A New York judge sentenced a woman who pleaded guilty to fatally shoving an 87-year-old Broadway singing coach onto a Manhattan sidewalk to six months more in prison than the eight years that had been previously reached in a plea deal.
8 years!
No!!
8 years, 6 months!
Sold!!!
Defense lawyer here, though not in New York so take this all with a grain of salt, I just felt I should put my 2 cents in based on the vibes in this comment thread.
It is weird for a judge to go against a joint recommendation, which seems to have happened here. It takes something extraordinary. The article indicates that the judge felt she didn’t truly feel remorse for her actions, which could do it, but doesn’t always do it. But, to me, just the fact that the judge went against a joint recommendation will always raise an eyebrow. Usually, if the sentence isn’t harsh enough, the prosecutor won’t agree to it, and if it’s too harsh, the defense won’t agree to it. So joint recommendations are almost always followed.
Yes, it’s “only” 6 more months, but that’s really not insignificant.
Now, to all the people screaming about how it’s not enough (and especially to the one person saying she should have her citizenship revoked (???)), I wonder, how many of you are also against the prison industrial complex we have here in America? I challenge you to think beyond your initial emotions. Is this death tragic? Yes, absolutely it is. It was senseless violence for no good reason. So I agree, it deserves a harsh punishment.
But everyone keeps calling it murder. Not every killing is a murder. I also want to challenge people to watch their language. Murder carries with it an intent to kill. A shove does not intend death, regardless of who is being shoved. No, it shouldn’t have happened, yes, it’s tragic, but it was not a murder.
Now, all of you calling for 20+ years, really think about what you’re saying. Do you think this person has no chance of rehabilitation? Those are the people we put away for life. I don’t think that’s the case here. She fucked up. Obviously. She deserves to be punished harshly, and make no mistake, she is. 8.5 years is a LONG time. Think back to where you were 8.5 years ago. Were you the same person? I doubt it. Now, do you think she might better herself in those 8.5 years? I think it’s very likely, though again, the prison industrial complex makes that less guaranteed.
Sentences have many goals. Some of the primary goals are punishment, protection of the public, and rehabilitation of the defendant. Does this sentence punish her? Yes, a lot. Does this sentence give her a chance for rehabilitation? I’m not sure on that one, but that’s because it may, if anything, be too long, and cause her to get too used to life in prison, and increase her likelihood of recidivism. But that’s not her fault, that’s the fault of the prison industry. Does this sentence protect the public? I say yes. She lost her temper once and it’s now going to cost her 9 years of her life (if you include the duration of the case). That’s a hell of an incentive not to repeat.
Alright, I think that’s all I really want to say. But please, everyone, in the future, try to think about how our prison system really works, and how much you support it, when you’re discussing individual crimes, not just when you’re talking about the system as a whole. I think most people on this site lean left, and therefore should support reducing the prison populations, but this comment section has me worried with everyone here frothing at the mouth to give MORE prison time, when the sentenced amount should be enough to satisfy our sentencing goals.
It was first degree manslaughter- the article says she was facing “up to 25 years.” She threw a tantrum about being asked to leave a park that was closing, threw her dinner on her fiance, “stormed down the street” then saw a little (100lbs vs her 175) old lady across the street, crossed the street while calling her a bitch, then shoved her onto her head. I don’t think 9 years is too long for society to be protected from her.
The court ruled “not a murder” because it was just a shove, but anyone could have seen than a shove like that would likely kill a small 87 year old woman and it certainly wasn’t an accident. The woman wasn’t just in her way while she was angry walking down the street. She went out of her way to attack the woman.
Then there’s the part where she evaded police for weeks, hiding her phone at a separate location, changing locations multiple times. I don’t think the longer end of her sentencing options would have been unreasonable at all.
Well said. Lemmy, like Reddit, and probably every other social media platform, is quick to grab up those torches and pitch forks.
Well put.
We’re reaching a French revolution type point in American history. There are people who are the product of absurd privilege, and there is everyone else.
