Why Are These Types Of Sentences Not Applied To Gun Criminals?

Why are these types of sentences not applied to gun criminals?

The tri­al in what must have been one of the most vio­lent mur­der scenes ever, final­ly saw jus­tice done when a com­bined sen­tence of 110 years was hand­ed down by Judge Carol Lawrence-Beswick in the Home Circuit Court in down­town Kingston.
The accused were con­vict­ed and sen­tenced for the ani­mal­is­tic and inhu­mane ston­ing and chop­ping to death of a men­tal­ly dis­abled man, 29-year-old Stanley McLean.

The fam­i­ly of (5)accused, which includ­ed (1) Sixty-five-year-old Velma Dean, sen­tenced to life in prison must serve 30 years before being eli­gi­ble for parole.
(2) Her hus­band, 69-year-old Joseph Dean, was also sen­tenced to life in prison and must serve 25 years before he becomes eli­gi­ble for parole.
(3) Two of their chil­dren, Dwight and Richard were sen­tenced to 20 years in prison and will become eli­gi­ble for parole after serv­ing 12 years.
(4)Their sib­ling, Jermaine Dean, was sen­tenced to 15 years in prison and must serve 10 years before he is eli­gi­ble for parole.

The deceased man’s father tes­ti­fied that he saw Velma stand­ing over his son and chop­ping him mer­ci­less­ly after which her sons tied a rope around his feet dragged him into the streets where­upon they set upon him and com­menced chop­ping him.
We salute this judge [in this instance] for doing the right thing, con­sid­er­ing that the death penal­ty is no longer being applied. Given this judges deci­sion to make, I would per­son­al­ly have ensured that they nev­er see the sun again, but that is just me.

This fam­i­ly’s bar­barism and cal­lous dis­re­gard for human life encap­su­late in a real way how life is viewed in our coun­try. That a fam­i­ly of five peo­ple would set upon and slaugh­ter anoth­er human being, much less one of unsound mind is a tes­ta­ment to a derange­ment which is inex­plic­a­ble. Equally shock­ing is that no one with­in that fam­i­ly stood up and said “no”.

The most shock­ing state­ment com­ing out of the tri­al is that of the fam­i­ly’s attor­ney Ernie Smith who said that the sen­tences were exces­sive but he ’s hap­py there is a Court of Appeal.
Sentencing a fam­i­ly to prison for brutish­ly and sav­age­ly slaugh­ter­ing anoth­er human being, let alone one with a men­tal dis­or­der, is viewed as exces­sive by an offi­cer of the courts[sic].
A damn­ing indict­ment on our sense of wrong and right, our sense of decen­cy, moral­i­ty and on our sense of humanity.

We will be watch­ing this case fur­ther. In far too many instances cas­es which were appro­pri­ate­ly decid­ed over the years gets tossed on the slight­est bit of tech­ni­cal­i­ty at the appel­late level.
In more advanced democ­ra­cies appeals courts gen­er­al­ly do not dis­turb deci­sions hand­ed down by low­er courts, unless there is clear and unequiv­o­cal evi­dence of impro­pri­ety or new excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence is unearthed.

Not so in Jamaica, mere alle­ga­tions have demon­stra­bly been enough to cause cas­es to be tossed at the appel­late lev­el, this gives rise to the ques­tion, are dol­lars chang­ing hands and if so how much?
It appears many attor­neys pre­fer to have their fights at that lev­el which is curi­ous on its face, why at that lev­el? Are emo­tions less raw, are peo­ple less focused on cas­es after they have been decid­ed at the tri­al level?
This writer does not have that evi­dence but I aim to find out why it is that out of the glare of the pub­lic’s eyes, and with the cas­es, less fresh on peo­ple’s minds are, attor­neys more will­ing to fight like Custer’s last stand at the appel­late level?