Donte Stallworth gets 30 days in jail for DUI manslaughter in FLORIDA!
By John Amato Wednesday Jun 17, 2009 1:00pm
(AP photo)
This is outrageous on so many levels and once again makes Americans feel that we pay for everything and the rich get away with murder.
Cleveland Browns wide receiver Donte’ Stallworth(notes) began serving a 30-day jail sentence Tuesday for killing a pedestrian while driving drunk in Florida, a punishment made possible by his cooperation with investigators and the fervent wish by the victim’s family to put the matter behind them.
Stallworth, 28, received the sentence after pleading guilty to a DUI manslaughter charge for striking and killing Mario Reyes while driving drunk March 14 in his black 2005 Bentley. The athlete also reached a confidential financial settlement with the family of the 59-year-old construction worker.
Without the plea deal, the DUI manslaughter conviction could have netted Stallworth 15 years in prison. After his release from jail, he must serve two years of house arrest and spend eight years on probation. The house arrest provisions will allow him to resume his football career, his attorney said.
I'm glad the family got compensated and I'm glad he cooperated, but 30 days for killing someone is a joke.
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TOUCHDOWN!!!
Oh...and for old times sake...FRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIST!!!
O.J. got acquitted...and he wasn't even playin' anymore!
...a Dallas Cowboy did a drunken manslaughter (don't remember his name but someone else who's into football will know) and is doing hard time. Five years, I believe.
got money? you walk.
it's a good incentive to rake it in.
Does ANYONE really think that Roger Clemens is going to go on trial for perjury? I mean...reeeeally.
I think we can make Stallworth an honorary Republican...
as soon has you make over a couple million, it happens to you automatically!
Dante excepted responsibility. Republicans never do that
"Yes you're honor...I ran the man over...Can I go now...I got a limo waitin'."
He did except responsibility.
He did "accept" responsibility, feel better now
How much time did Dick Cheney do for shootin' a guy in the face?
The guy apologized to Cheney!!
Dick Cheney was suffering emotionally. It caused a terrible strain on him.
The victim only had simple gunshot wounds.
Cheney was drunk and thought the guy was a charging hippo.
even drunk you would not mistake him for a hippo. A moose, maybe.
On the bright side, Mario Reyes' family can now put a dollar figure on his life. It's a hard thing to measure. Luckily, we now know that for "X" dollars, Mario can be erased from existence with next to no consequence.
30 days...and money...hell, he wont miss a game!
maybe in his memory his family will put his initials on the vanity plates for the Benz.
Michael Jackson bought a little boys ass for 15 million
for that kinda money..you'd think he'd get the whole boy.
fucked up. some of that shit ain't funny.
"undisclosed sum of money"
Yep, the family obviously has a $$$ value attached to each member, and Stallworth met and/or exceeded that.
Lots of athletes are criminals. Lots. Yet you guys continue to
glorify these douchebags. They promote our culture of violence and
male dominated power. Real fucking progressive those sports fans.
let's honor hard drinkin real men...like Nascar Drivers and Ultimate fighting fighters....Rrrrrrrrrrrrraa.
Shut up bitch!
Lots of right wing politicians in America are criminals so whats your point?
we call them politicians and businessmen now.
Who's the bitch? sitting in front of your tv, drinking beer you
bought at wal mart, you can't name your congressman or governor but
you can rattle off athletic stats all day.
If you aren't a simple troll, you are guilty of a weird prejudice. While many males are sports fans, I certainly am not one of them, and I resent being lumped in with them. I couldn't name one Minnesota Viking if I had to, I don't shop at WalMart, and my governor is Pinhead Tim Pawlenty. Meanwhile I know a lot of female sports fans who don't know who John Kline or Amy Klobuchar might be.
Please take your attitude back to your Women's Studies program* and tell them that prejudice is wrong no matter how it is directed...
*see, this is a self-referential joke about prejudice, and it's not funny either.
I am am man.
I have been posting for years about pro sports being a cancer on our society. It is in fact destructive to the players, the fans, and colleges, our children and our culture.
A professional sports fan has a 90% chance of being a douchebag. Period.
