<p>If NJ has country club state prisons, I don’t know about them. I do know quite a few prison guards who work in state prisons, and from their stories, I can assure everyone that enough damage can happen in 16 months to exact quite a bit of revenge.</p>
<p>For the record, I too feel that their biggest crime was not making sure everyone got out. Confessing or not has no bearing on what they did. I think the sentence length (which is, I believe, five years) seems appropriate for that level of wanton disregard for others.</p>
<p>Two personal notes–one is that having taught at SEton Hall prior to the fire, one thing I remember the most is that they had the worst fire-alarm-pulling problem that i have ever heard of in any college I’m acquainted with. Kids in my class would sometimes come in tired because they were taking turns sitting under the alarm to keep people from pulling it. Alarms would go off several times a night. I can’t help thinking that some of those kids might not have gotten out as fast as otherwise, because they were so tired of false alarms.</p>
<p>Other personal note–i had the pleasure of meeting Dana Christmas at an award banquet for “unsung heroes” --H was being honored, but she was, obviously, at a whole 'nother level of heroicness, and it was a pleasure to meet her. A truly inspiring young woman!</p>
<p>“If NJ has country club state prisons, I don’t know about them.”</p>
<p>Isn’t there the bakery and farm dairy operation in Leesburg? We didn’t get to visit when my d. was looking at colleges, but I hear they spend more per participant than at Harvard…</p>
<p>I think this is very similar to causing death by drunk driving. No, it was not the original intent but it was far from an accident. We have seen some pretty light (to me) sentences here in Washington for death by DUI.
They will probably serve their time at the prison fram near my hometown–same place the Hurricane served some time at after the tougher Rahway Prison.</p>
<p>Well mini I can tell you never worked on a cow farm! (it’s not a fun time) When I was young there was a minimum security farm out near Ewing and college of NJ-gone now. It was for low risk prisoners at the very end of their time in prison.<br>
I think many prison systems “spend” more on prisoners than is spent by the state on college kids. That is not to say that most of the costs are used for prisoners-buildings,staff etc. come out of this. Hey, we elected the folks that made the laws. You want mandantory life in prison, it costs. You want death penalty trials, it costs. You want low-cost state colleges - vote for the people that will make it happen. Though if I knew Corzine - nj gov-would cut so much money from colleges I might have considered kean jr. ok, just for a minute, but still…</p>
<p>As noted, out of this awful tragedy we in NJ discovered some beautiful students. Dana Christmas is an amazing young woman!</p>
<p>“Well mini I can tell you never worked on a cow farm! (it’s not a fun time)”</p>
<p>Actually, I did. One week. That was enough. Back to maximum security for me! :)</p>
<p>(And I have no complaints about minimum security prisons/happy farms, other than that the benefits seem to be distributed by race/income. Hey, now where have I heard that before? ;))</p>
<p>I never even heard of a “cow farm.” I’ve worked on a dairy farm (13 out of every 14 days for 12 hours per day), ranch, chicken farm, watermellon farm, and many tobacco farms. But I’ve never even heard of a cow farm.</p>
<p>What is that, and how is it different from a ranch or dairy?</p>
<p>"I never even heard of a “cow farm.” I’ve worked on a dairy farm (13 out of every 14 days for 12 hours per day), ranch, chicken farm, watermellon farm, and many tobacco farms. But I’ve never even heard of a cow farm.</p>
<p>What is that, and how is it different from a ranch or dairy?"</p>
<p>First off, it may just be some city person’s term, since my parents moved to a completely rural area as adults. It could also just be a regionalism from the rural NJ of my childhood…dairy farm being a cow farm. Stables were just “horse farms”. Of course I was an adult before I found out horse corn was actually called field corn. Probably has a different proper name.
