[HN Gopher] The nation's oldest juvenile lifer, Joe Ligon, left ...
___________________________________________________________________
The nation's oldest juvenile lifer, Joe Ligon, left a Pa. prison
after 68 years
Author : Xplor
Score : 64 points
Date : 2021-02-12 12:49 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.inquirer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.inquirer.com)
| sg47 wrote:
| Even before I read the article, I knew this person was black.
| When will racism end?
| sizzzzlerz wrote:
| It's like a someone who has been asleep for 68 years. He wakes up
| and has no clue about the world he now is in. Only this guy was
| awake for those 68 years and aged all the while. So not only
| doesn't he have a clue, he's very old. He won't be able to
| survive without massive assistance. I wonder if he'd been better
| to have stayed in prison.
| dvtrn wrote:
| _I wonder if he 'd been better to have stayed in prison._
|
| _Absolutely_ not.
|
| Even if the services for ex-cons are not perfect, it's no
| reason to _continue_ someone 's incarceration and detention if
| they have served the time they have been sentenced to, and have
| been granted proper legal release from custody.
| ultimoo wrote:
| > He never applied for commutation, though he could have had a
| strong chance at clemency in the 1970s, when hundreds of
| Pennsylvania lifers were released. Instead, he put his faith in
| Bridge and waited for the day he'd be released. To prepare
| himself for modern society, he watched world news on a small TV
| in his cell.
|
| He did watch TV so he isn't entirely out of the loop and will
| probably learn how to navigate today's world with a smartphone
| and the internet in a couple months/years. Given an option, I
| think staying outside of prison is better than staying inside
| for everyone.
| klyrs wrote:
| > I wonder if he'd been better to have stayed in prison.
|
| My uncle has been in prison for nearly 40 years, and got
| paroled at the age of 75. Life outside was terrifying,
| bewildering, and harsh. At 75, with a felony conviction, no
| recent work experience, he's got no prospects for legitimate
| employment. No pension, little to no social security, he was
| completely overwhelmed. He made a minor mistake and violated
| the terms of his parole. Despite covid sweeping through his
| prison, he feels safer inside than out. I wouldn't generalize
| his story to everybody, but I understand that this isn't
| uncommon.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Interesting case: Killer Petey (Pedrinho Matador), the most
| prolific Brazilian serial killer (probably around a hundred
| kills) served 42 years and is now free and turned youtuber who
| preaches for peace.
|
| https://www.gazetadopovo.com.br/wiseup-news/brazils-greatest...
| the_only_law wrote:
| Kinda makes you wonder what the he'll happened in their brain.
| If this was a guy who got caught up in an armed robbery, the
| wrong crowed, etc.it'd be one thing. Don't most serial killers
| have severe psychological issues? Not the people you'd expect
| to decide to get their life together after prison.
| icefrakker wrote:
| "He never applied for commutation, though he could have had a
| strong chance at clemency in the 1970s, when hundreds of
| Pennsylvania lifers were released. Instead, he put his faith in
| Bridge and waited for the day he'd be released."
|
| So he probably would have been released over 50 years ago but
| didn't bother. My god aren't you all tired of black people making
| a national past time of being victims.
|
| "Ligon, now 83, received his life term for taking part in a spree
| of robbery and assaults in which two people died. Ligon admits
| participating in the crime with a group of drunk teens but denies
| killing anyone."
|
| Also this guy can get bent. There are plenty of people who barely
| survive yet still manage to go through life without being a
| savage. If you're capable of that sort of behavior at age 15,
| yeah you definitely ought to be locked up until you're too old to
| be dangerous.
|
| Let's be real - if Japanese people behaved like black Americans,
| internment camps would still be a thing today. I'm tired of
| people excusing degenerate behavior by clutching their racism
| pearls. Does everyone need to see their grandparents get decked
| in the head by black youths to snap out of this madness? The
| undeniable wrongs inflicted upon the black race in America needs
| to stop being used as a bludgeon to excuse all sorts of
| uncivilized behaviors.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| I would follow him if he had a Twitter account
| [deleted]
| rhizome wrote:
| Note that nobody is confused about which "the nation" this refers
| to.