This is tipping the scales a little bit back out of the favor of privilege. In the grand scheme, it’s effectively misguided and miniscule. But it’s a sign of progress nonetheless.
Our legal system sucks ass. There’s no reason why so much of our population should be imprisoned for relatively minor reason… but we’re also used to money being more important than culpability. Affluenza, rapists getting off because it would be detrimental to their future to be held accountable, or generally rich people being able to pay for their crimes financially instead of punitively.
So when someone from a perceived place of privilege is actually held to the same standards as one of us serfs, it’s usually celebrated. It sucks, but it’s true.
This thread more of an indictment of our shitty legal system than of the defendant.
This story is weird. Who shoves an old woman for no apparent reason?
👮♂️
But also people with no impulse control…… nvm
I’m sure it was really something far more reasonable, like she was feeling scared or disrespected or thought the coach matched a profile or found that the coach had a suspicious amount of money on their being or…
That cane looked like a fully semi automatic assault rifle I swear.
You sound like you’ve never seen a fully automatic walking assistance device.
No civilian needs that much ambulatory power.
Even if it’s a well regulated dysplasia?
You mean people who are perpetually in fear for their lives and prone to panic?
According to prosecutors, Pazienza attacked Gustern after storming out of a nearby park, where she and her fiance had been eating meals from a food cart.
This is speculation, but sounds like maybe she got in an argument or was angry about something and was storming off somewhere. NYC is crowded and if you’re angry, trying to get somewhere, and not composed (getting into the mindset here, not what I really think) then “this old bitch in my way fuckin’ move arrrggg!” shove
Obviously, there’s nothing right about it and most of the time people behave themselves, even when they’re angry. Sometimes, though, they don’t. This isn’t a justification in any sense - more of a speculation in furtherance of an attempt at comprehension.
The costs of the actions you commit while angry often far outweigh the initial cause of the anger.
Her fiance perspective is that there was an argument and the suspect storms off and murders someone. Like, maybe now is a good time to see you’re engaged to a monster.
The abhorrent details from another article:
Lauren Pazienza spent the night of March 10 gallery-hopping with her fiancé in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood in celebration of 100 days until their wedding, her fiancé told authorities, according to a court document.
Pazienza had “several glasses of wine” during the evening before the pair stopped at a food cart for something to eat, according to the document filed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
The pair went to Chelsea Park to eat their meal, but before they were done, an employee told them they would have to leave because the park was closing, the document said. Chelsea Park closes at 11 p.m.
“The defendant became angry, started shouting and cursing at the park employee, threw her food onto her fiancé, and stormed out of the park,” according to prosecutors.
Meanwhile, Pazienza “stormed” down the street and spotted Barbara Maier Gustern, prosecutors said.
Gustern, “in what turned out to be her dying words” before she lost consciousness, told a friend that a woman with dark hair “ran across the straight,” directly toward her, called her a b---- and pushed her as hard she “had ever been hit in her life” toward a metal fence, prosecutors said.
Gustern, according to a witness, “fell in an arc, falling directly on her head,” according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Pazienza “turned around and walked away, leaving Ms. Gustern prone on the sidewalk, bleeding from the head,” prosecutors said.
Pazienza called her fiancé after the assault, he told authorities. When they reconnected, she picked a physical fight with him, accusing him of ruining her night, prosecutors said. He insisted the two head home, but security video from the area showed that Pazienza stayed in the area long enough to watch the ambulance arrive for Gustern.
She later told her fiancé what she had done, he told authorities. When he asked her why she would do such a thing, she said the woman "might have said something” to her.
Sure prison is nice, but this lady is seriously unhinged and time behind bars won’t fix that.
Damn, he dodged a bullet there! (tell me he didn’t marry her after that).
Christ these stories Blackpill me really badly
Lauren Pazienza spent the night of March 10 gallery-hopping with her fiancé in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood in celebration of 100 days until their wedding
honestly, this is just piece of shit person, living off someone else’s money, running around contributing nothing to society. fuck her
Rich, white entitlement everyone.
