<p>"What do I think? 3-5 years maybe.</p>
<p>Sentencing in the US tends to be excessive."</p>
<p>Thank God you are not making our laws. Maybe your life isn’t worth more to you, but this young man’s life is worth a lot more than that to me! I live near where this happened and it was a heart wrenching event. Goodman showed total disregard for the law before, during and after the accident and continues to behave as if he is above the law. This whole adoption scam is disgraceful!</p>
<p>I really don’t see any difference between driving drunk and “accidently” killing someone and shooting into a crowd of people and hitting someone randomly. Both are killing people and both could have been prevented by YOUR bad decisions. </p>
<p>And this man had no excuse. He’s loaded. Why couldn’t he have called a chauffer? </p>
<p>He deserves to be in jail for a good long time. His decision forever ended a young life and drastically changed the lives of many people who knew and loved the person he killed.</p>
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<p>I don’t see much difference between randomly firing a weapon and NOT hitting someone and randomly firing it and killing someone, the level of intent is the same.</p>
<p>Lock up all DWIs for 30 years if you want to be consistent.</p>
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<p>Being sentenced to 30 years in jail doesn’t mean he’ll be in jail for 30 years.</p>
<p>[Wanda</a> Holloway - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanda_Holloway]Wanda”>Wanda Holloway - Wikipedia)
Take the Texas woman who ordered a hit that didn’t go through, no thanks to her, and was released after 6 months on a 10 year sentence.</p>
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<p>I’m no expert, but it seems pretty basic to our criminal law that it’s not only the criminal intent we punish, but also the act. Someone who attempts murder and fails has exactly the same intent as the murderer who succeeds, but murder is invariably punished more severely than attempted murder. A driver doing 55 mph in a 25 mph zone will get ticketed for traffic infractions and at worst get his license suspended, but a driver doing 55 in a 25 mph zone who runs over and kills a child will be charged with manslaughter and could do prison time; in neither case does the driver intend to harm anyone, in both cases the driver acts with reckless indifference to human life, but the one whose recklessness actually causes severe bodily injury or death will be more severely penalized. And a guy who holds up a liquor store with a handgun will be charged with armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon, both felonies, and if convicted will probably get a lengthy prison sentence; but the armed robber whose gun accidentally goes off and kills the liquor store clerk during commission of the felony will be charged with felony murder, which in most U.S. jurisdictions is treated as the equivalent of first-degree murder, i.e., it’s a capital offense in about half the states. Intent is the same for both armed robbers, but the act is different, and for that the person whose conduct terminates a human life is punished more severely.</p>
<p>Exactly the same for DWI. Anyone who gets behind the wheel drunk is displaying reckless indifference to human life, but the drunk driver whose reckless indifference actually kills someone commits manslaughter, at the very least. The parallel to the felony murder rule seems obvious.</p>
<p>I’d say the real villain in this case is that Wilson character. I mean look how much trouble he’s causing for that white rich animal lover. Why isn’t FL putting HIM on trial for all the misery he’s causing Mr. Goodman?</p>
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<p>Of course he does. I hope that as time goes on the sentences for drunk drivers will get even tougher.</p>
<p>A person chooses to drive and drive? That’s not a simply tragedy, it’s a deadly choice.</p>
<p>Updating this story - Goodman was found guilty yesterday. It’s good to know that a sensible jury could see through Roy Black’s tactics and ensure that justice was served.