| macinjosh wrote:
| If the US is such an awful country why do so many clamor to
| immigrate here? If you're in the US why are you still here
| maybe you should move to a country you don't look down on? You
| have no clue what life can really be like in other places.
|
| Plenty of other countries put people in jail for life from a
| young age. Some countries are so non-transparent you could
| never discover a fact like this. Doesn't make what happened to
| this person right by any means but using it as a cudgel to tear
| down the US is pretty cowardly IMO.
| upinsmoke1980 wrote:
| What if the truth is somewhere in the middle?
|
| The US has enormous problems, there are many downsides to
| American life, especially if you're poor, black, or both, and
| there are many ways in which the US lags behind comparable
| Western countries.
|
| There are also many fantastic things about the US and things
| it does very well compared to most if not all other
| countries, and a very large number of Americans live happy,
| prosperous lives as a result of what America has to offer.
| There are lots of good reasons why someone would want to
| migrate to the US. _I 'd_ love to migrate to the US, or at
| least live there for a few years, even though I know I
| wouldn't like certain things about it compared to Europe.
|
| America is neither uniquely virtuous, nor uniquely evil.
| brnt wrote:
| > If the US is such an awful country why do so many clamor to
| immigrate here?
|
| This implies the choice to migrate to the US is rational and
| well researched, weighted against other nice places like
| Luxemburg, Sweden, Switzerland. In practice, it's just the
| largest Western country, so gets you the most blanket
| quantity of Western opportunity per unit of migration hassle.
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| This comment adds nothing to the discussion, and seems to be
| what quite a few of the HN guidelines say not to do.
| t-writescode wrote:
| Hacker News viewers are probably predominantly American or US
| adjacent.
|
| Further, if we were talking about another country being cruel
| to its citizens, we would name and shame them.
|
| When an American goes and violates lots of laws in China or
| Japan and gets thrown in jail, the country name is plastered
| all over the post.
| marcodiego wrote:
| I think imprisonment for life will eventually replace death
| penalty in the US. Despite the brief increase under trump, anyone
| knows where can I find statistics to support my feeling?
| wespiser_2018 wrote:
| It looks like it's trending down now:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_Unit...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_Unit...
| umvi wrote:
| Life sentence for a 15 year old who didn't provably kill someone
| seems excessively harsh. Heck, the teen that _did_ provably kill
| someone throwing a rock over an overpass didn 't get life (he got
| 3-20)[0].
|
| I have a slightly unpopular stance that death penalty is
| appropriate if there is overwhelming evidence of an _unrepentant_
| killer. I don 't see any value in keeping them around in prison,
| especially if they will continue to have a negative influence on
| peers in prison for decades.
|
| But other than that, I think even life is inappropriate in most
| cases, and _especially_ for teens who don 't really understand
| the impact of their actions.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Interstate_75_rock-
| throwi...
| bartread wrote:
| I don't actually object to the death penalty too much from a
| moral perspective, but I'm no fan of it because - occasionally
| - it does seem like we might get it wrong. And if you get it
| wrong there's no undoing it.
|
| If you falsely imprison somebody, even though you can't give
| them the time back, you can at least give them their freedom
| for the time they have left, and enough compensation to set
| them up for a decent life.
|
| Certainly imprisoning a juvenile for a whole life term does
| seem to me the very definition of cruel and unusual, and
| especially if they weren't directly responsible for any
| murders.
| hibern8 wrote:
| How do you justify the death penalty morally?
| nicoburns wrote:
| I'm not quite sure what I think about the death penalty.
| But it is not obvious to me that it is a worse punishment
| than life in prison. In fact I think that personally, given
| the choice I would choose death.
| upinsmoke1980 wrote:
| > In fact I think that personally, given the choice I
| would choose death.
|
| I, too, am not sure that I'd prefer life in prison over
| death, but in practice it takes decades to execute a
| convicted prisoner in the US, and since you're considered
| a particularly dangerous prisoner (since you have nothing
| to lose) you're held in particularly isolated and
| unpleasant conditions during those decades. If I thought
| I was going to get the death penalty I might prefer to
| just blow my brains out quickly and easily before they
| have a chance to slap the handcuffs on.