I’ve seen it before. Lots of these girls pretend to care about those they see as lesser until you get a few drinks in them.
Then their real character shows, and this is it.
Disgusting.
I don‘t know, this description sounds more like her brain imploded
meet any rich white entitled people lately?
Guessing you haven’t spent much time in NYC?
In such a dense environment, even the very small proportion of the general population that’s deeply mentally ill and violent can be very visible and do a lot of damage, and we don’t really have any good tools to deal with them except for waiting for them to attack someone.
I live in NJ, been to NYC quite a bit. I saw “event planner from Long Island” and was confused as that doesn’t sound like the kind of NYC crazy person I’ve come to expect (at least the physically violent kind) but once someone mentioned she was intoxicated it clicked for me.
She has history of bullying her classmate. Some comments in nyc subreddit suggesting her father is a mafia - being cesspool contractor has something to do about it? I don’t see the connection anyway but if that’s the case, that could explain a bit.
Bullying her classmates? Isnt she like 40?
she’s 26(+). People came forward after the incident went public. And her neighbors said she’s a troublemaker.
You’ve never encountered a rich, white woman in NYC, have you?
She was drunk and got angry that the kicked her out of the park, so assaulted an old woman. Bitch deserves more than just 8.5 years. I prefer that her citizenship is revoked as well.
Revoking citizenship is illegal under the Geneva convention and the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Signatory countries aren’t allowed to intentionally make a person stateless. It is actually a big problem that has been abused several times throughout history. Nazi’s revoking Jewish citizenship is a prime example. More recently, we have the Uyghur Muslims in China.
The issue with revoking citizenship as a punishment is that it only pushes the burden of citizenship onto another country. It also removes any kinds of legal protections that a citizen may have had. Imagine if a country only allows citizens a right to an attorney. All that country would need to do to remove your legal council is strip your citizenship. Even if you later manage to get the citizenship back, you’ve still lost your original court case because you were forced to go through it without a lawyer.
Involuntary loss of citizenship is also unconstitutional.
Well that’s gross. I’m not comfortable with giving the government the power to revoke a person’s citizenship; sounds ripe for abuse, but I get the outrage
It’s against the Geneva suggestions.
They are more aspirational than literal.
be uncomfortable then fucko
Wow. Going for some kind of downvote record? Speed run?
I didn’t vote for you
I’m sorry but normal people don’t shove elderly people when they are drunk.
She is a fucking sociopath
I was an alcoholic for a solid 3 years and been shitfaced many a times. Never have I tries to physically hurt people or engage in fights, despite my anger issues.
What’s actually being punished? Would she have been sentenced to 8.5 years in prison if she pushed an 87 year old who was slightly less frail and instead of dying sustained major injuries? Would she have been sentenced if she pushed an extraordinarily healthy 87 year old who knew how to gracefully fall and sustained no serious injuries?
It seems that the act of pushing alone isn’t enough to sentence a person to nearly a decade in prison. There was likely no intention to kill, though that was the outcome. What if she sneezed on the 87 year old, and in a fit of panic the 87 year old fell over and died? Again, no intention to kill, though that would still be the outcome.
I think it’s clear this should be punished more intensely than sneezing, pushing an old person would very commonly result in serious injury, so this is definitely assault.
For cases where injury was sustained there is legal doctrine know as the Eggshell skull rule
The rule states that, in a tort case, the unexpected frailty of the injured person is not a valid defense to the seriousness of any injury caused to them.
Sure sure, but 87 year olds are expected to be frail. It’s what they normally do.
What an odd rule! Thank you for the explanation.
I think the idea is the actual damages aren’t going to go down just because the person was frail. Someone with prexisting medical problems aren’t going to need less physical therapy compared to someone who is average.
Again, no intention to kill, though that would still be the outcome
No it wouldn’t, you have to prove intention to kill for a murder charge. This is manslaughter, a lesser but still very serious charge. Killing someone on accident is still a crime, shocker, I know.
Killing someone on accident is still a crime, shocker, I know.
Unless you do it with a car. Then you have a 90% chance of getting off Scott free.
