong? I’m not saying anyone should necessarily go to prison forever, but any 17 year old of normal to somewhat below normal intelligence knows murder and robbery are both wrong and illegal.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    I sometimes think when we're all bitching about how the world is going to hell in a hand basket (which it is, on many dimensions - maybe not in the aggregate as people like Steven Pinker argue, depending on how you "measure" that, but I think it's fair to say we could do much better), typically because of the foolish behavior of one "stupid" group or another, do we maybe underestimate the significance of how differently each of us perceive and conceptualize the world? >> Being 17 or acting as part of a group don’t make you less culpable. > Yes it does. Boys do strange things, boys in groups do stranger things, like not testifying against each other, especially if they feel society has abandoned them and the world is against them. Both of these seem arguably "true" to me. > Sorry, but a 17 year old knows what it means to rob and murder someone and knows the difference between right and wrong. That’s the basic criterion for culpability. This seems arguably "true" as well. But then, what does the word "knows" mean in this context, precisely? For example, we all "know" we should be kind to others, and clean up our acts in general, but when your life falls apart as a consequence of not acting in the way you know you should have, does "know" have the same meaning as it did before? We use the same word for both situations, but is the meaning the same? > especially if they feel society has abandoned them and the world is against them There are all sorts of complications in life that we kind of just take for granted because our mind processes them subconsciously. If society has "abandoned" people, and they subsequently use that as a parameter ("excuse") during (conscious + subconscious) judgement of what to do in certain future situations, whose fault is that, and why? Shall we deal with reality as it "should" be, or as it is? Another example is laws. Should we follow the law? Well of course. But then, are all laws just? Are all people equally/fairly impacted by our vast collection of laws? Are all laws enforced fairly? Are all people equally able to defend themselves? Should these and other questions have any bearing on how we organize our societies and planet, or how we judge others when they've "clearly" gone astray? The world is an infinitely complex place, and each individual is infinitely complex in their own right. Different people, or even the same person, will often react in completely opposite ways under seemingly identical inputs. We all can clearly see this sort of thing when we're discussing the phenomenon in a philosophical context, but how well do we remember it when we're dealing with an incident in the heat of the moment? How should people behave? How, precisely, do we even determine what is right and wrong, under various circumstances? Sure, we can write all sorts of complex legal regulations, but how do we know they're right? What does that word even mean in this context? Is everything a matter of fact, or are some things matters of opinion? I believe until we start to get serious widespread appreciation of these complexities (which are rapidly grower larger every day in our hyper-connected and globalized world), and start to put as much effort into studying and mastering the soft sciences as we've done with the hard, we will continue to stumble around like overconfident but naive children until the complexity we've built (while spending no time learning how to wield it wisely) starts to collapse upon us. I like this story about Richard Feynman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsgBtOVzHKI&feature=youtu.be&t=98 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsgBtOVzHKI&feature=youtu.be... > You see, I have had in my life a number of pleasant experiences. One of the earliest ones was when I was a kid I invented a problem for myself, the sum of the powers of the integers, and in trying to get the formula for it I developed a certain set of numbers, the formula for which I couldn’t get, and I discovered later that those were known as the Bernoulli numbers and discovered in 1739. So I was up to 1739 when I was about 14 you see. And then a little later I discovered something that I’d find out I just may have invented a thing which we now call operator calculus. That was invented in 1890-something. Gradually I was inventing things that came later and later. > But the moment when I began to realize that I was now working on something new was when I read about quantum electrodynamics at the time and I read a book, and I learned about it. For example, I read Dirac’s book, and he had these problems that nobody knew how to solve that were described there. I couldn’t understand the book very well because I really wasn’t up to it. But there in the last paragraph at the end of the book it said, “Some new ideas are here needed.” And so there I was. Some new ideas were needed? OK! So I started to think of new ideas. Hundreds of thousands of scientists and technical people have been thinking (and collaborating) really hard for centuries, and marvel at what they've built! Do we have anything remotely comparable in the social sciences, which is arguably a much harder problem space? Where would we even look for new ideas? I think at least part of the answer lies within the ideas of people who are often considered the oddballs of society. I like this video of Terence McKenna interpreting Plato's ideas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-J09gk0mJk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-J09gk0mJk > How can you tell one theory from another, and is science better than religion and this and that? After a lot of arm waving it should be conceded that the final call is aesthetic. That, because we are monkeys, because we are so far from God, we cannot set knowing the truth as the standard for choosing among the models we can produce. We must set our aesthetic compass towards the more true. What Wittgenstein called the true enough. And then the question is well how do you how do you recognize that? Well, this is a rich field of human study called philosophy of science, or theory, epistemology, and ontology. How do we know what is real? > But Plato, who all the rest of philosophy is a footnote upon, Plato said that the key lay in the concepts the good, the true and the beautiful. The good, what is it? Tricky, tricky, tricky... The true, what is it? Trickier, even trickier... The beautiful, what is it? Easy to discern! The beautiful is easy to discern. You are going to be condemned to live out the consequences of your taste, really, really, and if you have no taste, you know, God help you! Because you are you are self condemned to an appalling nightmare. You won't be getting it, all the subtle stuff will go by you, while your head is filled with Kant, nonsense, foolishness. So again, the the metaphor of the dream and of making choices based on beauty and beauty is downloaded into the human cultural milieu largely through dreams. So that's the way to set the compass, not toward truth, not toward the good, not because these aren't fine things, but because they're so slippery.....but toward beauty, and with that in place, to my mind, life hope follows as a natural consequence. Spiritual jibber jabber and woo woo as a result of excessive drug consumption? Sure, at least somewhat. But what if it is also simultaneously true, at least to some degree, but as a result of mankind's hubris (also a powerful drug), no one bothers to take a serious look into it? It would be kind of cosmically hilarious if the answer was right in front of us, but we were too stubborn to look.
