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Bad Idea: Passing Notes Before Court
August 23, 2013
Three Escambia County men pleaded guilty to home invasion and robbery after court security deputies discovered a note written by one of the defendants to another.
Joshua Burgess, Chaz West and Marquise Williams,were awaiting trial before Judge Jan Shackelford stemming from a December 25, 2012, incident.
As court security deputies Richie Faunce and Joseph Kastor were taking the inmates to the courtroom, they noticed one of the men digging in his jumpsuit. When questioned, he stated he was missing a letter he had received from his attorney.
Deputy Kastor found a note in the jury box. Upon closer inspection, he realized that the note was from one of the suspects to the other advising on what to say in order to get their stories straight for trial.
After the note was found, all three co-defendants pleaded guilty to the charges rather than going to trial.
Comments
19 Responses to “Bad Idea: Passing Notes Before Court”
I wish too that Jackson< Sharpton, Ali & so many more would sincerely concentrate on "their" youths as they have called young African Americans. Truly help them by teaching right from wrong at young ages. Teach them morals, principles & values. Instead of misleading them by telling them that they "are suppressed" and it's not their fault. So many are tired of the crap from the modern so-called civil rights leaders. MLK is rolling in his grave at what "civil rights" leaders have become.
I very much enjoy the banter between you all. Who cares if our words are not perfect or the sentence isn’t formed correctly! I write mostly the way I speak do I hurt anyone??
As for the fellas I think the chain gang cleaning up behind all of the pan handlers around Pensacola and any other places we have trash issues would serve our community just fine and dandy.
All these folks need to get a job, pay their taxes and stop acting like their old fashion Molasses.
I am tired of seeing stealing, dead beats, lazy young girls, druggies and folks stealing from our elderly. Oh, and side of the road beggars!
Please make the prisons less comfortable so they would be happier outside rather than inside those walls!!!
I’m done thanks for your ear (so to speak).
We can only hope they all get at least 15 yrs. You can bet good money that whatever punishment they get there will be no lesson learned
@Ash
“There is no such word as pleaded…. Dear Lord Go back to English class”
Where do I begin? Lets start with your improper use of ellipses. When a writer intends to use an ellipsis to conclude a unfinished thought, three dots are used. You decided to use four dots. Your use of capitalization is also troubling. You decided to capitalized “Go” for some reason. Finally, to wrap up this unfounded rant against William’s grammatical injustices, you conclude your sentence with no sign of any punctuation. I guess you must have slept through that day in English class! You should try being nice to people and I bet people will be nice to you!
@Robert S, I agree. It is funny how people can find one thing in a article and go totally left and debate on something that’s not really relevent at all. Well I did get my giggle for today.
@ Robert S…. Touche’..
OK, but I’ll stick with “pled”, maybe because that’s just the way I am. It was correct, and has not become incorrect.
Too Funny….how discussion on this article has gone from these three poor misguided dingbats playing the role of “Naughty Reverse Santa” to one of who is using the more correct wording.
Do greatly enjoy the exchanges though, shows we have many who do study the language and the law and the language of the law.
How about the word, “irregardless”….?
Irregardless of whether it is
pleaded or pled
twas not one word muttered
or said
it was a simple handwritten note
that got these three dingbats goat.
CONTEMPLATING FURTHER:
“There is no such word as pleaded…. Dear Lord Go back to English class”
There are all kinds of words. Some are colloquial, some are official, some are generally accepted, some are frowned upon. The most interesting point here was made by William when he pointed out:
” U.S. Supreme Court has used “pleaded” in more than 3,000 opinions and “pled” in only 26—and in some of those instances the court was quoting others”
One of the fun things about the United States Constitution is that under it, the Supreme Court can not be wrong. (If you don’t believe it, look up the word “supreme” and consider if they have the final say, that means nobody else can over ride. Congress can rewrite laws in accordance with their rulings or else those in disagreement are illegal. The people can amend the Constitution to change what it says but until we do, their rulings stand unchallenged.
By the way, we don’t have to comply with the Supreme Court on non legal matters so we can continue to “pled” if we wish and use “ain’t” and “gonna” and “et” (which IS proper English, just not proper American) and all those other words we like. We can even “nuke” food even though microwaves don’t affect the nuclei.
See? We get more out of this story than the obvious fact that some morons exist and pass notes in court.
David for freedom of speech
and all its variations
>There is no such word as pleaded…. Dear Lord Go back to English class
Pleaded is a word, and it is the preferred past tense in written form over the colloquial term pled , according to the AP Stylebook which most of the nation’s newspapers follow.
There is no such word as pleaded…. Dear Lord Go back to English class
o.k. once again..three beauties..where is rev. Jessie Jackson and al Sharpton and ms. ali to talk about these three boys…
>Pleaded? I think it’s pled.
It’s pleaded, not pled, according to the Associated Press Stylebook (the “guide” to newspaper writing).
Interestingly, the American Bar Association Journal uses pleaded, and states that ” U.S. Supreme Court has used “pleaded” in more than 3,000 opinions and “pled” in only 26—and in some of those instances the court was quoting others” in an article explaining such.
Yes Cygle, it would have been preferable for these men to have obeyed the law and sought an honest living. Since that was not on their agenda, and they so aptly proved that, I have no problem with us housing, feeding and clothing them ( and for a great long time too). Heck, I’d hope we offer them a retirement plan.
Home invasion… and on Christmas at that. Those guys have no place in our society.
This has to go in the books as Things A Dumb Crook does… So funny…Thanks for saving us the tax dollars. They should be locked up for 10 years on the crime then another 10 to protect themself from each other…
So then feeding, housing and clothing these three for 15 years is priceless also? Maybe obeying the law would have been the true savings to the taxpayers.
Great observations to the court security deputies. Can never have enough “eyes” on the suspects. Prevention of collaboration between suspects and persons of interest is why the LEO keep them separated.
Wonder what their next “Sentence” will be?
Pleaded? I think it’s pled.
This is priceless. The three stooges convict themselves and save the tax payers the money from prosecuting them. See ya fellas in about 10-15 years… Adios!