Victims: Plea deals unsatisfying
Attorneys on both sides say they're necessary
May 05, 2019
"When perhaps the county's most notorious killer was ordered last year to spend 80 years in prison, the mother of the victim wasn't happy.
Janet Tinsley told an Allen County judge in December the sentence spelled out in a plea agreement between prosecutors and defense attorneys was not justice. April Tinsley, 8, was murdered by John D. Miller, 59, and the girl's mother wanted revenge.
“You took her life, and we want yours,” Tinsley said in court. “But, unfortunately, we're not getting that.”
Miller strangled and sexually assaulted April in 1988, and the case went unsolved for 30 years before he was arrested in July at his home in Grabill. He will likely die behind prison walls, but the opposition to the deal that paved his way there is common among victims of crimes, their families and advocates for tougher sentences for criminals.
The sentences are too light, they say. Prosecutors let those accused of crimes off easy and use plea agreements to close cases, padding conviction statistics, they argue.
But defense attorneys and prosecutors say there's more to it. They must carefully weigh the facts of the case, the likelihood of conviction at trial, the cost of pushing forward with the case, sparing victims the ordeal of testifying or sitting through emotional testimony at trial and innumerable other variables.
Moving more cases to trial would clog a court system already filled with cases awaiting resolution, lawyers say...."
Victims: Plea deals unsatisfying | Courts | Journal Gazette