They lack some fundamental intellectual capacity.
A great example would be your above comment.
P.S. You don't tell me where or what to post. If Amato doesn't like what i said I will get deleted. Now go watch some sports instead of reading, biking, volunteering, gardening, swimming, teaching, mentoring, crafting, hiking, writing, blogging, birdwatching....
plain and simple
pro sports is a diversion
nothing wrong with a little diversion in life
what is wrong, is congress investigating sammy sosa for roid use
what is wrong is the above story...which has more to do with celebrity and wealth than it does with sports
now why dont you climb out of mama's basement and take your own advice
[OK. You guys are off topic and abusive. Please stop it now-Sitemonitor]
What is wrong is that violence is glorified, people are "diverted" from real knowledge and power. It's fucking bread and circuses! It is the utter zenith of what's wrong with tv, the media and our culture. A teacher struggling to teach poor kids in a shithole of a scholl gets $22k a year and a guy proficient in throwing a ball get $22M.
I'm a major football fan and I don't shop at wal mart. I've been doing it all wrong. No wonder the Cowboys can't win every screwing season. Oh for the good old days when they actually had a team.
Seriously, watching football in the Fall is a great escape from all the crap one must deal with all year and all week long. It's just entertainment and fun. I won't apologize for one minute of it.
Well said P.O.P.
As for this clown Stalworth.
Money buys the best defense. If you don't have money, you go to jail.
I think all of these clowns should be banned from the NFL for life. Break the law, go to jail. Banned from the NFL. They sign a contract when the get drafted. Ok, some offenses I can accept. After a suspension. But a felony. Nope. They're too stupid to play straight.
The kind of money these guys make is phenomenal.
You'd think they'd want to keep making it.
But noooooooo. Ego gets in the way.
As for the sports haters.
eh, they must be fun at parties.:)
Oh yeah, I can't wait to send the Cowboys out of the playoffs. :P
football players, are coddled and shielded from their actions--they're beyond privileged. Rape, wife-beating, drugs, assault, whatever--football players tend to skate because they're "heroes."
Of course, when they're all used up at 40, they're kicked to the curb and find out they have no useable life skills--surprise!
So wait, someone who watches sports can't volunteer, read, swim, or write?
Bottom line: your post is the epitome of liberal douchiness. YOU'RE NOT HELPING
I'm a bird watcher, long time volunteer, nature loving, reading fanatic. Yet, I love football. Go figure.
But I love baseball. Maybe that's because my dad and I used to go to Astros games together. Watching baseball on television is like watching paint dry but I miss those times with my dad as well as when we went to the games.
I can understand your feelings. Having a dad to take you places like that had to leave really good memories.
I can watch baseball, I just don't get as excited about it as I do football.
Is that my dad didn't live to see the Astros get to the World Series. He would have been ecstatic, even though they got swept.
Please show me the study upon which you base your claim that a professional sports fan has a 90% chance of being a douchebag. I am a college sports fan and want to know what my level of risk is. Thanks.
Leadership may have admitted he made the figures up. But, thanks to the site monitor, I will be forced to wander through this veil of tears wondering if my bloated feeling is due to Big Pharma induced fear of bladder problems or could actually be avoided by not watching the losers bracket in the College World Series tonight and thus restoring my aging body to its pre-douchebag state.
LOL!!! Do you really think there is a "douchebag" study out there!! The 90% is hyperbole...exaggeration for effect! If I sad 100% it would have made Amato mad! And he is no douchebag!
Well now I'm starting to think there should be a douchebag study but I'll keep the reasoning to myself.
I'm hanging on to the remaining 10% with both fists. I don't wanna grow up to be a douchebag.
I think there is a bag in your future, douche or not.
I'm hoping for some little cute designer bag. Douchebags are sooooo yesterday.
silk purses out of sow's ears, but I bet they make cute designer bags of the type you pine for. Got any sows handy?
Damn, I'm all out of sows. I knew I should have kept them aroung because one day they might be good for something.
need an expensive PhD to do it, either.
Now go watch some sports instead of reading, biking, volunteering, gardening, swimming, teaching, mentoring, crafting, hiking, writing, blogging, birdwatching....