|
| I can't be arsed to fact-check it, but I'm pretty sure
| I've read that death row inmates are more likely to die
| of natural causes while awaiting execution than they are
| to actually be executed - that's how long the legal
| process waits.
| giantg2 wrote:
| There can be some morally justifiable scenarios. For
| example, someone who is a political or religious leader who
| has used that position to kill people. If they still have
| followers, their very existence can continue to cause
| issues. Think Saddam, Hitler, or Bin Laden.
| sneak wrote:
| If you don't believe that people have a right to life, I
| suppose that being murdered by the state is just another
| notch on the spectrum of "acceptable punishment".
|
| It's an odd contradiction to me that people who support the
| death penalty are mostly not ok with the state using, for
| example, punitive rape as a punishment, but killing is
| somehow okay, if the crime is severe enough.
| dEnigma wrote:
| How are rape and the death sentence related? You could
| just as well say that it's weird how people can support
| taking someones's freedom and locking them away, but are
| not okay with raping them.
| sneak wrote:
| Because we as a society have generally reached a
| consensus that premediated killing of human beings is one
| of the worst crimes possible.
|
| The fact that it is regarded by some as an acceptable
| punitive measure carried out by the state, whereas other,
| lesser crimes against human beings are deemed "off
| limits" for such purposes, seems to me to expose an
| inherent contradiction. To avoid the contradiction,
| either _both_ should be acceptable, or neither.
|
| Presently there seems to be a slight majority consensus
| on Earth that the correct answer is "neither", with the
| overall trend suggesting that the rest of the planet will
| get there in another couple hundred years.
| hibern8 wrote:
| I could not agree more. It is barbaric and sends an
| incongruent message to society. How are we to teach
| people the value of a life by taking one?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| There is a broad spectrum of value that is up for debate.
| There are amazing human beings, but also vile human
| beings.
| upinsmoke1980 wrote:
| I can't, and I also find it hard to justify life sentences
| for all but the most horrific of crimes (and for those who
| pose too much of a danger to be allowed back into society.)
|
| Norway doesn't even have a statutory penalty of "life
| without parole" except for military offences. The maximum
| prison sentence it's possible to receive in 30 years -
| although it's still possibly in practice to be imprisoned
| for longer, because your release after 30 years is
| conditional and the sentence may be extended. Even Anders
| Breivik, the terrorist who killed 77 people in 2011, didn't
| get a "life sentence" as that term would be understand in
| the US.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment_in_Norway
| Cyph0n wrote:
| History has shown us time and again that the risks associated
| with improper use of the death penalty clearly outweigh the
| benefits (cost savings?).
|
| And even the reduced cost associated with the death penalty
| is arguable, as many of those sentenced remain on death row
| for quite a while.
| upinsmoke1980 wrote:
| In practice, executing a prisoner in the US is far more
| expensive than imprisoning him (and it's usually a "him")
| for life.
|
| https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/costs
| madamelic wrote:
| >Life sentence for a 15 year old who didn't provably kill
| someone seems excessively harsh.
|
| Excessively harsh for a _white kid_. Ligon getting life without
| parole in 1953 is not at all shocking. Ligon is just lucky that
| a white girl wasn't involved or he would've gotten the chair.
|
| Teenage black boys are still having their lives disposed of in
| 2021 because they dared to be dumb teenage boys while black.
| shortandsweet wrote:
| Fellow peasant, I think you may be confused. It isn't so much
| because he's white but more of not poor. Please refrain from
| race baiting and focus on the true reason. I know it's
| difficult to understand because the rich have certainly done
| a great job at implanting such an idea to our collective
| society. This is 100% sincere and I'm tired of what I've been
| seeing in society. This is my effort to make a change and
| raise awareness.
| rhizome wrote:
| > _It isn 't so much because he's white but more of not
| poor._
|
| It says a lot that you don't acknowledge any systemic
| connection between these. Sure, rich people with their
| idea-implants can be referenced collectively. Society
| making you tired, also a reasonable grouping. But implying
| that white people have been visiting injustice on black
| people, including having intentionally kept them poor? How
| dare you, sir.
