Lawrence Phillips

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Sir Purrcival
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Ok, this may be better placed in the Pub but since he was a CFL player and even won a Grey Cup, I decided to post it here.

Any one remember Lawrence Phillips. An immensely talented RB who could have had a dream life if a little thing like his personality hadn't gotten in the way.

He is back in the news again and not in a good way.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/lawrence-p ... -1.3031663
Tell me how long must a fan be strong? Ans. Always.
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Rammer
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Sir Purrcival wrote:Ok, this may be better placed in the Pub but since he was a CFL player and even won a Grey Cup, I decided to post it here.

Any one remember Lawrence Phillips. An immensely talented RB who could have had a dream life if a little thing like his personality hadn't gotten in the way.

He is back in the news again and not in a good way.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/lawrence-p ... -1.3031663
I am not surprised that he ended up in serious trouble, that seemed to be the route he was headed, but to off your own cellmate shows little intelligence with the finger directly pointed at you.....sad way to see that kind of talent waste away.
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Big Time
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The guy was already serving a sentence of 31 or more years. At age 39, he is effectively jailed for life. There is no one more dangerous than someone who has nothing left to lose. I'd say it's a waste but he's made his choices. He'll have to live and die with them.
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cromartie
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It's a shame, really. I was at the 2002 season opener in Montreal and he ran over us like a man playing amongst boys. It was an, unfortunately, impressive performance, punctuated with the usual Damon Allen Time Count Violations we all knew and loved.
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Toppy Vann
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Big Time wrote:The guy was already serving a sentence of 31 or more years. At age 39, he is effectively jailed for life. There is no one more dangerous than someone who has nothing left to lose. I'd say it's a waste but he's made his choices. He'll have to live and die with them.
Absolutely true BT.

I didn't know he was in jail but this seems like an awfully long time in prison for these offenses. Maybe more of the black Americans being dealt disproportionately in a system that has more in jail per capita than even China.
Phillips is serving a sentence of more than 31 years. He was convicted of twice choking his girlfriend in 2005 in San Diego and later that year of driving his car into three teens after a pickup football game in Los Angeles. It wasn't clear if Phillips has an attorney.

In Canada we are better but it is odd as a society that we're prepared to spend over 100K per year a prisoner in federal lockups versus the paltry sums it would take to address child and first nation poverty and early childhood education. WWW.gensqueeze.ca run by a UBC prof outlines how families and under 40 year olds are being forgotten about.

Homelessness too is an issue we have the means to solve but local cities lack the money - Vancouver has always tried to lead but the funding for cities John Tory Mayor of Toronto notes needs to be fixed with all levels of gov't in a new deal for all.

Norway has very light sentences now and prisons that look like dorms and has a lower recidivism rate.

http://www.businessinsider.com/an-ameri ... aw-2014-10
"Ability without character will lose." - Marv Levy
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Big Time
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The sentence does seem harsh however I don't know all the details, nor do I understand how the California penal system works. However according to Wikipedia, Phillips was found guilty of seven counts of felony assault with a deadly weapon, which ultimately gave him a sentence of 10 years (later reduced to just under 7 years). While serving this time, he was convicted of an additional seven counts of assault on his girlfriend, which including assault with great bodily injury, false imprisonment, making a criminal threat, and auto theft. These counts gave him an additional 25 years which are to be served consecutively, not concurrently. Because his crimes involved harm to another person, he has to serve a minimum of 85% of his sentence, meaning 26 years.

Maybe I'm just used to what I perceive as the shocking leniency of the Canadian justice system, and to be fair, I don't know all the details of his assault of his girlfriend which sounds quite bad, but the US system really doesn't seem to mess around when it comes to giving someone a huge sentence. The guy that Phillips allegedly killed was serving a sentence of 82 years to life for murder. 82 years to life! What's the point of even adding the "to life" part? Do they think that this guy is going to make it to his parole hearing at over 100 years of age?

As for the whole rehabilitate vs punishment debate, I'm not sure any country get it's right. Sadly, no politician looks at the big picture in terms of balancing out resources to prisoners vs taking care of poverty. Politicians are motivated by votes, and getting tough on crime sells better with the masses than "end poverty". Even when the "get tough on crime" measures are likely to get struck down, as they recently did regarding the Conservatives bill to increase sentences for crimes involving guns.
TheLionKing
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Big Time wrote: Politicians are motivated by votes, and getting tough on crime sells better with the masses than "end poverty". Even when the "get tough on crime" measures are likely to get struck down, as they recently did regarding the Conservatives bill to increase sentences for crimes involving guns.
Conservatives passing legislation which don't meet the constitutional requirements. Their legislation have been struck down 9 times since they've been in power.
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