You're showing your bigotry and/or ignorance. I enjoy professional sports, yet I am active in 9 of the 12 activities you mention.
And I certainly can name all the politicians who represent me (or are SUPPOSED to.)
So take your broad-painting brush elsewhere. Jerk.
The claim: "They promote our culture of violence and male dominated power. Real fucking progressive those sports fans.:
The response: "Shut up bitch!"
Well done. Way to prove his point.
Look, I used to be an NFL fan, there's no denying the excitement of the game... but you have to be clueless to not see the negatives. It definitely promotes a misogynist culture... the NFL is a very right-wing organization.
runs over a drunken woman?
Because when it comes to spectator sports, I am uninterested.
Didn't Michael get more time than that? I mean I hate what he did with the dogs and would personally like to slap him silly, but something just seems terribly wrong in this case.
.
kill a person...do nothing
america am doomed
Sorry, but this seems OK to me. Thirty days in jail, two years of house arrest, and 8 years on probation would be enough to get my attention if I found myself in this very unfortunate situation.
but a multi million dollar NFL contract takes the sting out.
You could build yourself a 5 acre house with that kind of money. House arrest ain't so bad.
whatever he paid to the dead pedestrian's family, which was probably in the millions. If he did this willingly, as it appears, it would have counted in his favor.
I hope they took the guy's licence away for at least 20 years, if not life.
the dead guy only lost his life...but we can't deprive Donte of his right to drive for the remainder of his life!
Buford,
It's not about the actual time, it's about the contrast to ordinary people who kill someone while driving drunk. People regularly spend a decade or more in jail for doing the same thing he did.
Once again our classes are rearing their ugly head. Doesn't matter what "color" you are, if you're rich you have a lot of things going in your favor, and if you aren't... you're screwed... more or less.
I don't know how this guy feels but just knowing that I had caused someone to lose their life would be a lifetime sentence for me.
"I'm so pleased to accept this honor by the league...I thank God...and that dude I ran over and killed...what was his name again?"
I don't want to start an argument but let's be fair, we don't know how he feels about this. He is human and I'm guessing, just like you and me, he has feelings. Just because he is a football player who makes lots of money doesn't mean that this experience won't weigh on him for a long long time.
that he ponied up those millions just so he could do the right thing and feeeel gooooood.
Or maybe he felt it was the right thing to do for the family and in the memory of the one they lost.
Why are so many here complaining about how much money he had? The players demand it and the teams pay it. If you want to be mad at someone be mad at the fact that sports makes a shit load of money from their fans. As long as the public will pay the outlandish prices for tickets, nothing will change.
I'm thinking if any of us could walk into our work place tomorrow and demand a salary of two million a year and get it, no one would turn it down.
That's what usually pisses me off. People will pay out gobs of money for sports, but ask them to pay scientists for coming up with nuclear power plants or better concrete or tornado warning systems and they're most likely going to vilify them and demand funding be cut for science classes in public schools.
...he'da got 15 years for possession!! What a country!
he was drinkin' the legal liquor. No dumb dope for him...he's an upstanding citizen.
ahh that's true. In florida you get a felony for less than an ounce of pot don't you? Most felonies get you locked up for at least 30 days... wow, good point, that's disturbing.
Touchdown.
Tell me this nation is not star struck.
... he's much more valuable to the state earning the big bucks as a wide receiver so that his income tax withholding is so much higher.
People on social security are counting on him to show up to work!
Punishing Donte will punish the State of Michigan! No no...it punishes THE COUNTRY!
Why oh why do people that want to prosecute Donte hate America!!!
Atheletes and movie stars and the like make millions, why don't they have a freakin limo and driver or take a taxi, hell even three or four taxis if they have their "posse" with them, they can afford it. I never understood that.
they can't drive drunk and at high speed from the back of the limo.
Ya know...they buy those cars...they gotta be driven...FAST!...and the alcohol...oh man...whaaaaat a ruuuuuuuuuuush
they feel powerful behind the wheel
Hell, look at the cars they drive
But I have asked myself the same question as you over and over and over...
