Chris Brown Guilty, but No Jail: Justice Served?
June 24, 2009
by The New Agenda
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photo credit: McNew/Getty
Chris Brown is a convicted felon after pleading guilty to assaulting Rihanna “by means likely to produce great bodily injury” in a deal that keeps him out of jail. Has justice been served?
On The Daily Beast, Linda Fairstein, former chief prosecutor of the New York County DA’s Office Sex Crimes Unit says:
While some will complain that he got off with “only” probation, the disposition in this case is harsher than my 30 years of prosecuting batterers had me betting it would be. In the average first arrest of a 20-year-old man with no criminal history and visible means of support — forget R&B star status — most cases are reduced to misdemeanors with a probation period of less than one year. Few communities have the resources to offer meaningful programs that try to re-educate offenders.
But on the Kaleidoscope Factor, Tracy Ricks Foster said:
What I wanna know is how did Chris Brown get off with only a slap on his wrists for beating the absolute crap out of Rihanna? …. How in the world does a man get away with nearly choking his ex girlfriend to the point of unconsciousness and receive probation and not some jail time? Chris Brown should be serving a minimum five month jail sentence instead of picking up trash along the interstate for five months!
There’s also the issue of whether justice was done for Rihanna. Bea Hanson, who works at Safe Horizon in Manhattan, told MTV about her concern regarding the stay away order issued:
It’s difficult when the criminal-justice system gets involved, because suddenly, the victim is on the sideline. It’s really about the abuser, and in this case, you have someone who sounded like she wanted to be with him. And the problem with the ‘stay away’ is the judge in that case said to her [that] it’s as much about her as it is him. And that really sends the wrong message to victims of domestic violence. Because she’s not the one that hit him; she was hit. And what it ends up looking like is that this [order] is something against her as well.
Some people, like recording artist Ciara, still are of the mindset that the issue should stay behind closed doors. In the following MTV video, she says
What’s happening in their personal world is in their personal world.
The Gold Derby, a Los Angeles Times “showbiz” blog, seemed to have yet other priorities, judging by this headline:
Can Chris Brown save career with plea deal in assault on Rihanna?
So what do you think, readers? Is the sentence fair? Is the stay-away order right? And what are the lessons America has learned from this beating and its aftermath?
Of course it is not fair. But, I’ll admit… it’s better then I expected. Quite frankly… I expected him to walk out of there free. No strings attached.
As for the “stay away orders.” How is he supposed to stay away from her, if she doesn’t from him? And isn’t that a common problem with abused women?? Going back to the abuser?
Not saying I know what the answer is. But, saying I think… in this case… the judge may have done the best he could wit the laws he had.
It’s not the judge that disturbs me. It’s women like Ciara… who are as clueless as the day is long. And who feed into the idea that “it’s nobody’s business” if another women is beaten, raped, killed…
Grow up, Ciara!
Cannot help but remember when Martha Stewart had to do jail time for 40K. They had to make an example of her.
What I heard on the news was that it was to be 150 days of either jail-time or labor-intensive community service. Assuming that Brown would pick the latter, is picking up trash “labor intensive”? I don’t think so.
It is absolutely not enough for what he did, and it made me very angry to hear that he got away with a slap on the wrist, but I was expecting even less. Isn’t that sad? We have so far to go before violence against women is taken seriously.
mamabroad, totally agree about the double standard against women. If Chris Brown was a woman, he would be in jail.
No it is not fair and it is another symbolic slap to the face of all women and sends a message to men in general that there isn’t too much to fear from the Law for assaulting a woman. People do time for stealing cigarettes and a woman gets savaged and not a day to be served.
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