New charges in Carson case are important to the prosecution
Before she was brutally and sadistically murdered, Eve Carson was kidnapped and robbed. The additional indictments returned today were overdue ...
... but necessary for the prosecution to make the strongest possible case against defendants Demario Atwater and Laurence Lovette Jr.
The new charges, if presented as aggravating factors on top of a first-degree murder conviction, raise the potential for a death sentence against Atwater. That would be rare for liberal Orange County, so it seems more likely to me that the prosecutor will use the threat as leverage to force Atwater to plead guilty and accept life without parole. Who wants the agony of a trial in this case, anyway?
Lovette, only 17, isn't eligible for the death penalty. If he's guilty as charged, spending the next 60 years or so in prison may be the worst and best he can expect.
Addendum: The new indictments in the case of the murdered state trooper in Haywood County give the DA there plenty of ammunition to support the death penalty. You can bet he won't be offering any plea bargain for a life sentence there.
Comments (14)
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I think a fitting punishment for both men would be a firing squad. They did not offer Ms. Carson any mercy, so the State SHOULD do the same.
Unfortunately it seems the best we can hope for is that Atwater gets put to death and Lovette will only get to breathe fresh air from behind the confines of a chain-link fence and razor wire for the remainder of his pathetic life.
Posted on July 8, 2008 9:44 AM
If they're found guilty, of course.
Posted on July 8, 2008 10:05 AM
Of course. I mean these guys were contributing members of society before getting railroaded by these trumped-up charges, right? Right?
Posted on July 8, 2008 10:43 AM
They'd been in a lot of trouble before.
They appear in the famous surveillance photos.
Somebody apparently provided information about them to police.
None of which convicts them, yet, of murder.
We have to let justice take its course and hope the guilty are appropriately punished.
My prediction, however, is no death penalty. But we will see.
Posted on July 8, 2008 10:51 AM
Death sentences in Orange County are extremely rare, even though they've had some pretty gruesome murders down that way.
"There is no one on death row from Orange or Chatham County. No one from Orange County has been executed since 1948..."
http://deathwatch.wordpress.com/2008/02/22/chatham-county-seeks-death-penalty/
Posted on July 8, 2008 10:56 AM
Exactly. Community attitudes in Orange County will push against a death penalty in this case.
Posted on July 8, 2008 11:02 AM
Unfortunately I know you guys are right. IF they get convicted, of course.
Posted on July 8, 2008 11:43 AM
Oh, and Doug, these wouldn't be the same "community attitudes" that compelled former district attorney Mike Nifong to withhold evidence from the defense in the Duke Lacrosse case, would it? I wonder where the "Rev's" Jackson and Sharpton are now?
I wonder if they'd make an appearance if the death penalty gets handed down...
Posted on July 8, 2008 11:56 AM
I think Durham and Orange attitudes are different.
In Durham County, you'd have to worry about getting a conviction. In Orange, it's more of a question of the penalty.
Posted on July 8, 2008 12:20 PM
D'oh - that's right, for some reason I always place Durham in Orange County, even though it couldn't be any simpler being in a county that shares the same name.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Posted on July 8, 2008 4:50 PM
Not implying these guys are guilty. Wish the Duke guys* had got this same treatment from the press. Of course the real question is why this guys were not in jail. Seems this has not got a lot of press either.
* The press stayed many times, what do you mean if they are guilty! Sharpton, did not come to Duke! Dan Blue and the democrats in Raleigh, got Jackson involved. Sharpton was very fair about this, much more than the media.
This comes from a guy that has no use for Sharpton, however it the truth. Bye got to to bed, early tee times.
Posted on July 9, 2008 1:49 AM
On the contrary, there was a tremendous amount of press coverage about the lax probation enforcement that left these suspects on the streets
I don't know how the Democrats in Raleigh got Jesse Jackson involved in the Duke lacrosse case. I'm no fan of the Dems in Raleigh, and I was an early critic of the handling of the case, but this is a new one to me.
Posted on July 9, 2008 8:24 AM
Looks like they'll try for the death penalty on the elder thug. Hopefully it'll be a jury selection that mirrors a George W. Bush fundraiser.
Too bad Lovette is too young.
Posted on August 11, 2008 1:15 PM
For a long time, Orange County prosecutors have declined to seek the death penalty on the theory that Orance County juries would not go for it. This will be a good test of that theory.
Posted on August 11, 2008 2:22 PM