This supports the theory that America is a class-based and not so much a race-based society. I mean if you're black but rich and powerful you can get away with whatever a rich and/or powerful white guy does.
Of course there are different rules for the rich and the poor. Otherwise, who would bother to be rich?
My wife's cousin was killed by a drunk driver about 10 years ago. The person who hit him was white, cute and blond. A 21 year-old from an affluent suburb of Chicago. She got 0 jail time in spite of the fact that she tried to run after the accident.
"There's a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. It would be a pity to damage yours."
A black guy with corn rows kills a man driving a Bentley in a former confederate state and he only gets 30 days in the slammer? Progress.
at least O.J. is in jail......finally.
and a relationship to football does this have to do with OJ Simpson?
Black guy commits a crime (in this case involuntary, not a wife- murder), and he gets compared to OJ Simpson?
Sounds too much like bigotry to me.
I would think famous football player killing someone and getting off easy. Let's not go too overboard here -
the fervent wish by the victim’s family to put the matter behind them.
You folks are really this kneejerk?
Stallworth isn't a prince, but he didn't dodge what he did. And how much responsibility does the guy crossing a 50mph road own when he's crossing without a crosswalk or a light in his favor, at night?
There's a bit of Darwin at work here, sad as it is for everybody involved.
He was driving 50mph in a 40mph zone. It was 7:15AM and he was effing drunk at the wheel. As for the pedestrian, he did cross the road illegally.
However...a sober person would have been able to stop in time.
not necessarily would have been able.
but I think not being sober plays a lot into this. I mean, since when do you just flash your lights at a pedestrian in the road? The first order of things would be to brake.
determine what, exactly, happened. I woulkd have hit the horn and the brakes, even drunk, before I thought of the lights. Stallworth f..ed up and took responsibility.
That is the smartest thing said about it.
But there is enough from the various "sports news" talking heads to know what's going on. Roger Cossack sub-contracts to ESPN and was quite specific with his comments on this case after reading the available information.
The "outrage" that a "rich NFLer" got off lightly is quite.....misplaced.
My ex-husband was driving one night after having just wine with dinner. He was on a stretch of road that was dark. From the side of the road two kids on a dark bike, both wearing dark clothing ran right out in front of him. One kid went over the top of the car and the other fell on the side of the road. The then husband ran to a nearby motel and banged on the door until he woke someone up (this was way before cell phones). I stayed with the kid in the road and gently dragged him to the side of the road so the next car wouldn't hit him again. The other kid jumped up and ran away. When the police arrived they went right past me because it was so dark they didn't see me. They asked the then husband had he been drinking and he told them about the wine with dinner. In the end the one boy had a lot of mental damage that the doctors said could never be repaired. The then husband was not charged with anything, because the cops determined there was just no way in hell he could have avoided hitting the kids. Even though he wasn't charged, he beat himself up mentally for a long long time.
That is a knarly story Patricia. That could happen to any of us. I really feel sory for your ex an for you too. As they say; "But for the grace of god, goes I."
Thought-provoking story - probably not easy for you to share it.
I've been driving for 30 years and I've had more close calls than I care to think, especially when I was young and lead-footed. I've become a better driver, but now I'm noticing my night vision isn't as good as it once was.
I see cyclists riding at night all the time with no lights or reflectors. I've often thought how easy it would be to hit one of them.
You don't know how many times I almost hit cancel before I hit "submit". I'll never forget the feeling of that night. We had to call friends to drive us home and drive our car home. It was awful.
I look both ways on one-way streets before crossing because I'm a sack of meat and a car is not.
I can think of a few times in my youth I SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DRIVING and thank gawd no one was hurt!!!! My life might have been destroyed for a very foolish, drunken mistake. And I might have killed someone, for which I would beat myself up forever and ever!!!
5 years in prison would have been appropriate. Stallworth will fuck up again, guaranteed.
He should do the mandatory sentence. Whatever it is. If it's 5 minimum,fine. But it should be more. If it was either you or I, we'd be doing years. And yes, he will fuck up again.
he fucked up before
Good thing he was drunk and not high. That would have been bad. He might have gotten 90 days for that.
Wonder how many plea bargains the DA does for others in similar circumstance?
