XPost: oh.general, alt.crime, misc.legal   
   XPost: sac.politics, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   From: emailbarry@yahoo.com   
      
   The four Ohio teens who pleaded guilty to dropping a sandbag off a   
   freeway overpass that killed a 22-year-old man were given a suspended   
   sentence and ordered to a treatment center on Friday.   
      
   Marquis Byrd was the passenger in a vehicle that was hit by the   
   sandbag dropped onto Interstate 75 in Toledo last December. Byrd was   
   left in critical condition and died three days later in the hospital.   
      
   The four teens, all aged 13 or 14, pleaded guilty to either murder or   
   manslaughter. The boy who dropped the sandbag pleaded guilty to murder   
   while the other three pleaded to involuntary manslaughter, the Toledo   
   Blade reported. The teen who pleaded guilty to murder was sentenced to   
   the Department of Youth Services until he turns 21, while the teens   
   who pleaded guilty to manslaughter were sentenced to three years in   
   the Department of Youth Services.   
      
   All four sentences were suspended by the judge in favor of being sent   
   to Toledo's Lucas County Youth Treatment Center.   
      
   "It's a treatment facility, for certain services, to provide so these   
   boys change their behavior and can become productive members of our   
   community," Judge Denise Navarre Cubbon said.   
      
   The decision to suspend the teens' sentences and send them to the   
   treatment facility drew outrage from Lillian Diallo, the Byrd family's   
   lawyer, who called the decision "outrageous."   
      
   "Suspended what? If you do what? So eight months you get to go home?"   
   Diallo told Toledo ABC station WTVG outside the courtroom following   
   the sentencing. "This child will never be at home. His son will never   
   see him. His mother will never be able to say, 'Hey son, how are you?   
   How's your day?' Touch his face, see his face. This is outrageous."   
      
   There were 30 letters written on behalf of Byrd, asking for a strong   
   punishment for the boys. The four convicted teens apologized in court   
   to the victim's family.   
      
   "I pray for him and his family every single day and night and cannot   
   imagine what they are going through and how they feel right now," one   
   of the boys said Friday, reading from a letter.   
      
   The four teens initially pleaded not guilty to the charges of murder   
   and vehicular vandalism, the Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office said.   
      
   "Let me tell you something -- at the age of 10 you know if you take   
   something and put it in a moving lane of traffic, you should know what   
   the consequence will be," Diallo said. "You didn't take the sandbag   
   and throw it on the side. You took that sandbag and you threw it down   
   there to that boy's death."   
      
   Diallo, who knew Byrd, told ABC News in January that Byrd, a father to   
   a 2-year-old boy, was planning a surprise proposal for his girlfriend,   
   the mother of his child.   
      
   http://abcnews.go.com/US/ohio-teens-suspended-sentence-dropping-   
   andbag-off-overpass/story?id=54302511   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)