| warent wrote:
| Many people here in HN are both rich and good individuals
| learc83 wrote:
| Even when controlling for other factors like education (a
| proxy for income) and criminal history, Black male
| offenders receive a sentence 20% longer on average than
| White male offenders for the same crime. They're also
| convicted at a higher rate for the same indictments, and
| arrested at a higher rate in the first place.
|
| https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-
| reports/demographic-d...
| baybal2 wrote:
| Now, how do you think you can clean the judicial system
| of racist judges, and in at large the whole legal
| fraternity?
|
| Outright, publicly known racists get protection of
| judicial immunity, and only near impossible judicial
| impeachment can do anything about them.
|
| What is the solution?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Most states have a judicial conduct board. You can file
| complaints against them for any misconduct and mistakes
| they make. If enough people do this, you might be able to
| cross reference complaints to show that they knowingly
| violated someone's rights, which fits into official
| oppression.
|
| I've had a similar experience with a magistrate who was a
| former cop and retired police chief. He was biased the
| entire time, violated due process, and made false claims.
| The complaint is still ongoing. I doubt it will result in
| much, but it could be useful for future civil cases.
| baybal2 wrote:
| The problem is a judge can be a 100% bigot, and yet be
| 100% legally safe for as long as he isn't openly
| proclaiming himself as such, and follows the process to
| its utmost.
|
| You can't have a review board, or impeachment do anything
| with a judge with 100% black prosecution record _just
| because it is such._
|
| That's the paradox. Either you subject judiciary to
| political judgement, or you can't do anything about
| judges who are not politically impartial.
| learc83 wrote:
| You're not going to find the solution buried in a random
| hacker news comment thread.
|
| But step one is to acknowledge that systemic racism
| exists in the first place. Half of the voters in the
| country explicitly deny the existence of systemic racism
| and the need to change anything at all.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Do you have a poll for that claim, or are you just
| stereotyping based on party?
| user982 wrote:
| https://www.uml.edu/Research/public-
| opinion/polls/2020/Race-...
|
| "Democrats, liberals, Americans under the age of 50 and
| those who score low on the racial resentment scale are
| all far more likely than Republicans, conservatives,
| Americans older than age 50, and those scoring high in
| racial resentment to think that Blacks are treated less
| fairly than whites by the police."
| giantg2 wrote:
| "A majority of American adults think that policing in
| this country is not fair - 51% say that Blacks are
| treated less fairly than whites in their interactions
| with police, compared to 41% who say they are treated the
| same. Another 7% say whites are treated less fairly than
| Blacks."
|
| I see that 48% of American adults view it as not a
| problem or a problem in the other direction. Granted this
| is only a 1000 person study based on subjective
| experience. I wonder if they have larger studies, or any
| studies on objective evaluation[0] of if someone was
| treated differently based on race. I know I've been
| treated poorly by police but I don't believe race was a
| factor.
|
| [0] seems like the 20% harsher sentencing could be an
| indication, but I'll have to look at that more
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Here's some background reading:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Jim_Crow
|
| It's a great book, with copious references and research
| behind it.
|
| Bryan Stevenson's book 'Just Mercy' is also well worth
| reading, and directly relevant to this discussion.
| Stevenson was the lead in the supreme court case that led
| to death and LWOP being off limits for juveniles.
| [deleted]
| t-writescode wrote:
| And those sentences are excessively harsh, so I think calling
| it "excessively harsh" still stands.
|
| It's horribly cruel, but as our disgusting Supreme Court has
| declared of similar violations of human life, it is "not
| unusual", and so it still stands and it still is done.
|
| It _is_ excessively harsh, and the only way we're ever going
| to fix it is by calling our representatives and calling out
| our representatives to change this.
| smcl wrote:
| Another example - Kyle Rittenhouse - is out on bail and he
| travelled from another state with a gun then killed 2 people in
| Kenosha. He's not yet been tried (or found guilty, but ... come
| on) but I think we all know he's not going to serve anything
| like 68 years in prison.