You can get the very best in the world in this country....as long as you can pay for it.
The family seemed to think his life is worth a large sum of money. They had to agree this plea. If I was the family I wouldn't have accepted anything less than three years.
of compensation paid to the agreement to less time served. You could have asked for three years gump and been penniless while Stallworth killed time in jail.
Funerals can get pretty darn expensive.
Some folks (including a former relation) saw the OJ trial as the system out to get an uppity black. I always viewed it as a rich celebrity playing the system to get away with murder.
Apparently the victim darted in front of Stallworth's car trying to catch a bus allowing the defense to at least argue Stallworth's overall culpability. The family reached a settlement with Stallworth that more than likely requires he work (in the NFL) to pay it off so they too sought leniency. He also received community service totaling like 1000 hours and lost his driver's license for life. I love ya John but I'm not sure that justice (in a legal sense) wasn't served.
a regular black guy.
probably more. But if he had been poor he would not have been drinking all night at a swanky Miami Hotel bar and driving away in a Bentley.
driving a honda. Or a hooptie of some kind even. Maybe after a beer or even with the same reading this guy with the money. Same age, with a job...
I don't mean 'poor,' but hey, OK a poor black guy. Or a guy, any guy or gal without money and a football franchise depending upon his awesomeness at throwing a thing through the air, or knocking other guys down or running, whatever tiny niche he fills.
That's a naive statement; The drive that killed the Angeles' Rookie pither wasn't rich.
are you drunk?
If he'd been sitting in an office of a health insurance company denying treatments with a little rubber stamp and sentencing people to slow deaths he'd be getting a bonus. All is relative.
This tragedy has just been repeated two blocks from my home
http://www.startribune.com/local/48168857.html
Shall we come back in a little while and see how this woman's sentence compares?
Yes, the circumstance wherein the woman's hand, filled with glass after glass of alcohol, went to her mouth and down again and back to her mouth, over and over.
Do drinkers not know of the "cause and effect" phenomenon?
Back when I graduated from high school, it was the KIDS that got liquored up to celebrate, not that damned parents.
WTF? 30 days?
Laura Bush?????
She went through absolute hell.....I'm still crying for her.
/snark.
Glad the family was compensated? Sounds like the family sold their family member's memory for a hefty amount of money. Disgusting.
a 2005 Bentley? What's up with that Dante? I mean, in today's tough economy, you could have gotten a killer deal on even a nearly new '08 model...
DUI and vehicular manslaughter. Killed his passenger, severely injured others in separate vehicles. Did 30 days in jail where he was allowed booze and female visitors. It was determined he could help the families of the victims more by continuing his career thus facilitating payment of large sums of monies. He also paid the State of California 2.5 million. Money talks, criminals walk.
Mainly through the medium of expensive lawyers.
I dunno. If the deal was private and agreed to, I might take it too. If I thought the guy was truly remorseful and intent on mending his ways. My dead relative won't come back. Should I wish him locked up for years and years? He can atone other ways that might be more meaningful.
We did not sit in on the deal. I'm not a big believer that vengeance is always the answer. (I'd have to be privy to the meeting to decide myself.)
His family may gotten a lot of money. If they had insisted on prosecution to the max that money would have gone to his defense lawyers.
Ten million will get you out of most anything.
I hope that is what they got, otherwise they were cheated.
and have it as yet another thing to file away in their tiny brain's as a reason why drunk-driving isn't all that bad, afterall.
That's what makes stories like this trouble me.
Forget Stallworth. For all I know, he's a changed man, will never sip another drink of alcohol, will live forever to do the right thing until he breathes his last breath, blah blah blah.
the only color the American "justice" system loves more than white is green.
How about chilling out on the need to punish. It sounds like the guy's family is satisfied and that Stalworth is remorseful. Punishing ain't all it's cracked up to be.
Apparently the family were happy enough to sign off on this deal. Who knows how much cash this jackass had to put up.
what does it have to do with politics or governing?
(theme from Jeopardy playing...)
I Just because most of the crooks & liars are politicians doesn't mean that all of them are.
In America we have equal justice under the law.
