A high school student’s hopes for leniency from an Ohio court were dashed recently when he was sentenced to life in prison without parole for his part in a series of killings.

The 17-year-old defendant was charged with aggravated murder and attempted murder in the deaths of three men and the wounding of another. He was allegedly an accomplice in a plot hatched by an older man to lure victims with a phony Craigslist posting.

The posting was for a job opportunity doing farm labor. Three men in their 40s or 50s were killed, one near Akron and the others in southeastern Ohio at a farm where they had come expecting job interviews.

The victims were selected because they were single, out of work and unlikely to raise red flags with law enforcement if they disappeared. Robbery was the motive for the crimes, said prosecutors.

The man who escaped death was lured like the others by the promise of an employment opportunity. When the potential victim showed up at the farm, the older man tried to shoot him, but succeeded only in wounding him in the arm as he fled.

Boy Claimed Influence From “Evil” Adult

The wounded man testified at the 17-year-old’s trial, identifying him as the 53-year-old shooter’s accomplice. Prosecutors did not claim that the teen had actually shot any of the victims himself.

The older man, who has a prison record and presented himself as an Akron street minister, apparently had become the young man’s spiritual mentor. The youth claimed that he could not see his way clear to any alternatives when he was drawn into the murder plot, though he now realized that his mentor is evil.

The teen’s defense attorneys had asked the judge to consider that the youth came from a broken home and had no prior record, and to take his age into account. Additionally, the high schooler said he did not realize that his mentor intended to murder the men until he shot the first victim.

Pleas For Leniency Denied

The young man’s defense attorneys tried to negotiate a more lenient sentence in exchange for testimony against the triggerman in his upcoming trial, and sentencing was briefly delayed for talks. The attorneys had hoped for a deal that would allow the young man to be released within 20 to 30 years.

In the end, the judge said that despite any mitigating factors the defense presented, the killings were cold-blooded executions, and the 17-year-old had had an opportunity to stop them.

Every case is different, and every defendant is innocent until proven guilty. Having a capable defense attorney is a criminal defendant’s best chance for acquittal or a reduced sentence. Whatever the outcome, it is wise to engage an experienced criminal defense attorney, because life and liberty may be at stake.

The article 17-year-old Sentenced to Life in Prison Without Parole appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Washington, U.S.A. — Strangers committed about 1.8 million nonfatal violent crimes in 2010, or about 38 percent of all nonfatal violent victimizations during the year, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced on December 11. This represents a 77 percent decline from 7.9 million nonfatal violent crimes committed by strangers in 1993, according to the earliest available data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).

During a more recent period from 2001 to 2010, the rate of violence committed by strangers declined 47 percent and the rate committed by offenders the victims knew declined by 41 percent. The percentage declines for these two rates were not statistically different.

In the NCVS, nonfatal violent crimes include rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault and simple assault. Simple assault (assault not involving an injury or a weapon) made up 60 percent of violent victimizations committed by strangers in 2010, followed by aggravated assault (20 percent), robbery (17 percent) and rape or sexual assault (two percent).

More than half (52 percent) of all robberies in 2005-10 were committed by strangers, down from nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of robberies in 1993-98. Aggravated assaults and simple assaults committed by strangers also declined between the two periods, while the percentage of rapes and sexual assaults remained stable.

Based on data from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR), among homicides in which the victim-offender relationship could be determined, strangers committed between 21 percent and 27 percent of homicides from 1993 to 2008, compared to between 73 percent and 79 percent of homicides committed by offenders known to the victims.

In 2010, males (9.5 victimizations per 1,000 males) experienced violence by strangers at nearly twice the rate of females (4.7 per 1,000). From 1993 to 2010, males (down 83 percent) experienced a larger decline than females (down 76 percent) in the rate of violence committed by strangers.

In each time period studied, young adults ages 18 to 24, people who were never married, and American Indians or Alaska Natives had the highest rates of violent victimization by a stranger among all groups in the respective categories. In 2005-10, people age 65 or older experienced the lowest rates (1.6 per 1,000) of violent victimization by strangers.

Other findings from 2005-10 include:

• Persons in urban areas experienced higher rates of violent victimizations by strangers than persons in suburban and rural areas.
• A higher percentage of violence by strangers occurred in public places (51 percent) (e.g., commercial establishments, parking lots or garages, open areas, streets or aboard public transportation) than in private places (26 percent).
• Strangers committed about nine percent of violent crimes that occurred in the victim’s home.
• About half of violent victimizations committed by strangers occurred while the victims were away from home traveling, shopping or doing leisure activities.
• About 10 percent of violent crimes committed by strangers involved a firearm, compared to five percent of violent crimes committed by someone the victim knew.
• About 22 percent of victims of violence committed by strangers were injured, compared to 31 percent of victims who knew the offender.

The NCVS collects information from victims on the frequency, characteristics and consequences of criminal victimization, using a nationally representative sample of about 40,000 households comprising nearly 75,000 persons. In the FBI’s SHR program, a part of the Uniform Crime Reporting program, law enforcement agencies report monthly supplemental data about homicide incidents with details on location, victim, and offender characteristics.

The report, Violent Victimization Committed by Strangers, 1993-2010 (NCJ 239424), was written by BJS statistician Erika Harrell. The report, related documents and additional information about the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ statistical publications and programs can be found on the BJS website at http://www.bjs.gov.

Image Courtesy : Daryl Lang / Shutterstock.com

The article Violence By Strangers Declines in U.S. appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.