candiodari 7y ago
> Rather, my problem is the attempt to draw lines between more or less egregious conduct that don’t make any sense. Someone who along with three other young men tries to rob and ends up killing a man is among the most dangerous and culpable of criminals. Such premeditated group violence is the greatest threat to social order. Being 17 or acting as part of a group don’t make you less culpable. Welcome to moral systems, like the law. None of them make much sense at all (even though they're necessary), but laws are particularly bad. Laws + governments saving money are a recipe for total disaster. But mostly the poor and socially weak are victimized so nobody cares. And of course, whether it's a third world dictatorship or a modern "european democracy" as if that's an ideal: the state protects it's own enforcers. Even when they shoot a slowly moving van that refused to stop for border patrol, then refuse to bring a 2 year old they shot that was dying to the hospital for 20 minutes, their parents in chains (totally not to avoid responsibility, not at all), and then when the child went unresponsive, tried to free everyone they arrested (again, this had totally nothing to do with attempting to avoid responsibility) ... https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/may/25/belgian-authorities-accused-of-botching-inquiry-into-death-of-mawda-shawri-two-year-old-shot-by-police https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/may/25/b...
eternalny1 7y ago
I agree with everything you said, but I am amazed I've never seen "newspapers.com" before today. That is a great idea. Archive old newspapers and let people link to clips. Brilliant.
gumby 7y ago
This I corollary to the plea bargaining system in the US (make a confession in exchange for a lighter sentence than you'd get if you went to trial) which is illegal and considered a human rights violation in most other countries.
parthdesai 7y ago
You conveniently glance over a key paragraph as well. > According to later testimony from one of those officers, Fennell sat with him, and no lawyer, for about an hour that morning before agreeing to make a statement about the night in question. Fennell later testified that the officer told him that if he made a statement, he would not get more than a year in jail. He felt pressured and scared. “Nobody there was my color, nobody my age—all cops,” he said later. “They took advantage of my ignorance, of my family’s ignorance of the legal system.”
- nate_meurer 7y ago
  Why is this a key paragraph? What the cop told him was bullshit, but that's not illegal. All I see here is that Mr. Fennell was briefly questioned by police, and gave a statement that appears to have been largely or entirely accurate. It seems he hasn't significantly recanted any of it to this day, except possibly to add some uncertainty to his recollection of a murder weapon. When he laments that "They took advantage of my ignorance, of my family’s ignorance of the legal system", is he saying that if only he'd lawyered up then maybe he could have beaten the felony murder rap? Even though he plainly admits to assaulting the man and watching while someone else possibly stabbed him to death? We're supposed to be sympathetic to that?
intenex 7y ago
The article directly addresses the idea that "Being 17...doesn't make you less culpable." "Of just over 200 released, six have faced new charges, but only one has been convicted of a new crime, contempt. That’s less than a 3 percent recidivism rate. “When you’re looking at the percentages of the guys who’ve come back in court, and compare that to our overall, which is around 40 percent, you really know you’ve done a good job,” Johnson said. That outcome supports a theory the U.S. Supreme Court first advanced in 2005, when it outlawed the death penalty for juveniles. The Court took stock of “evolving standards of decency,” as well as a growing body of neuroscience suggesting kids’ immaturity makes them less culpable than adults. It also emphasized that kids, more than adults, are amenable to change. The low recidivism rates likely also reflect the reality that criminal behavior declines dramatically as people age out of their teens and early 20s." There are a million things incredibly unwise things I would have been far more likely to do at 17 than 27 now - I imagine this is a trend that will continue to likely progress for me individually, and I also imagine this isn't a phenomenon singular to myself. The shockingly low recidivism rate seems to empirically support this notion as well, particularly when contrasted with the general recidivism rate. If these juvenile offenders were just as culpable as anyone else when they had committed their life sentence crimes, presumably their recidivism rate should be similar. 40 percent for the general population and 3 percent for this cohort so far suggests otherwise.
- BurningCycles 7y ago
  >There are a million things incredibly unwise things I would have been far more likely to do at 17 than 27 now Yes, I too made very stupid choices in my younger days, which could have killed me many times over. I have not however, done things that could have hurt/killed others. That doesn't make me a saint, it just means I understand the value of human life and that I have no right to jeopardize the lives of others. These 'kids' took it upon themselves to rob a person while armed, and stab him to death. This person, named Joseph Hayes, had his life forfeit for no doing of his own, his family and friends having him removed from their lives in a most brutal way. I think the penalty should fit the crime, if you attack and kill someone unprovoked, I don't care if you are 17 years old, or if you were in a group. Your lack of regard for other human life means you should be locked away, both in order to keep people safe from you as well as a strong deterrent. Haywood Fennell is not a victim, the person he and a group of his friends decided to rob and kill is the victim.

