How awful this must be for that family. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Fatal carjack case dragged back to court
OMG! THIS case-- Bernard Eric Miller, charged with dragging Pam Basu to death with her own car as she tried to save her toddler. In 1993 my friend was a reporter at the Sun, and I went with her to the Towson courthouse for lack of anything better to do and ended up thoroughly traumatized. As awful as it sounds, the crime scene photos are worse. And I remember that lawyer-- his pants were too short and his hair was too long and he looked like he just rolled out of bed.
How awful this must be for that family. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
How awful this must be for that family. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
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18 comments:
Not sure what to make of this report yet.
Here it is.
I saw this murder 18 years ago when i was 10 years old..i was waiting to cross the road and go into Forest Ridge Elementary School, i watched the womens body and face being dragged on the concrete, ill never for get it.
I'll be politically incorrect and be willing to give Bernard Miller the benefit of the doubt. His legal counsel was a disaster. He may have been a 16 year old unwilling accomplice but he may not have been the instigator of that murder. Bernard Miller may have been much more of a kid that made the bad decision to skip school and run with his friends that day and found himself in the very wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person and no place to run and only later to find himself in a very hostile courtroom. I'm still very confused about the fingerprints that were found in the vehicle. The lawyers on both sides never really pushed to use the evidence to find out who was the driver. The defense counsel for Miller was more than willing to allow the court to send Miller to prison for life without a vigorous defense. They phoned it in.
If we had a death penalty that was applied consistently and rapidly this whole stupid appeal would be a non-issue because Miller would be dead by now.
Cham:
Tough shit for shitbird Miller. He participated, that makes him guilty of felony murder. As for your claim that he was an unwilling accomplice, I was taught a long time ago that we're judged not just by our actions but also by the company we keep.
Just because someone is present at a crime doesn't mean they are guilty of the crime. From what I saw in the media neither the defense nor the prosecutor convinced me that Bernard Miller participated in the murder of Pam Basu. He was there, yes. I'm still not clear on who did what.
Felony murder, Cham - "An unlawful homicide that occurs in the commission or attempted commission of a felony, which is considered first degree murder by operation of this doctrine." A very very very basic legal concept, which is applied pretty much to the letter here. It doesn't matter if he instigated anything. Let's hope he never ever ever gets out. He can rot (die, etc) in prison and the world will likely be a better place for it.
Also, I'm not sure you really know what "politically incorrect" means. In case you weren't aware, defending a young, African American accused of murder by saying that he's basically a good kid, was in the wrong place at the wrong time, etc etc etc is VERY politically correct, especially here in Baltimore.
"From what I saw in the media neither the defense nor the prosecutor convinced me that Bernard Miller participated in the murder of Pam Basu. ... I'm still not clear on who did what."
...and fortunately, Cham, it doesn't matter whether or not you were convinced or what you're not clear on - the opinions that matter were those of the twelve who convicted him before, not yours. Also, cases are tried in a court, not the media.
Little primer on our justice system for ya.
Standing around while someone else commits a crime is now felony murder. Wow, news to me!
Nope, Cham - here's the news:
"Miller was 16 on Sept. 8, 1992, when he and Rodney Eugene Solomon pulled Basu from her BMW after she put her 22-month-old daughter, Sarina, in a child safety seat. Basu, a 34-year-old scientist at W.R. Grace & Co., was taking the girl from their townhouse in Savage to her first day of preschool."
Reading, my dear, is fundamental.
And this Bray chap sounds like a f'n moron.
"There was no evidence that Bernard Miller attempted to rob or intended to rob Pam Basu," Bray said. "He happened to be in the car with Mr. Solomon. Bernard Miller didn't commit these acts. He's not that kind of person."
He just HAPPENED to be in the car? He just HAPPENED to be in a stolen car? He just HAPPENED to be in a stolen car that dragged a woman 2 miles? Or are we supposed to believe he was hanging out in her car before it was jacked?
So this retarded lawyer affirmatively places his defendant IN the car, thus making him, at the VERY ABSOLUTE LEAST, an accessory to felony car theft and felony murder. Nice. Ineffective assistance of counsel, indeed.
Cham, I know you enjoy defending the scum of society for no other reason than to be contrary. I get it. But don't be daft. Really. Grow up.
Sean,
The name calling and childish comments devalue your argument in its entirety.
You claim that this must be tried in the courts not the media, and then quote a news report to make your case for guilt, not terribly logical.
Anonymous, it already WAS tried in a court. The media report was based on the findings of that court case. In addition, the other comment was from the idiot's own attorney.
Sorry my logic eluded you.
Something tells me Sean would start and lose an argument in an empty room.
Are you actually Glenn Beck.
Ha! That's pretty funny. Nope, I'm a left-leaning, secular humanist, social and fiscal liberal. But see, I can read and process information and form opinions based on that information. It's a neat talent.
...although I do have to say, the longer I live in Baltimore, and the more I hear about cases like this, and the more people try to convince us that vicious killers are just nice boys being harassed by the cops, the less and less socially liberal I become.
For instance, my opposition to the death penalty is on its last legs, bolstered up only by my continued belief that life, in general, IS sacred, even the lives of people capable of behaving in a barely-human manner, and that it's better not to kill 100 guilty people than to kill 1 innocent person. Everyone dies eventually; life without parole (ANY chance) is still my fallback position.
Car jacking incidents seem to be constantly on the increase. In a case a few years ago a man was accused of having lethal drugs. Later it was found that he was a victim of car jacking. Such cases shud be handled very strictly.
http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/article_4ea151d8-35a0-5361-92e5-1180fadb0c35.html
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