I direct you to comments below, detailing the circumstances. She got drunk, became increasingly belligerent and violent… then took out her rage on this random old woman viciously. She showed no remorse, to the point of sociopathy.
https://feddit.uk/comment/3105205
Edit: In hindsight, I’m unclear if you’re suggesting she should see a longer or shorter sentence.
She was out celebrating 100 days until she got married, why does every mundane thing have to be celebrated? Just go out and have a good time with your fiancé. You don’t need an excuse.
we just have an alcohol epidemic. people feel the need to make an excuse to binge drink as much as possible.
Celebrating…100 days till marriage? That is fucking stupid.
Holy fuck, what an unhinged person. Bad person right from reacting to “we close at 11” with aggression, but then just escalates it irrationally from there. Throws her food on her fiance (I’m guessing maybe he had the gall to tell her to chill out, or maybe he was just there and she thought he was a safe target), and then goes out and attacks an elderly woman because she “thought she might say something”. Then later meets up with her fiance again and blames him for “ruining the night” when it was all her own insane reaction to being told a place was closing and they’d have to hurry up.
Is she the avatar of the shitty entitled aggressive consumer who blames everyone else for their problems? Fuck her and everything about her.
Her sentence might only be 8.5 years but with her anger management skills, it’ll probably get increased. Though she’ll be locked up with a bunch of people who aren’t on their 80s, so she might not survive her next tantrum.
Is she the avatar of the shitty entitled aggressive consumer who blames everyone else for their problems?
Well… from the descriptions of her actions, it seems like she has undiagnosed and untreated mental health issues. Which is kind of an even sadder indictment of society.
Muder is murder. Manslaughter is manslaughter. Intention, knowledge, negligence, does not matter for manslaughter, unless the intention was to kill, which upgrades it to muder instead.
Sneezing on someone? No crime.
Pushing someone? Crime.
This is why you’re not a lawyer and should never have any say in legal proceedings.
Stay in your lemmy fantasy world with the rest of the mentally ill.
All I have to say is good. Fuck this woman (not literally she doesn’t need to get laid). I drink and have been drunk many a times, never in that stupid inebriated state have I EVER thought to murder someone or try and cause them harm. Do dumb shit? Absolutely I’m a drunk fool so you give me a bucket, a empty street and a fuel and lighter I’m likely gonna kick a flaming bucket down the street. But to hurt someone or seek a fight etc? No. I’m still able to keep my morality and decision-making under control over those things.
That’s uh, pretty specific with the flaming bucket…
That’s because that’s something I’ve done when I was 21 😆 we played flaming bucket soccer. It did NOT end in disaster luckily.
“Man did you see Mafflez’s goalkeeping skills last night?? That dude was on FIRE!!”
That was my buddy Matt actually XD his left Jean leg caught fire, but yea I’ve done stupid but fun stuff.
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You could hurt someone with a flaming bucket though.
Oh for sure I could. The difference between myself and my friends doing this drunkenly is it was a dead end street with only his house and no vehicle traffic. And while Matt did slightly catch fire, we wouldn’t have purposely hurt someone. The lady in the article was said to get increasingly unruly and belligerent. Not how I operate.
Now say we’d caused a house fire or any fire for that matter I’d have fully accepted any punishment for the severity of whatever had happened. Just who I am. I fuck up I own it. Even drunk me knows not to punch someone or harm someone unless I’m in danger.
The judge didn’t believe the defendant was actually repentant.
She probably wasn’t.
The story reads like a rich, entitled white girl getting trashed and then her real personality coming out.
Eight and a half years for the senseless murder of one of our society’s most vulnerable citizens.
Legally speaking you’d have a hard time prosecuting that as murder. You’d have to prove that she was intending for the old lady to die when she shoved her. I’m guessing she was charged with some combination of second degree assault and manslaughter, maybe more. She was facing up to 25 years and took a plea deal for 8, which I assume included part of the charges being dropped.
