My friend was livid yesterday about the sentences handed down in the trial of double murderer Richard Brown, who confessed to the killing of Phillip Paulwell’s 10-month-old child and her mother, Toshyna Patterson. My friend does not feel that the sentence fits the crime; I concur.
The depraved beast had the gall to pen a letter to the court claiming he was sorry for the heinous act he was a part of committing with the sole intent of exploiting the well-known irrational leniency with which the courts mete out sentences.
It worked!!!
Thirty (30) years is absolutely not anyone’s idea of a decisive sentence for a man who, with depraved indifference, murdered a young mother and her 10-month-old infant child.
If you thought the thirty-year sentence was a slap in the face of our country and the grieving family, Richard Brown was additionally sentenced to one year and ten (10) months imprisonment at hard labor for the kidnapping of the mother and baby.
On the kidnapping alone, he should have been given a life sentence, not to mention the double murder.
The sordid tale of the murder of the young 27-year-old mother and her infant child has been all over the media like a soap opera. It involved an American National who happened to be a member of that country’s armed services, a powerful Jamaican politician, jealousy, hatred, and young men and women easily lured into crime by the specter of easy money.
And so Toshyna Patterson and her infant child became the victims of jealousy and depraved minds who are quite willing to ‘kill and collect, drink and forget.”
For almost two decades, this writer has written hundreds of articles speaking to the lack of real sentencing in Jamaica, a phenomenon that has helped exponentially to embolden the nation’s heartless killers.
Additionally, the fact that US Navy Culinary Specialist Seaman Leoda Bradshaw, who also has an eight-year-old daughter with Paulwell and has been charged in the matter, thought she would get away with contracting murder for hire and simply walk away speaks to how they view Jamaica’s justice system…
But who can blame them for thinking the Police are dumb or that the judges are in love with murderers? Brown’s accomplice, Roshane Miller, was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison for two counts of accessory before the fact of murder for his role in the crimes. Additionally, he was sentenced to two years and ten months imprisonment at hard labor for conspiracy to kidnap and one year and 10 months at hard labor for misprison of a felony. The sentences are to run concurrently.
This is justice Jamaican style, and please don’t get me started on the high-priced lawyers that these monsters are able to hire when they are caught. Jamaica simply cannot continue this way, but this is a wonderful opportunity for the PNP’s Phillip Paulwell to champion legislation in the House to add teeth to crimes exactly like these. Paulwell, tongue in cheek, issued a statement about being sad at the events. We don’t need Paulwell and the PNP to be sad; we need them to help with legislation with teeth. Stop supporting criminals by blocking tough legislation that would send strong messages that we will no longer tolerate these acts of criminality.
Talk is cheap; this is the opportunity for Pualwell to step up or shut up; talk is cheap.
We need mandatory minimum sentences of life without parole for crimes of depraved indifference like this one. We do not need judges handing down sentences of 71⁄2 years for conspiracy to murder, which in actuality is murder. We do not need judges handing down sentences of two years and ten months imprisonment at hard labor for conspiracy to kidnap and one year and ten months at hard labor for misprison of a felony.
This is a damn disgrace.….
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Mike Beckles is a former Police Detective, businessman, freelance writer, black achiever honoree, and creator of the blog mikebeckles.com.