| jeswin wrote:
| Not American, but the Wikipedia entry on the incident
| suggests that the two aren't in any way comparable.
|
| At the same time, sentencing a 15-year old kid (who hasn't
| even committed murder) to life in prison and not
| reconsidering it so far into the 21st century - that's cruel
| and unusual punishment. Boggles my mind.
| smcl wrote:
| I'm not sure why people are having a hard time with this
| one. But let's try it this way - switch the positions of
| the 17 year old white kid and the 15 year old black kid. Do
| you believe the outcomes would be the same? Do you think
| the black kid would get bailed after killing two people and
| then have (in addition to support among various gun rights
| groups) numerous people on HN hand-wringing and explaining
| that _technically_ killing someone is actually not a crime
| in every circumstance? No, we 'd see pics of the black kid
| presented as _menacing_ , everyone would talk about him as
| a "young man" instead of "a little boy", any and all
| indiscretions he'd committed would be dug out and published
| everywhere and ultimately used against him.
|
| Of course we're dealing with hypotheticals so people will
| play dumb and either pretend I'm being absurd or just _say_
| they 'd treat both the same because that's the easy way
| out. But I think deep down we all know the truth.
| dionidium wrote:
| These aren't even remotely similar cases and mentioning the
| Rittenhouse case here is an unnecessary and unhelpful
| distraction.
| smcl wrote:
| Why? We are discussing that one kid got 68 years for not
| killing someone, and another kid is probably not going to
| get anything close to that for killing two. Now, I know
| there are more things involved in crime and sentencing than
| whether someone killed anyone but it should be crystal
| clear that these are very worthy of comparison.
|
| On the other hand you are right in one respect - they're
| not remotely similar in that one boy was white and the
| other black. I know we're not going to "solve" racism in
| the comments section of HN but I think it's important to
| confront the fact that race is an overwhelming factor in
| how these cases play out.
| marvin wrote:
| The question in the Rittenhouse case isn't what sentence
| people get for murder. It's whether he committed murder
| at all, or killed in self-defense after having the
| horrible (and probably ethically unsound) judgement to
| travel armed to an obviously violent event. It's not an
| example of what's being discussed.
|
| There's more than enough cases that legitimately make the
| case for racial sentencing discrimination. Quoting this
| ridiculously politicized case will only harm the cause by
| providing ammunition to the other side.
|
| I mean, I personally think that 68 years in prison for
| _almost anything_ is a horribly abusive practice.
| Acceptable for some few instances of violent crime. But
| since I also believe that killing in self-defense can
| sometimes be justified with no punishment, it's not a
| very good point to use for discussing.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Dude kills two people while wearing a certain color hat
| matching other people he's spending a lot of time with...
|
| Most of the time under those circumstances, the question
| of self defense isn't going to enter into the following
| discussion.
| 40four wrote:
| This is way off topic, but I'm very curious to the
| outcome of the Rittenhouse trial. There is no doubt he
| killed those people. There are multiple videos of it.
| Whether or not the court finds it falls under
| 'reasonable' self defense according to Wisconsin law will
| be interesting.
|
| They will have to decide that he A) He used only the
| force necessary to prevent or terminate interference with
| his person. And B) He reasonably believed that such force
| was necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily
| harm to himself.
| smcl wrote:
| I don't think it is offtopic or if it is then my mention
| of Rittenhouse in the first place was. I am very curious
| too. I have a pretty bad feeling that he will get off
| extremely lightly and that as a result the US will see
| renewed unrest. Given the original topic that kicked off
| this thread, the unrest will be entirely justified.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Just because a person is killed does not mean that a
| crime has been committed. There are lawful reasons, such
| as self defense, defense of a third person, etc.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| ciupicri wrote:
| There's a difference between a bail and being declared not
| guilty. Anyway he was supposedly defending himself, while
| Ligon was robbing and assaulting people, so the cases are
| different.
| shadycuz wrote:
| Or you can serve 8 months for killing two people
| https://www.dispatch.com/article/20121220/NEWS/312209689
|
| My childhood friend got hooked on drugs, broke into some empty
| houses when no one was home and stole some electronics. He got
| 15 years. It was his first offense.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| The judge or jury will always have a great deal of discretion
| in manslaughter or reckless/negligent homicide cases. They
| are often frustratingly sad in a way that more
| straightforward murder cases are not.
