This seems overly harsh to me, maybe not to you. A man who worked as team employee was sentenced to 22 years in prison for obtaining and giving illegal opioid drugs to baseball players. One of the players suffered an overdose and died. Several major league Baseball players testified that he shared black market pain pills with them, though there was no testimony that he did so for profit. The prosecutor said Eric Kay knew the pills he gave to Tyler Skaggs were "likely or potentially counterfeit" and could contain fentanyl, and that he should have known the dangers. Judge Terry Means said he went above the minimum 20 years Kay faced because of remarks he made in prison. Prosecutors played a recorded tape of a prison phone conversation in which Kay said of Skaggs: "I hope people realize what a piece of s--- he was. … Well, he's dead, so f--- him." Former Angels employee Eric Kay sentenced to 22 years in Tyler Skaggs case, Gus Garcia-Roberts, The Washington Post, October 2022 Should the death really be entirely blamed on the man who provided the drugs? After all, the baseball player who took the drugs also should have known the risks of what he was doing too. No one forced him to put those drugs into his body. What I find remarkable is that this happened in Los Angeles, California, a very progressive place that is usually very lenient on drug crimes, yet still this man got a harsh 22 year prison sentence.
They're not blaming the death entirely on him; he was punished for the crimes he committed. His callous and unrepentant attitude obviously did not help him at sentencing. In fact, the prosecutor and judge were pretty lenient. Since Mr. Kay was a participant in a felony, acted with reckless indifference to human life (as shown by his recorded comments) and someone died as a result of that felony, he was also guilty of felony murder. In California, that carries a sentence of 25 years to life without parole.
I do not understand how anyone can think that a law that imposes a minimum of 25 years in prison for all "felony murder" cases is right. I think the politicians who passed those laws had in mind some types of crimes, but did not consider that the law could also apply to many other types of situations that they were not envisioning. It's not that I disagree completely and entirely with the concept of "felony murder" in this case, but it is just not the same as other cases.
Not getting something. "Judge Terry Means" sits in Ft. Worth, Texas. I know him. And he's a federal judge, so the leniency of the California or any state system doesn't really apply. Maybe Judge Means is in California now, but that would surprise me.
My apologies. You appear to be correct. He was sentenced in Texas because the incident happened in a hotel room while the team was on a visit playing in Texas. That would explain the harsh sentence. Thank you for the correction to this story.
Sorry to quibble, but all federal judges nationwide use the "federal sentencing guidelines." This wasn't a "Texas" thing. https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R41696.html#_Toc424048739 Any drug trafficking offense resulting in death carries a base offense level of 38, which is way the hell up there on the scale (235-293 months, depending on criminal history and other factors). That's the case from Anchorage to Miami and all federal courts in between. There are adjustments that can be made up and down from the basic range of 235 - 293 months, yes, but this guy sounds like he got a slight upward bump for nearly gloating about it in prison.
I think that's naive. Individual judges and prosecutors wield a huge amount of discretionary power. Even when it comes to the federal level of government there is still a huge disparity between how judges in and from different areas will apply the law, in certain sorts of cases. Everyone knows the culture in Texas is much harsher against criminals and drug-related crimes.
That does not contradict what I stated in any way. You are in error if you think it does. You do realize that guidelines for things like this can never be extremely specific, don't you?
What you think doesn't matter. It's the law. I don't think income tax is Constitutional, but I pay it anyway. Considering that most politicians are lawyers, I think you're mistaken.[/QUOTE]
Gee, I guess he should have taken that into account if he knew that to be the case. Of course, gloating about it was probably a bad move too.
I think stuff like this is a subconscious psychological reaction. It's much easier to just blame the person entirely for what happened to them and not see any problem that needs to be solved. Apathy is the most powerful of human emotions. Just because people might deserve some punishment for doing something they should have known not to do does not always mean they deserve any punishment they get.
I refuse to feel sorry for someone who is being punished for their crime. That's not apathy; that's a sense of justice. The law provides for the sentence he got. There is a reason and reasoning behind that law. This guy was no innocent bystander; Someone died due to his actions. Serious crimes deserve serious consequences. At the very least, people are safe from his lethal carelessness. If you don't like the law, get it changed. Society has rules this man chose to ignore. He needs to be separated from the rest of us to reform, to be punished and for our safety.