I guess Border collies weren’t cow dogs either? (few sheep near me then)</p>
<p>btw, do you call a QH a cowhorse or a a ranch horse or nothing like that at all?</p>
<p>It’s probably a regionalism. I called a quarterhorse a “quarterhorse” for the most part, but that was used mostly for horse shows. A ranch horse could be a “cutting horse.” Otherwise, I usually just referred to them by name or color/pattern, as in “I’ll take Sky out and move the cattle over to the far pasture,” or “I’ll take the roan out and move the cattle over to the far pasture.” On occasion, there was an ornery horse and then it was, “I’ll take that @#$%$ @#$%$# demon from hell out and move the cattle over to the far pasture if one of us doesn’t kill the other first.”</p>
<p>Stickershock, I completely understand that people’s reactions are driven by anger. I guess that’s my point: if we leave the determination of the appropriate punishment for various misdeeds to the people most angered by them we’d all end up in prison for life. Much of the outrage seems to be driven by a desire for vengeance, and fueled by a belief that the perps are “smug” or “smirking” or otherwise emotionally untouched by the tragedy.</p>
<p>Believing that a young man is “smirking” while he’s being sentenced to years in prison is a sign that the person perceiving the smirk is seeing events through eyes clouded with emotion. What do people think is going through the guys head? “Ha-ha, I got away with murdering three people and now I’m only going to prison for five years”? Try: I’m going to prison for five years. Because of a stupid prank that was only supposed to jerk the RA’s chain, not hurt anyone. I’m going to prison for five years. I can’t believe this is happening. I’ve been with young people in times of great stress and their apparent facial expressions are rarely a good reflection of what’s actually going through their minds. All the talk of “smugness” and “smirking” seems to be a way to dehumanize them, and justify hating them and punishing them for the unintended consequences of their acts as if they had actually intended them.</p>
<p>No, California prisons are not “country clubs” either. I’ve been to a few. The defendants will emerge as irreparably damaged men. The toll that those years will take on them will not ever be lifted from them. People who casually complain that one year, or three years, or ten years in prison “isn’t punishment enough” have absolutely no idea of the reality of prison “life.”</p>
<p>As to what the defendants did, what I read in the seemingly quite thorough Court TV report doesn’t seem to jibe with your perception that they perps “did nothing to save fellow students from death and injury.” What I read made it sound like the two defendants lit the banner on fire, then ran down the hall to the RA’s room, pounded on the door, then ran out the stairs at the end of the hall. (Apparently they were harassing the RA in response to his writing them up for rowdiness; there seems to have been a history between the two and the RA.) By the time the RA went out to the common room the couch was on fire, but still a manageable situation. He called in the “couch fire” to the fire department and tried to put the fire out with a fire extinguisher, but couldn’t figure out how to make it work. At that point the fire took off - exactly how isn’t explained - creating a hot, smoky fire and the resulting tragedy. But from the Court TV article it seems like at the time the two defendants ran out of the common room there was just the burning paper banner, although possibly the couch had started to burn as well. In short, a dispassionate review of the events doesn’t color them quite the same as an emotionally based opinion. Yes, what they did was stupid. Yes, it was criminal. Yes, it merits punishment. But is it “murder”? Is it morally on a par with the intentional injury of another human being, or is it morally on a par with the what the situation would have been if the RA knew how to work the dorm fire extinguisher - that is, a burnt couch?</p>
<p>kluge, everyone is aware that a criminal’s intentions imact their sentence. Your posts come across as lectures, and yet you admit to just reading one or two articles and reaching conclusions about the arsonists’ intent, their actions during & after they set the fire, and their behavior during the criminal investigation. I’ve been followng the story for years. Garland has met Dana Christmas. She even taught at Seton Hall, and confirmed a piece of reporting that I recall from early newspaper accounts: The dorm was often plagued with false alarms, so that could have impacted the students’ reaction time. And yes, the synthetic couch went up like kindling, according to arson investigators.</p>
<p>If you are truly interested in the case, read up on it. Then your opinions would be quite welcome & more informed.</p>
<p>I agree with you completely that standards for punishment should be set in non-emotional terms and times. Varying convictions and sentences based on emotion has led to certain minority groups being convicted more often and being given stiffer sentences than those of other groups with cases of similar merit and circumstances.</p>
<p>My argument is simply that the degree of recklessness in this case is extreme, so it requires a stiffer sentence.</p>
<p>As for the fire extinguisher argument, I don’t buy it. To me, that’s like saying that, if I slammed your head into a light pole and gave you a life-threatening edema, and you died, the fault would lie with the person who found you and called the wrong number for the ambulance, or with the 911 dispatcher who failed to get the call out in time, or with the ambulance service driver who took a wrong turn on the way to the scene.</p>
<p>You would have died because I was criminally reckless with your life, not because others made mistakes.</p>