[John</a> Goodman DUI-manslaughter trial - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com](<a href=“http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/fl-john-goodman-polo-magnate-trial-day12-20120323,0,979252.story]John”>http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-beach/fl-john-goodman-polo-magnate-trial-day12-20120323,0,979252.story)</p>
<p>The defense tried to convince the jury that Goodman suffered a concussion in the accident and that he went to his friend’s “man cave”, where he drank to alleviate the pain of the broken wrist he also sustained. Black also brought a witness to testify that Goodman’s Bentley had a stuck throttle that caused him to shoot through the intersection. Jurors didn’t buy that one, either.</p>
<p>He deserves to get the full 30 years behind bars.</p>
<p>Another update - the adoption of his 42-year-old girlfriend was overturned.</p>
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[Polo</a> Tycoon Cannot Adopt Girlfriend - Yahoo!](<a href=“http://gma.yahoo.com/polo-tycoon-cannot-adopt-girlfriend-052030314--abc-news-topstories.html]Polo”>http://gma.yahoo.com/polo-tycoon-cannot-adopt-girlfriend-052030314--abc-news-topstories.html)</p>
<p>Ok, hope the family gets a ton of money against the creep. Oh, it says each of the parents will get $23m.</p>
<p>Which family?</p>
<p>The family of the person he killed while drunk-driving got $46 million.</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s who I meant. I’m sure they would trade it in a second to have their S back and whole.</p>
<p>People are bantying the term “witch hunt” around. A witch hunt means a situation in which accusations lead to punishments, without any sort of fair trial. A person who, in a fair trail, is found to have acted with complete disregard for the rights and general well-being of others, is most certianly not a victim of a witch hunt. The House UnAmerican Activities Committee’s actions were a witch hunt. This is simply punishing a murderer.</p>
<p>If you wouldn’t give someone thirty years for a crime of passion, then don’t give it for a DUI that results in homicide. If you’re going to give it to people who drive drunk and kill someone, then give that type of sentence to all murderers (because, you know, mens rea and all). </p>
<p>With his millions, the guy should have had a chauffeur for nights partying on the town.</p>
<p>While I’m sure that the family of the victim would give the millions away to have their kid back (or rather, I hope they would), they are exceedingly fortunate that it was a rich dude who did this, not some uninsured or underinsured motorist with no savings or earning potential. As the saying goes, it’s just as easy to sue a rich man as a poor one. </p>
<p>I’m deadly serious - that type of wrongful death payout is absurd and a tacky cash grab. Moreover, it’s usually the worst thing that happens to people: the sudden wealth brings all sorts of leeches and moochers, people stop working, live beyond their means, burn through the money, and fall fast and hard.</p>
<p>“With his millions, the guy should have had a chauffeur for nights partying on the town.”</p>
<p>You are right but he had the next best thing…a HUGE insurance policy so why bother with a chauffeur when just going up the street and around the corner to drink. His insurance paid and the bar’s insurance paid - Goodman did not have to write his own check. He is sitting in his own home ( ie estate) to serve his time. I am sure it is not how he planned to spend his days but it does not seem too painful or too much of a hardship considering he left another parent’s child to die - alone - in the dark - in a drainage canal!</p>
<p>While on house arrest he has been hauled back into court because he “broke” is ankle monitor. He has also had his hip replaced (plenty of time to recover)! Now he is not able to adopt his girlfriend! Oh, Goodman please spare us all - go away and be silent! Life goes on…except for the young man who was left to die in a drainage canal.</p>
<p>sportsmom16: Hey, I’m from New England, land of the place that elected Teddy Kennedy for a half-century, even after he left a girl to die in Chappaquiddick. </p>
<p>But a chauffeur would have made sense, and frankly, I don’t see where you are getting the idea that he was deliberately driving drunk. (The ‘legal limits’ are so low that you can go over them in an entirely reasonable evening of drinking. Start with an aperitif, split a bottle of wine, have some port after dinner - congrats, you can’t drive until the next morning.) </p>
<p>I’m not defending the guy, but it seems like people hate him because he’s rich. That he has money doesn’t make him meaner, nastier, or more reckless than other people who committed the exact same crime with the exact same results.</p>
<p>Nope, I hate him because he drove after drinking. I don’t give two craps about how much money you have. A murderer is a murderer. And yes, IMO, killing someone while driving drunk is murder.</p>
<p>What is particularly nasty is fleeing the scene when he might have rescued the victim from drowning. It’s bad enough he had the accident but fleeing instead of helping is awful.</p>
<p>Romani, while I find drunk driving repugnant, I’m not sure who is served by locking a drunk driver who kills up for a substantial portion of his life. There are, fortunately, plenty of people who overcome addiction and become very different people. I think a few years in jail is probably enough to serve as a deterrant to others, get the person into some sort of treatment program, and make him think long and hard before ever getting behind the wheel drunk again.</p>
<p>In this case, what makes the sentence warranted is that, as HIMom says, the fact that this guy also left the scene of the accident. I don’t know if the victim could have been saved if help had been summoned, but neither did Goodman, and he left. Add in the games he’s played in the courts since then, and I’m glad he’s going to be away for a very long time.</p>
<p>I’m a believer in life sentences for taking a life (with exceptions). He took a life because of a conscious decision. IMO, it was not an accident. An accident is something you have very little to no control of. He had a great deal of control over tits situation. No different than shooting a gun into a crowd. </p>
<p>This is an extremely personal issue for me and I fully recognize that I’m probably irrational. Don’t care.</p>