From today’s News & Messenger:
As investigators wrangle with how a 17-year-old with a record of small crimes turned into an alleged cold-blooded killer, police say they’re investigating whether accused killer Xavier Pinckney had gang ties in his Dale City neighborhood.
. . .
When police checked Pinckney’s record they learned he had a prior conviction for grand larceny from a burglary. He had also been arrested for committing daytime burglaries in houses with doors or windows left open around his neighborhood, said court documents.
Take note, they only refer to ONE conviction, but state that he was arrested for MULTIPLE other crimes. What about those other arrests? Was he not tried? Was he not convicted? Is this yet ANOTHER instance where Paul Ebert’s Commonwealth’s Attorney office botched prosecutions or else let things slide because they couldn’t be bothered?
As Timothy Watson pointed out in a comment on Virginia Virtucon:
It’s damn sad that Prince William, Manassas, and Manassas Park only have 31.52% of persons charged with felonies actually being sentenced on felonies.
The rest either had their charges dropped (nolle prossed) or reduced to misdemeanors.
Ebert’s office barely ranks above those offices that have part-time Commonwealth’s Attorneys.
The more one reads about Pinckney’s criminal history, the more one realizes that Jean and Jim Smith did not have to die. Had someone, ANYONE — a prosecutor, a judge or someone involved in the juvenile justice system — been doing their job, Pinckney would not have been out on the streets and free to murder.
We will continue raising these questions until the community gets answers, no matter how uncomfortable it makes any public official who may be involved in this travesty. I have already corresponded with Delegates Jeff Frederick and Bob Marshall and contacted Scott Lingamfelter as well to see what they might be able to do in the upcoming General Assembly session to start getting us the answer that we need and enact any necessary reforms that they might see fit. No family should ever have to go through what the Smiths have had to endure. The justice system failed them. We cannot allow it to fail another family.
On a final note, I have an answer to this:
investigators wrangle with how a 17-year-old with a record of small crimes turned into an alleged cold-blooded killer
Simple. He was allowed to get away with relative slaps on the wrist for his prior crimes, so of course his crime spree would progress to more major things. No one should be surprised by that. We as a society need to come to the conclusion that once a juvenile commits a second offense, we should stop treating them as an “at risk” youth and start treating THEM as a “risk” to the community’s public safety. Only then can we truly begin to fix our broken juvenile justice system.
February 28, 2009 at 8:49 am |
[...] postponed until Feb. 18th. I guess we will have to wait until then possibly to hear whether he was convicted previously of only a single crime despite multiple arrests as was implied by the police in a recent [...]