<p>Stickershock, what in what I wrote was inaccurate? I was aware of the false alarm problem; which was discussed in the Court TV article, but it didn’t seem to be particularly relevant to the culpability of the defendants one way or the other. I also read the whole magilla about the wiretap of one defendant’s home, and the father of that defendant being charged with an unrelated crime, the anger of the police over the culprit’s refusal to confess, the release of a convicted murderer for cooperating with the unsuccessful prosecution of the father, the meeting at the donut shop etc. etc. etc. Lots of facts. None of them tend to make me feel any differently about the event: a stupid prank which turned into a tragedy due to the confluence of a number of factors the dumb kids never could have anticipated. And yes, the emotional response of many people to the tragedy does come through loud and clear. </p>
<p>I am lecturing; that’s the point of my posts. I have no personal stake in these events. Feeling strongly about something doesn’t mean one’s opinions are more likely to be correct; if fact, strong emotions can impede good judgment. I’ve seen the toll self-righteousness takes on a community. There’s clearly a sense that “someone has to pay” and that that “payment” should be severe, based on the ultimate loss that occurred, not on the personal culpability of the culprits… </p>
<p>Tarhunt, it seems that the bigger problem than the fire extinguisher was the couch material. Seriously - would you expect that setting fire to a paper banner in a common room would result in a conflagration serious enough to kill people? Again, I’m not suggesting the conduct was not criminal, but the outcome of the culprit’s actions was far beyond a reasonably predictable consequence of what they did do. Their conduct was reckless in terms of property damage; death and maiming seem to me to be as much the result of things the fire-setters could not be expected to anticipate as of their actions. If they had actually done something which would realistically be expected to cause the injury and loss which ensued absent heroic intervention, your analysis would be correct. But what they did wasn’t the equivalent of slamming someone’s head into a lightpost, from which dire consequences are likely to ensue. My concern is that people seem to have concluded that the firesetters could or should have realized that a life-threatening blaze would erupt as a result of their setting fire to the paper banner. I don’t think that’s a reasonable conclusion.</p>
<p>We’ll have to disagree. I think torching something in a place where many people live is reckless almost beyond belief. Lighting a candle and then falling asleep and knocking the candle down and catching the place on fire would get some sympathy from me. Deliberately setting any kind of fire in a dormitory, hotel, or other place where people gather is just … criminal.</p>
LOL. Boy can I relate. I affectionately call our 3 as a group “those thieving bastrds” as in “those thieving bastrds have eaten through a 1200 lb. round bale in a week. Where in God’s name are they putting it?” They are horse THIEVES. Horses that steal things. </p>
<p>BTW, kluge has made all the points I would have made (thanks kluge) although I did have to wait a bit longer for the “They lit a banner, not a dorm.” part of the argument than I thought. Had their actions been, for example, applying accelerant to the dorm itself and lighting it, the assertion it was a “prank” gone bad wouldn’t have saved them from serious consequences , in Texas that would be up to and including death. JMO.</p>
<p>Tarhunt - they didn’t “torch” the dorm. they lit a banner. Stupid, stupid behavior but no way it was intended to torch anything. The sentence and reaction has more to do with anger than with the law being applied evenly. There was an article in the paper today saying when the public is enraged, the sentences should be harsher. Darn, where is that constitution when you need it?
cur - horses are too much! I long desparately to be able to ride. Got some time in this summer, and some lessons as well. Decades away and post surgeries I can only tolerate gaited horses. I think there are three in NJ (g)
Time to start a horses thread. Or in my case thread …if I sell my house, use the equity to buy a cheap home closer to cheap board (1000 a month in my town) and get a middle aged trail horse…will it hurt the EFC next year? And don’t think I’m not dreaming it!!!</p>
<p>I’ll join in the shaking-my-head-in disbelief crowd that anyone can call lighting a fire on a wall in an inhabited building in which people are sleeping a “prank.”</p>
<p>Lighting a shrub in a park is a prank–no reasonable person would expect that deaths would result.</p>
<p>Shouting fire in the middle of the street in midday==prank (no reasonable expectation that people might be harmed).</p>
<p>Shouting fire in a crowded theater==criminal (reasonable expectation that harm might occur as people fled).</p>
<p>I think the law recognized the difference in this case.</p>
Kind of like a houseboat or a motorhome, aren’t they? </p>
<p>A good friend, a true cowboy, not a wannabe, has this to say about horses and their tendency to hurt themselves in the weirdest ways possible (one piece of tin you didn’t pick up in 15 acres , one will split his tongue trying to eat it, one will somehow rub a hole in his chest the size of a softball trying to scratch on it, the other one will kick his hoof through it and damage his hock. “A horse ain’t nothing but a big animal looking for a way to die.” Truer words were never spoken.</p>
Had their actions been, for example, applying accelerant to the dorm itself and lighting it, the assertion it was a “prank” gone bad wouldn’t have saved them from serious consequences , in Texas that would be up to and including death. JMO.</p>