After contemplating the outrageously lenient plea bargain agreement (nine months in county jail) between District Attorney Luke Inman and Gayle Edes, in return for her guilty plea to Injury to a Child by Omission,I got to thinking, which can be an adventure for me.
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While explaining his rational for the agreement, Mr. Inman stated, “The injury to a child case by omission was not something that we could file immediately due to factual and legal hurdles we had to overcome. It’s not as simple as going forward against the perpetrator who actually committed the assault. There had to be forensic medical testimony that would support the injury occurred as a result of not seeking medical attention, and that part of the investigation took time.”
I understand that Gayle Edes’ health has suffered during these intervening months. If I were facing this charge my health would suffer considerably, too – although not as much as Chance Jones’ health suffered. I’m still outraged that Mr. Inman basically let Gayle Edes walk. The dirty little fact that Chance died from his injuries apparently made little impact upon Mr. Inman’s sense of moral and judicial outrage.
In the case of Gayle Edes, justice was not served. I wondered how justice is normally served in the 100th Judicial District. A two year search of Clarendon Enterprise records, which do not include all the case dispositions in District Attorney Inman’s prosecutions over this period of time, I discovered that justice is usually served with a generous helping of leniency.
This leniency makes me wonder why this is so? One thing I’ve always loved about Texas is that we are a people who value law and order and are known to be tough on crime.
Perhaps Mr. Inman just doesn’t want to be bothered with trying cases in court. It’s much easier, and probably cheaper, to plea bargain than to prosecute. After all, he does have a large area to cover, and it may be tiring to spend all his time driving around his district, toting all those files and depositions around. Why not just plea bargain those cases that don’t involve unseemly death or injury? Now, a few of his cases involving injury did result in probation and deferred adjudication for the perps.
More than a few of Mr. Inman’s cases involved some remarkable case dispositions. For example, in one case, a man pleaded guilty to kidnapping, a 3rd degree felony. He received three years probation – for kidnapping for heaven’s sake!
Even worse, another fellow pled guilty to sexual assault of a child. His sentence? Probation, with deferred adjudication – which means he doesn’t have to register as a convicted sex offender. Nice.
On that same day, another disagreeable fellow pled guilty to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and received two years probation with deferred adjudication. In case you didn’t know, deferred adjudication means that if you keep your nose clean for the duration of your probation or sentence, your record is wiped clean of your crime.
Over this time period several people have plea bargained burglary of habitat – which means they broke into an occupied house – into case dispositions that resulted in probated sentences with deferred adjudication. And we wonder why we have folks breaking into our local business, five of ‘em at last count.
Included also, were a few cases of misdemeanor drug possession – marijuana for example – that also resulted in a couple of years of probation with deferred adjudication. Meanwhile, there was an ill tempered man who pled guilty to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He also received probation with deferred adjudication. There must have been some really interesting extenuating circumstance for him to the receive a similar sentence as the guy won was busted for possession of pot.
Throw in the two idiots who stole some water meters, with accompanying accessories, who also received probation with deferred adjudication, and you get my point.
For whatever reasons, Mr. Inman does not seem to be too tough on crime, which is good for the offenders and not so good for the victims and law abiding citizens.
It’s a shame because we (Donley County) have an exceptional sheriff and sheriff’s department. Sheriff Blackburn and his chief deputy Randy Bond, along with the rest of the deputies, do an excellent job of keeping the peace. They are excellent investigators and are highly committed solving crimes and keeping us as safe as possible. Sometimes, the leniency of our district attorney may undo much of the good that they do.
If all this bothers you as much as it bothers me, you can always put pressure on Luke to repent and change his ways.
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