This happened in Binghamton NY Last year. These two scumbags shot and ran over a cop and then plead guility to avoid the death penality. From everything I' ve read and was told by police they had these two dead to rights for the crime. The prosecuter pleads them out?? If these two didn' t deserve the needle who does?
BINGHAMTON -- Jeffrey A. Nabinger Jr. and David P. Sweat left Broome County on Wednesday, likely for the last time.
Until they die -- they are both 23 -- they will be known by the numbers they are issued by the state' s Department of Correctional Services. They will become two residents in the state' s vast system of prisons, two of 70,000 inmates.
With no hope of release. Ever.
They took their first steps toward prison nearly 15 months ago, early July 4, 2002, in a dark Kirkwood park, when they shot and ran over Broome County Sheriff' s Deputy Kevin J. Tarsia.
Their day of reckoning came Wednesday at their sentencing on first-degree murder charges in Broome County Court. The two pleaded guilty to the murder charges in July, avoiding a potential death penalty trial.
By Wednesday evening, neither was in custody at the Broome County Jail, a jail spokesman said. That' s the place they' ve called home since their arrests in Tarsia' s murder, two days after his death.
Their destination was likely the state prison in Elmira, where all Broome County inmates are taken within 10 days after getting a state prison sentence. Once there, they' ll undergo the state' s evaluation process for about six weeks and be assigned to one of New York' s 70 prisons.
But the two killers have left behind a trail of anguish: a mother who thinks of her 36-year-old son and sees only his face in his coffin. A niece pregnant with a baby who will never know her great-uncle. A veteran district attorney who described the crime as one of the most evil and brutal in his career.
Neither Sweat nor Nabinger spoke at sentencing. Both bowed their newly shaven heads, thin and pale in the county jail' s orange jump suits.
" They are not people. They are monsters," Tarsia' s fiancee, Christi-Ann Ciccone, said in court.
Family and friends of Sweat and Nabinger looked on in silence from one side of the courtroom. On the other side, police officers in civilian garb and Tarsia' s parents, brothers, sister, sister-in-law, nieces and nephews filled the benches.
Nabinger' s defense attorney, James Baker of Ithaca, told the judge his client would feel remorse for the rest of his life. But Sweat' s legal counsel, Mark B. Harris, first deputy capital defender, blamed society for Sweat' s actions.
" Is a bad kid born? Or is a bad kid made?" Harris asked, citing Sweat' s abusive childhood and criminal history.
Sweat, court documents indicate, was placed in a juvenile facility at the age of 9, after his mother could no longer control his behavior. By the time he was 17, he was sent to state prison on a felony burglary charge.
Harris' statement provoked an emotional response from Broome County Judge Patrick H. Mathews. Mathews said he had not planned to speak Wednesday, but felt bound to respond to Harris' claim.
Society had lavished resources on both Nabinger and Sweat toward their rehabilitation before they killed Tarsia, the judge said, his voice shaken by emotion. All in vain.
" They just never got the message," Mathews said. " If it hadn' t been Kevin Tarsia that night, I guarantee it would have been someone else."
By killing Tarsia, the two men killed a symbol of society.
" This attack was on every man, woman and child Kevin Tarsia represented," the judge said.
Tarsia' s niece, Kristy McWherter, who is pregnant, sought understanding, she told the judge, but wasn' t sure she' d ever find it.
" I' m not sure I' ll ever comprehend the evil that occurred in a Kirkwood town park," she said.
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Two more total drains on society will now get free room and board, meals, healthcare, etc. all at the expense of the taxpayer. I have never understood the ' pleading guilty to avoid the death penalty' logic. I' ve heard it said that it saves money due to avoiding a long trial. But surely the cost of housing them for life outweighs that!
Quote:
But Sweat' s legal counsel, Mark B. Harris, first deputy capital defender, blamed society for Sweat' s actions.
I really don' t know how some attorneys can look at themselves in the mirror every morning.[:@]
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. I' ve heard it said that it saves money due to avoiding a long trial. But surely the cost of housing them for life outweighs that!
Take a course in present value of money....
Sorry dear lady....it' s a fact...it costs less to incarcerate a man for life than to execute him........the atty' s fees run to the millions and it usually takes 10-15 years
I' m with you emotionally but financially it' s a different issue. The only way I' ll support the death penalty is if it' s executed within 48 hours of the sentence.
Prosecuter takes the easy way out.