coldtea 7y ago

>Imprisoned for decades for a crime he committed as a juvenile So, for a single, first time, first degree murder, Pennsylvania gives "a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole, including for juveniles"? What kind of medieval backwater has such laws? And how is that working out for them? [1] Compared to e.g. countries which have much smaller sentences for the same type of crimes (especially for juveniles), in much more humane prisons, and achieve much lower crime rates... For comparison, the guy who methodically mass shoot and killed 77 people in Norway, only got 21 years in prison (and in a vastly more humane prison, more like a Motel 8 than the hell-holes in the US, at that). Perhaps that's another extreme, and I'd be OK if he went in for life, but the Pennsylvania extreme is medieval, inhumane, and depraved too. Too much Old-Testament inspired morals... [1] Rhetorical question, I've checked the Pennsylvania homicide rate: https://patch.com/pennsylvania/abington/crime-falls-u-s-here-s-what-happened-pennsylvania https://patch.com/pennsylvania/abington/crime-falls-u-s-here...

throwawaysea 7y ago
I can’t tell if your post was being sarcastic or sincere. It’s a first degree murder. Putting him away for life is what he deserves and others (law-abiding free citizens) should not have to bear the risk that he would commit more extreme crimes given the extreme nature of the crime here. That’s not medieval or inhumane, it’s appropriate and common sense. The relation you imply between laws, sentencing, and crime rates between different locations and demographics is not causal and doesn’t account for various other factors, and is therefore irrelevant.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Right. Homicide rate in the UK went up significantly after hangings were abolished: https://fullfact.org/news/has-murder-rate-doubled-hanging-was-abolished https://fullfact.org/news/has-murder-rate-doubled-hanging-wa.... Europe had much lower homicide rates before criminal justice reforms. Arguably, the causation runs the other way. Europeans were willing to have more lenient sentences because homicides were less of a pervasive problem.
  - 7y ago

PhantomGremlin 7y ago

Okay, as they used to say on slashdot when I frequented it (and maybe they still say it), "I know I'll be downvoted for this ...". But I'll say it anyway: Mr Fennell was a good candidate for parole. I'm not opposed to parole for him. He didn't need to be in jail any longer. But ... Why oh why can 5 un-elected people be allowed to decide that his incarceration was "cruel and unusual punishment". As one of the dissenters on the court noted, mandatory life sentences "could not plausibly be described" as unusual when a majority of states endorse them. Giving the Supreme Court the power to do this is IMO very bad. People simply love love love it when the result is something they agree with, but what about all the other decisions? I really don't like this court decision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_v._Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_v._Alabama

superflit 7y ago

I think they should do as the laws in Brazil. In Brazil, It is not allowed to give sentences for more than 30 years, and if the prisoner has good behavior, he is out in 1/6 of his sentence. And still, if he is not caught in 24h, was his first murder and has a job he may wait for the final judgment outside prison (after all appeals). Brazil is big, multi-diverse and is very nice. The Brazilian penal code is the most human and modern criminal code. And it brought great success as [1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Brazil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Brazil) Nowadays we have a "repressive", "gun-loving" president that wants the revert our success. [2](https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/22/brazils-murder-rate-finally-fell-and-by-a-lot/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/22/brazils-murder-rate-fin...) [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Brazil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Brazil [2] - https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/22/brazils-murder-rate-finally-fell-and-by-a-lot/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/22/brazils-murder-rate-fin...

