8 ms·

For people digging into what young Joe Ligon was a part of which landed him in prison: >"We started asking people for some money so we could get some more wine

• nradov 5y ago
  Under US criminal law, defendants can often be found guilty of murder due to participation in a group criminal activity even if they didn't directly attack the victim. For example, if bank robbers kill a security guard the get-away driver will often be charged with murder even if he never physically entered the bank.
  • ipaddr 5y ago
    That's a recent law so it shouldn't apply to this timeperiod.
    • xyzzyz 5y ago
      Felony murder rule is old and well established in common law, dating centuries back.
      • DiffEq 5y ago
        How far back…well there is a scripture in the Old Testament that essentially says if you are party to a crime then you are just as guilty as the one who committed the crime…so this common law practice actually dates back at least 4000 years. Also Japanese law held the same types of practices for thousands of years and Is m sure many other ancient cultures.
  • kingsuper20 5y ago
    My guess is that if a pair of robbers hit a liquor store and the liquor store clerk killed one of them, the other can be charged with some form of murder. edit: easy enough to find. https://www.tampabay.com/news/hillsborough/2019/12/16/robbers-barged-in-one-was-shot-dead-now-the-other-is-charged-with-murder/ https://www.tampabay.com/news/hillsborough/2019/12/16/robber... https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/missouri/articles/2021-05-03/prosecutors-2-charged-after-robbery-accomplice-killed https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/missouri/articles/20...
  • cko 5y ago
    Felony murder? I was on the jury of one case. I kinda felt bad for the defendant - he was 18 and some juvenile in his group pulled the trigger. Probably accidentally.
• juskrey 5y ago
  Most countries treat organised crime episodes as severe aggravation - this is to deter participation in organized crime and avoid "you can't prove who did the actual stabbing" situations
  • asveikau 5y ago
    But Mr. Ligon claims he was a bit of a loner and didn't know any of the people that he was with at the time very well. It sounds like "we rounded up a bunch of black people, and we're going to call it a gang". Which I bet was absurdly common. Probably a bit less so now in most places, but certainly the late 20th century had a lot of that sentiment that I can remember, and maybe there is a bit of a resurgence lately in some circles, "tough on crime" and "anti-gang" rhetoric that can be seen as veiled racism.
    • secondcoming 5y ago
      what sort of person goes on a stabbing spree with total strangers?
      • asveikau 5y ago
        The article says he was a 15 year old kid (read: underdeveloped prefrontal cortex) out underage drinking, the group asked somebody for money for booze and it escalated into a fight. This is not saintly behavior but also not worthy of 68 years in prison. And yeah, it's conceivable that he was out doing this with people he didn't know very well, and that nobody expected or wanted a knife fight to break out.
        • daenz 5y ago
          >the group asked somebody for money for booze and it escalated into a fight. You are seriously downplaying what is described in the article as a "stabbing spree" with 8 different victims, 2 of them killed.
          • 5y ago
• polartx 5y ago
  >he admits the night ended in a stabbing spree in which he was involved, violence which left two people dead and six injured. >he has since accepted in an interview with US broadcaster CBS that he stabbed someone who survived >”I didn't murder anybody." I wonder if there’s some very simple investigative work that took place, but the article doesn’t mention it, as the author attempts to portray the convicted murder in a way that would foster empathy. For instance, did the wounds suggest more than one knife was used? If not, that would mean they were handing the knife off to each other. It would be pretty unrealistic that a group of inebriated youngsters could rack up 8 stabbings and 2 murders with 1 knife before the streets were completely cleared and the police were on the scene. As he’s been convicted, he’s a murderer unless proven otherwise, and deserves his original sentence.
  • JshWright 5y ago
    "Deserves" is a pretty loaded word there...
    • iratewizard 5y ago
      A life sentence for participating in a cold-blooded murder spree is something I imagine most members of society would see as just.
      • Arainach 5y ago
        For a mentally capable adult, perhaps. We have plenty of research to show that the brains of juveniles are wired differently. That doesn't mean no punishment, but it means that a life sentence is excessive and rehabilitation should be tried.
        • systemvoltage 5y ago
          So, "Deserves" still applies here, just less.
        • iratewizard 5y ago
          The overwhelming majority of juveniles do not commit cold-blooded murder like this. Do you believe that this person is not a psychopath? Has any real ground been broken to take violent psychopaths and "cure" their condition? I've seen no evidence of this, and I don't see rehabilitation as anything more than a tool that is useful in certain circumstances.
• fanatic2pope 5y ago
  One thing I wonder, though, is how accurate his memory is at this point one way or the other.
  • Out_of_Characte 5y ago
    There are things you forget as time passes, Stabbing people isn't one of them. Unless you're a psychopath.
  • silexia 5y ago
    The guy admitted to murder at the time. His claims otherwise now are both conflicting with other statements he makes now, and conflict with his admissions at the time. He says himself he has no friends inside or out and that he was better off in prison... Which also means society was better off.
    • lowercased 5y ago
      "...Which also means society was better off.". Citation needed.
      • silexia 5y ago
        Violent crime was very high in the 80s and 90s, after laws were passed that greatly increased prison sentences for violent criminals in the mid-90s, violent crime has dropped off a cliff. If violent criminals are not out there committing crimes, crime goes down obviously.
        • dragonwriter 5y ago
          > Violent crime was very high in the 80s and 90s, after laws were passed that greatly increased prison sentences for violent criminals in the mid-90s, violent crime has dropped off a cliff. There were continuous tough on crime efforts throughout (and beyond) the very long “crime wave” period, but there’s very little evidence that they has any impact on turning things around. Better explanations are the demographic bugle aging out of the age range that drives most crime, the lead-crime link, and the legalized abortion crime effect.
• trothamel 5y ago
  A bit of googling finds the name of the men that were murdered that night, Charles Pitts, 60, and Jackson Hamm, 65. He admitted to murdering them. (Which is what a guilty plea fundamentally is.)
  • ced 5y ago
    He admitted to murdering them. (Which is what a guilty plea fundamentally is.) Isn't the accused sometimes advised to plead guilty (regardless of the truth of the matter) because he has little chance of winning a plea of innocence? Or is that just in fiction?
    • lazyasciiart 5y ago
      No, it's true. 95% of felony convictions in America are from plea deals, not trials. https://www.cato.org/commentary/prisons-are-packed-because-prosecutors-are-coercing-plea-deals-yes-its-totally-legal https://www.cato.org/commentary/prisons-are-packed-because-p...
• eplanit 5y ago
  From what I understand, with murder generally all who participate can be charged equally.