In Georgia, how much time do you get to spend in jail if you assault a soldier while yelling racial slurs? A little over a month, apparently.
Troy Dale West, a southwest Georgia body shop owner, was sentenced in October to six months in jail for assaulting a female Army Reservist at a restaurant:
West faced a potential 10 years in prison after being charged with beating and kicking Tashawnea Hill as she walked out of the Clayton County restaurant on Sept. 9, 2009. Hill's 7-year-old daughter watched as West assaulted her mother while yelling racial slurs, police said. West, of Poulan, testified that Hill initiated the fight by spitting on him, which she denied.
After serving 1-1/2 months West is now a free man:
[Worth County Sheriff Freddie] Tompkins said West accepted work detail each day he was incarcerated. "It's normal procedure," the sheriff told the AJC. "We treated him the same as we would anyone serving for a misdemeanor."
And the cherry on top of the cake:
During his trial Clayton County assistant district attorney Jason Green asked West, "Is it acceptable to hit a woman?"
He replied, "It depends."
Because the problem with West's behavior is that he hit a woman, not that he assaulted a *person*.
And in an effort not to be outdone by miscarriages of justice in other parts of the country, prosecutors on Long Island distinguish themselves:
A Queens businesswoman has been to hell and back and it all started when she accused a former boyfriend of rape and, prosecutors say, he framed her for armed robbery.
Seemona Sumasar, 35, spent nearly seven months in jail for a crime she never committed, the Nassau County district attorney now admits.
"As much as I knew I was 100% innocent, I didn't know if I would see the light of day again," she said.
Sumasar was sprung last week, and yesterday, her conniving ex, Jerry Ramrattan, was charged as the mastermind of a stunning scheme. He was desperate to get her to drop the sex attack charges she filed in September 2009 after the two split up, officials said. So he paid two pals to concoct the armed robbery lies, authorities say.
Sumasar said cops thought she was crazy when she proclaimed her innocence and recounted the months of hell the spurned Ramrattan put her through.
"They acted like I'm just trying to blame somebody else for something I did," Sumasar told reporters. "They did not want to look at it at all."
...
"This was a brazen attempt to undermine the fair administration of justice," said Queens Assistant District Attorney Frank Di Gaetano. Queens Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter described Sumasar's saga as "very startling."
Sumasar and her lawyer call it all a miscarriage of justice.
They complain that investigators refused to check out her alibi that she was at a Connecticut casino when one of the armed robberies supposedly happened
It's good to be the prosecutor,
state or
federal.