echelon 7y ago
Brazil has one of the highest murder rates in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate I'm not an expert, but at face value I'm not sure their system is effective. I'd like to see data on reoffenders and deterrence.
brazilman123 7y ago
Brazil has a big crime problem, a huge murder rate. There are people who simply aren't fit to be in society. There are people who get out of prison after their 5 years of good behavior, and immediately a week later are raping someone again. Why do the victims have less value than the violent murderer/rapist criminals? It is simply shocking to me you think it's ok for murderers to be out of jail if they have a job. What do you propose to do about this, besides blaming Bolsonaro - btw the criminals already all have guns, it's only the lawful citizens who have a hard time getting them. There's a reason everyone in brazil has to hide behind electric fences, security systems, etc.
curiouswanderer 7y ago
The law is too lax. I also want to kill someone and then my sentence reduced to 1/6. In fact, I'd like to rob all brazilians from their taxpayer money through my corrupt construction company and then go to "home prison" at my 32 million square feet mansion without giving a single dime back. That's what I call a good application of the law! All hail the "great success" that it is.

hogFeast 7y ago

I don't understand how these people are supposed to re-integrate. You commit a crime...cool, we are going to send you to a boarding school for criminals, where you are subjected to a ton of violent behaviour, that is heavily structured and limiting on your freedom...and in twenty years (or whatever), you are going to come out and be expected to be like everyone else...okay... It would be interesting to ask how the behaviour of those who work in these institutions is effected by this environment...if this is the case then it is clearly non-rational to believe that people in that environment 24/7 are going to be fine after they come out. (I don't have a solution to this either...just a chimp throwing peanuts from the gallery).

Stratoscope 7y ago

> His $830 a month included a few hundred in Supplemental Security, but he mostly relied on close to $600 in Social Security spousal benefits, thanks to Bernadette’s years in the workforce. He said he’s offered to refund her a portion of that, but she declined. It's generous of him to offer to give her part of his spousal benefits, but the word "refund" makes me wonder if there is some confusion over how spousal benefits work. They aren't taken from the other spouse; their benefit remains unchanged. A somewhat simplified explanation: if one spouse (or ex-spouse in some cases) is receiving more than twice the Social Security benefit of the other, the one with a smaller benefit gets theirs "topped off" to be half of the other's benefit. It this case Bernadette may be receiving $1660/month in benefits. Haywood's benefit of several hundred dollars is increased to half of that, or $830. Bernadette still gets her full $1660. There are various requirements and conditions that may change this amount; I'm assuming both spouses are of full retirement age. Anyone receiving or about to receive Social Security benefits where one spouse earned significantly more than the other would do well to look into this. https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/applying6.html https://www.ssa.gov/planners/retire/applying6.html

without_words 7y ago

A confession from one redditor: I was sentenced to 3 years with 2 suspended at the North Dakota State Penitentiary. I sold a quarter pound of ganja to an undercover after an informant introduced me to him. Mind you now, think of a quarter pounder cheeseburger patty. It's not THAT much. I was in my third year of college at UND for pre-health sciences. I went to prison and it threw a wrench in the machine that is my life. Now let me tell you the best way I can: Some guys are gay for the stay as they say. For the most part, RAPE is very rare. Unless your in a federal prison. Then duct tape your buttcheeks. I compare prison to being in detention. Except in this detention, imagine the WORST, I mean the BIGGEST problem child from your memories in school. Now, briefly imagine the number of schools in your state. Imagine that number of problem people. Now, the detention lasts 24/7. And they are all in a cage together. Like a problem child / man zoo. I thought I'd go to prison meeting good guys who made bad choices like me. What I learned is that there are an obnoxious amount of BAD MEN. They are chronic liars and they are VERY selfish. They are bad because they care nothing for anyone but themselves, and yet they all feel sorry for themselves. I hope none of you fine folks have to find out what the experience is like.