“Um ackchully it’s called hebephili-” SHUT THE FUCK UP
Do you always get unreasonably angry when knowledgeable people correct you about things you’re ignorant of?
I expected more maturity out of pp boy.
Why lmao literally all I do is shitpost on this account and engage in bad faith arguments
Well, enjoy your ban then.
Have you tried… I don’t know maybe not doing that?
Nearly 10 years is a long ass time to be in jail for a random angry act.
A random angry act is knocking a sign over, kicking a garbage can, punching a wall. NOT killing someone
Its wild how some people ignore it is a murder. They can’t imagine what if the person dying is their grandma ?
I also wonder if it is ageism and their opinion would change if the person dying is a toddler.
I mean, it’s kind of the risk you take being drunk in public, you have no idea what you are going to do other than be held accountable for it when you are sober afterwards. It’s kind of insane that it is seen as “normal” to take that kind of risk, for alot of people it’s a surprisingly common occurrence.
Bro when I get drunk I wanna cuddle things, not shove elderly people. If “am I gonna murder someone if I go out drinking” is something you have to consider, the problem is you, not the alcohol.
It sounds like you probably aren’t the “people taking risk” that I am referring to.
Not as long as that person is going to be dead.
If you can’t control your anger and you attack random people on the street, you belong behind bars.
“A random angry act” lmao fuck outta here downplaying homicide
There’s a big ass difference between international murder and an angry lash out killing someone. At 87 you’re going to die from stuff that a random angry drunk won’t consider.
So it’s mostly her own fault for being 87 and in public?
No dumbass, murder has to be premeditated and/or intentional.
Shoving someone out of your way/down doesn’t imply that you intended for them to actually die. And it’s pretty hard to prove that you did in court.
Manslaughter - the unintentional act of killing someone through irresponsible or negligent actions - is a fucking slam dunk here. You want this sour bitch to walk free because the prosecution couldn’t get a conviction, because laws are written more specifically than the few words you learned in school?
Go away. Adults are having a conversation, sweetie
No dumbass, murder has to be premeditated and/or intentional.
IANAL but in American law, second degree murder can be intentional without being premeditated. For example, a bar fight that ends in someone dying. There is also voluntary and involuntary manslaughter (in the later, the person does not intend to kill the victim). Different states define the different degrees and types differently.
Oh honey. Is there some grass you could touch? I think that might help.
Just make sure there aren’t any elderly people in your way to get there.
While this woman is pure scum and I wish her the worst, is the legal system allowed to do that? Like is it constitutional for you to reach a plea deal and then have years added to it? Like isn’t a plea deal like the final say?
Plea deals are between the prosecutor and the defendant. The judge can sentence you to anything. That’s why, frequently, prosecutors will drop the most serious charges in a plea deal. That way the judge is limited to sentencing to only the lesser charges.
I believe the plea deal is between the defense and prosecutors. Judge has the last say.
As you can tell, I ain’t a lawyer.
I found a different article that quoted her “former friends” and one said she was basic. Another said she’s the poster child for white privilege and a third said she’s nothing but trouble lol
Like damn wtf… How are you this hated?
I’m going to go out on a limb here, but I think someone who pushes the elderly in fits of rage isn’t very chill.
Fuckin’ Debbie…
I don’t really know what 6 months more or less is gonna do in this case, but ok I guess?
Honestly I think it just made the judge feel better to make it longer
Seems kinda petty
Who knows maybe by adding 6 months it puts her in a different category for parole or something. It only takes $1 to move you from one tax bracket to another one. Maybe something like that is involved. I honestly don’t know.
That’s not how tax brackets work. If you were one dollar over the next tax bracket, only that dollar would be taxed at that amount.
I mean, 8 years for premeditated murder seems kinda low to begin with. 8 years and six months doesn’t seem like much of a difference.
She was charged with manslaughter. I’m not sure of the degree though. Manslaughter basically means you didn’t intend to kill someone but you did
someonesomething reckless that resulted in someone’s death. Premeditated murder is a completely different, and much more serious, charge.“premeditated murder” is a bit of a stretch