The more money you have the more equal it is!
In America we have equal justice under the law.
The more money you have the more equal it is!
Sounds to me like the family of the "victim" owes Stallworth some money!
One of my best friends was killed by a drunk driver back in 1985. Roger was only 25, and was one of those people whom everyone liked, and always made your life brighter.
The drunk was convicted, appealed, and won the appeal. Nothing ever happened to him, even though he had blacked out and couldn't remember the accident. So it isn't only money - it's lawyers that work the system (that's not a condemnation of ALL lawyers, mind you.)
At least this victim's family has Stallworth's admission of guilt. (Yeah, I know, it won't bring their loved one back.)
"Justice is yours...if you can afford it." And also: "Rich people never go to jail."
I need to hit the lottery so I can break the law.
I must have spent about 20 years walking, jogging, running all or part way to work and back various distances at a handful of jobs. I've dodged cars more times than I would like to think, been sweared at, flipped the bird, returned the latter two favors, may have been spit at, and damn near gotten into more than one fight when my body interrupted someone's busy life. Relating these stories at various times, I discovered two coworkers who both had their father's killed at a cross walk at either a stop light or stop sign.
So, you have to understand that I'm mighty politicized on the issue and when the local news reports a pedestrian killing and they note that "alcohol was not involved" and the driver gets off, it infuriates me. My response is, "Clean kill." Frankly, when a pedestrian is killed the point is that a pedestrian is killed. I don't know whether the pedestrian would be happier to know that the driver was drunk or that the driver was straight. Which is worse? Would I like to see better pedestrian safety and pedestrian deaths taken more seriously? Damn straight. In the meantime, in the really imperfect world, I have to acknowledge that he responded nobly in an ignoble situation admittedly of his own making. I've encountered people a lot worse, and, frankly, I can think of similar situations when the driver got even less punishment. Hell, just yesterday our local news reported on a woman who took out a bus shelter, the guy waited by it, and kept going driving blotto from her daughter's high school graduation party. We'll see what she gets but I'm betting damn little. So Stallworth isn't the news story of the week I'm going to grind my teeth on.
I think they meant to say, 'The fervent wish by the victim's family to put money in their pockets.'
There, all fixed.
While I can sympathize with your so-called feeling of outrage, I have to stress
IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU!
I have never understood why uninvolved parties feel like what they want is more important than the family.
If he weren't an NFL player he never would have been overcharged like that. Vehicular Homicide at best. One Year.
First offense. No priors. Restitution paid. 30 days.
who are still mad at michael vick for completing his term after being involved in the deaths of that great american hero, the pit bull.
I, however, agree with you.
I can't wait for the Plaxico Burress thread. He didn't kill anyone and I know for a fact that Bloomberg will personally show up here to demand they make an example out of him, just like he did in the NY papers.
Oh, the humanity!
Do you really believe that giving Dante Stallworth 5, 10, 15 years in prison will stop people from drinking and driving? Will it help heal the families pain? Or will it just calm your desire for blood-lust? You people are so hypocritical. The same people here who post about the idiocy of mandatory minimums or claim that the death penalty is unfair, will like to see a guy serve 15 years for a car accident.
Here some things to keep in mind. If you followed the details of the case, you know that there was chance the prosecution might have lost. There was a decent argument that the gentlemen contributed to his own death by running in front of the car. It would have been even harder to win a civil case, and more costly. Instead of receiving $400k or $500k for the death of the father, they may have received $250k plus attorney's fees. And yes, the payout was probably that small. Why? Because our justice system doesn't look too kindly or wrongful death claims. They would have figured out his earning potential until his kids were of age, and likely provided only that amount. Because while most of you people are whining about Dante Stallworth, large corporations that have caused deaths of hundreds of people have been able to successfully argue in court for low payouts on wrongful death suits. You get less money from a wrongful death suit than you do for a 2 year injury claim.
Most of you don't know the financial situation of the family. Most of you don't care. But in my mind, no one benefits for a long prison sentence for Dante Stallworth. In this instance, the family benefits and Stallworth gets an opportunity to turn his life around.
Just my 2 cents, peace.
I agree with you.
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