Charles Rothenberg faces Third Strike

[Roadtoad]

Start here...

From what I'm hearing, the judge in this case is very liberal, and is opposed to making this a Third Strike. Should she do so, Rothenberg could be in prison for the rest of his life.

Let's bear something in mind: This "man" took his own child, and after knocking the kid out, he tried to burn him alive. During his trial, he had the utter audacity to try and shift the blame to his ex, and even tried to say that HE forgave HER.

Now, maybe I missed something, considering Rothenberg's son is now in his twenties, still horribly disfigured, and still in pain, but wasn't the law written to protect the victims? Or, have we now decided we're all above that sort of thing, and we ought to think about ways to rehabilitate bastards like Charles Rothenberg, so they can go back out onto the streets and commit more crimes. (Yes, I know, he was acquitted of shooting someone in the head. But reread the whole article; he's been a f***-up for the better part of his life!)

I hope he gets a third strike on this one. I hope he gets sent to San Quentin. I hope someone drops his soap in the men's shower. I hope Charles Rothenberg is washing socks and playing prison bitch for the rest of his miserable, filthy, sorry, bitchy, whiny, lowlife, cowardly, craven, gutless, pissy, fumb duck existence.

The next thing anyone should hear of Charles Rothenberg is that he died under suspicious circumstances while in custody.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Two words for Charles: Buh Bye!

(If he somehow escapes conviction on these charges, rest easy - it's only a matter of time)

 

[CBL4]

7 years for attempted murder. 25 for credit card fraud. What's wrong with this picture?

CBL

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

7 years for attempted murder. 25 for credit card fraud. What's wrong with this picture?

CBL

That does seem strange.

 

[Art Vandelay]

What I think is awful is that this guy was used as a counterargument to the attempt to repeal the three strikes law. That strikes me as simply ridiculous. If you think that people who burned a child twenty years ago should get life sentences for nonviolent crimes, then pass a law saying so. The idea of thousands of people getting life sentences just to keep this guy in jail is disgusting. Wasn't this a blatant bill of attainder AND ex post facto?

 

[Meadmaker]

When the notion of three strikes laws became popular, I was a supporter. I pictured the following scenario as three strikes:

Guy commits crime, gets caught, goes to jail. Gets out. Commits another crime, goes to jail. Gets out. Commits another crime.

Ok, boys, throw away the key! This guy obviously is an habitual offender. He served time twice, and that still wasn't enough to convince him to stick to straight and narrow.


Since then, I've seen an awful lot of cases where "three strikes" was invoked, but weren't like that. And, on cursory reading, this looks like one of those cases. This looks like: Guy commits truly disgusting crime. Gets out, probably earlier than he ought to. One crime gets turned into two. Keeps his nose clean for twenty years. Does something (what was it?) and prosecutor looks for chance at grandstanding.

When I supported three strikes laws, my idea was that if one person committed three separate felonies, and failed to learn even after two convictions, they are obviously useless and ought to be locked up. That doesn't seem to be what happens in a lot of cases.

(re: what was it? "Credit card fraud" can cover a lot of ground, from a really bad thing like identity theft, to an honest mistake that would result in an overcharge fine in most cases.)