Bloodless Coup

yeah, but, you know, you didn't mean it.

I heard that on the radio today as well. It made me sick.

it's alarming, to be sure, but see how you feel about it when your friend, an upstanding and compassionate human being in every way, is driving home on a Saturday afternoon from watching a game at a friend's house, and is driving 8 or 10 mph over the speed limit, and some teenager jumps out in front of his car, from between two parked cars, in a way ensuring that he'd be hit no matter who was driving under what circumstances at any realistic speed, and it turns out your friend had a BAC of .08 on the button (or whatever the limit is in WV these days). suddenly, 1 year will seem appropriately merciful.

to elaborate, i don't know what involuntary manslaughter encompasses per WV custom, but it's at least sometimes used as a catch-all for negligent conduct that leads to someone's death, and it's hard to see how the aims of a humane penal system (viz., rehabilitation and deterrence) are served by putting away someone who perpetrated a truly tragic accident for more than a year. odds are, conscience will do far more to cure the conduct than the system could hope to.

NB, however, that involuntary manslaughter is also in certain jurisdictions applicable to the proverbial "crime of passion," the jilted lover shooting his partner's paramour, and that's obviously a different animal.

so in truth, the solution is probably to bump the max to a level that grants courts discretion to come down on the latter while being more merciful to the former.

and all of this comes with the caveat that i'm not really sure what involuntary manslaughter encompasses in WV.

Well, neither am I. :)

And I TOTALLY get what you are saying - for such dumb luck crimes a year seems way too harsh. But if the list of things covered is broad, yeah more judicial discretion might be the way to go. Maybe.

This is in the news because there was a fatal stabbing here that was just prosecuted, and the guy was found guilty of this charge.