[I don't want to hear anything about the title of this post. Deal with it.]

Remember hiccup girl? Even if you don’t, you can guess that she’s a girl who hiccups. She made national news two years ago as the girl who couldn’t stop hiccuping (video at the end of the post). She’s now in the news again, being charged with the murder of Shannon Griffin, a 22 year old male she met a week ago. According to police:

Griffin met [hiccup girl] Mee online just a week before his death, police said. They arranged to meet Saturday night at 511 Seventh St. N.

It was a trap. The three plotted to lure Griffin to the empty home and rob him, police said.

Griffin pulled up about 10 p.m. Mee led him to the back, where police said Newton and Raiford tried to rob him.

Mee kept on walking, but seconds later gunshots rang out. Griffin struggled with the men, police said, and was shot three times in the chest and once in the shoulder with a .38-caliber revolver.

No one reported the gunshots. Police found Griffin when a caller reported a sleeping transient about 11 p.m. Saturday.

Police found the gun and shoes left behind by a suspect.

Griffin had less than $60 on him when he was killed.

All three have been charged with first degree murder. Sentencing maven and lawprof Doug Berman exhorts:

I will use the “Hiccup Girl” case to highlight common arguments against broad felony murder provisions (e.g., that it treats too harshly a defendant with little or no bad mens reaconcerning causing another’s death and may not be an effective was to deter underlying felonies).  But the case has me now wondering whether and how first-degree murder cases such as this one can and should get resolved via plea bargains.

As a technical matter, the only form of homicide which the “Hiccup Girl” can be charged with is first-degree murder.  I do not think an honest prosecutor and/or judge could or should allow Jennifer Mee to plead to a lesser homicide charge.  I suppose a prosecutor and/or judge can (and likely will?) allow Mee to plead guilty only to robbery charges and simply not bring any homicide charges.  But would this be truly a just outcome?  Would such a plea deal, in essence, be a form prosecutorial nullification given that the Florida legislature apparently has decided that the Jennifer Mee’s of the world out br be facing first-degree murder for which the only available punishments are death and life without parole?

What? For someone who is considered an expert on criminal sentencing and who is also teaching future lawyers about criminal law, this is extremely poor statutory reading and reasoning. This assumes many things:

1. She was aware that they were going to kill Griffin all along and intentionally lured him to his death.

2. She has nothing to offer the prosecution.

3. They have no discretion in charging and or plea bargaining.

An amateur criminal defense attorney can probably take only the facts I’ve listed above and make a compelling case that she may in fact be guilty of second or third degree murder, which carries a much lesser sentence. Berman is free to express his opinion that she shouldn’t be given any leniency and prosecutors should stick with the first degree murder charge as a matter of “principle”, but to suggest that no “honest prosecutor and/or just could” allow her to plead to a lesser crime is just silly and belies such a fundamental misunderstanding of the criminal justice system that I am honestly rather shocked.

The Florida legislature has decided nothing about the Jennifer Mee’s of the world. What does the Florida legislature say?

The unlawful killing of a human being, when perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual, is murder in the second degree and constitutes a felony of the first degree, punishable by imprisonment for a term of years not exceeding life

or even:

When a person is killed in the perpetration of, or in the attempt to perpetrate, any:
(d) Robbery,
by a person other than the person engaged in the perpetration of or in the attempt to perpetrate such felony, the person perpetrating or attempting to perpetrate such felony is guilty of murder in the second degree, which constitutes a felony of the first degree, punishable by imprisonment for a term of years not exceeding life or as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.

To say that no honest prosecutor can exercise discretion in a case where a pertinent fact may be strongly in dispute, where the legislature has provided for lesser alternatives, is not honest.

Mee could easily be guilty of any other degree of murder, thereby permitting the judge to impose a sentence less than life. We should encourage prosecutors to freely exercise the discretion when the facts warrant it. It may be too early to say that they do, but it’s also too early to say that they don’t.

And, since I promised hiccup girl, here she is:

Related Posts with Thumbnails