| upinsmoke1980 wrote:
| Do you have another link? From here in the UK, your link just
| redirects to http://eu.dispatch.com.
| ciupicri wrote:
| https://archive.is/y31i6
| shadycuz wrote:
| Google Seth stonerock circleville ohio
| gabereiser wrote:
| Let's also not forget that you can also kill two people and
| have a political party bail you out so you can continue to
| terrorize locals.
| ves wrote:
| Regarding the sentencing differential: Joe Ligon, the subject
| of the article, is black, while Kyle Anger, the "mastermind"
| behind the fatal rock-throwing incident you linked, is white.
| upinsmoke1980 wrote:
| Who would have guessed?
| throwaway38180 wrote:
| "This never would have happened if you were white"
|
| Said my lawyer when I had to deal with stacked charges
| leading to years of incarceration for the mildest of
| subjective crimes.
|
| Why? So they could have me plead guilty.
|
| Never happened. Fuck the system.
| upinsmoke1980 wrote:
| I learned from the documentary _13th_ (which I HIGHLY
| recommend) that something like 97% of people incarcerated
| in the US have never had a trial, because they 're
| persuaded, manipulated or otherwise cajoled into making
| plea bargains.
|
| 97%!
| iguy wrote:
| What this means is that the US has replaced its common-
| law adversarial criminal justice system, with something
| completely different. Almost completely, and with very
| little debate. No referendum, no constitutional
| amendments. The old one sticks around for occasional
| ceremonial use.
|
| It would be interesting to understand better why. My
| theory is that part of it is to do with rising standards
| of criminal trials. IIRC the average murderer went from
| arrest to dead in something like a month, 1950s. Most had
| no appeals. Certainly no expert witnesses to explain the
| DNA evidence to the jury. Today the default seems to be
| _decades_ of appeals, thousands of hours of lawyer-time.
| That doesn 't scale.
| lisper wrote:
| > death penalty is appropriate if there is overwhelming
| evidence of an unrepentant killer
|
| The problem with that is that it is impossible to tell the
| difference between an unrepentant killer and a falsely
| convicted innocent who will not admit to something they didn't
| do.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| I would also hazard a guess that the average 'unrepentant
| killer' is someone who killed their abuser.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >overwhelming evidence of an unrepentant killer
|
| what, like someone saying "I'm glad they're dead"? I mean if
| the rule was that only unrepentant killers were executed
| everyone would do their best to appear repentant - unless of
| course they were crazy or suicidal or something, in which case
| executing someone like that would not seem that gre3at.
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| > I have a slightly unpopular stance that death penalty is
| appropriate if there is overwhelming evidence of an unrepentant
| killer. I don't see any value in keeping them around in prison,
| especially if they will continue to have a negative influence
| on peers in prison for decades.
|
| This isn't an unreasonable thought, but (a) I would prefer to
| have a bright-line international rule that that killing
| prisoners is always unacceptable to make it easier to condemn
| countries that use it to violate human rights and (b) in the
| American system, the death penalty inevitably leads to more
| time and expensive of appeals, more publicity for the convict,
| and more expensive than life sentences.
|
| And I agree that life sentences are really just death by
| another, longer means. I would also reserve them for the most
| extreme cases, where you are really convinced that someone will
| _never_ be able to live in society again without causing
| serious harm. There are definitely some cases out there that
| meet that, but many nevertheless tragic cases that don 't. Even
| them I'm not sure that there is any need for "life without" as
| the whole purpose of a parole board is to make these decisions
| --if the individual continues to behave poorly in prison and
| does not accept responsibility, he will not get parole.
| giantg2 wrote:
| My opinion is probably unpopular too.
|
| With the cost of execution these days, I'd like to see life
| with hard labor used more as a replacement. You know, earn your
| keep.
| throwaway38180 wrote:
| Humans are cruel when left unchecked.
|
| Did you really need to look at the article to know he was
| black?
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