31 years after crime, killer gets 31 years

[Herman Munster]

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15533870.htm

An 87-year-old woman, who disappeared for three decades after being convicted of murdering a teenager, showed no remorse for her crime. Now she'll spend the rest of her life in prison. 31 years later, it's 31 years

Maria Otero looked fragile as she stood in court for her sentencing, 31 years after she shot and killed a 13-year-old who was swimming in the pool of her apartment complex without permission. But the petite 87-year-old was fierce Friday in her denial of any responsibility for the child's death or for her own decision to skip bail and hide for 30 years rather than face prison for the crime.

''Never will I accept it. I did not commit a crime,'' she said. Otero's insistence she did nothing wrong only angered Circuit Judge David H. Young, who told her she could have avoided a long sentence had she not skipped bail so many years ago. But before he could finish, Otero interrupted him to say -- again -- that she never felt guilty.

''You never felt guilty for what you did?'' he said, not waiting for an answer. ``OK. That makes this easier since there is no remorse.'' And he pronounced the sentence -- 31 years, six months and three days in prison.

[Maine-ah]

1. pft.

NOT COLD-BLOODED'

''She is not the cold-blooded person that some would have this court believe,'' Casabielle said. ``This woman, for the past 30 years, has not been out partying. She has been suffering.''



IF she had been "suffering", you'd think she'd hold some remorse. Even in accidental situations, people are remorseful.

[MADem]

3. Yeah, she TOTALLY screwed herself! Amazing....she got off light!

At the 1976 trial, two of Johnnie's friends testified Otero aimed and fired at them as they were running away. Johnnie was already across the street from the apartment building when he was hit in the back of the head.

With Johnnie's parents sitting in the courtroom, Otero said she understood their suffering because her own son had died. But her sympathy rang hollow when the prosecutor questioned her, noting her son had died of cirrhosis of the liver as an adult.

''Your son wasn't 13 when he was killed. As a matter of fact, he wasn't killed, was he?'' Aponte-Frank said.

''No, because he wasn't swimming in a pool where he shouldn't have,'' Otero snapped, causing several in the courtroom, including the Miami detective who arrested her, Andy Arostegui, to gasp audibly.

[MADem]

2. People who think that "kids today" don't take responsibility should read

this article. Here's a woman who was in her fifties back in 75, and here's her attitude:

In court, Otero tried to explain what happened that day in 1975 when she caught a group of boys swimming in her pool. She owned the Edgewater apartment building and lived on the fifth floor. She had run them off before but they came back. She was worried about her property insurance and, wanting to scare them, pulled out her gun.

''It was a way to get the boys to leave,'' she said Friday. ``The kids were going to drown or get hurt there.''

She insisted that she slipped on her balcony and the gun accidentally went off. {My editorial comment: cough/bullshit}

''I want the parents to understand that I am not a criminal, and I didn't do anything,'' she said. ``There are accidents every day. Why couldn't mine be an accident?''

The idiot coulda walked with probation if she'd said she felt terrible and lived with the pain of guilt, remorse and shame every day since the incident, and only ran because she feared the death penalty or some such bullshit.

Instead, she'll die in the joint. And if justice is served, she'll live for a long, long, time, and die on the day she gets let out on probation with good behavior.

[madmusic]

4. I don't get that.

Remorse is after the fact. If it indeed happened the way she said and it was an accident, that is one thing. If it was premeditated murder, that is another.

One or the other of these is the basis of the crime/sentence.

Remorse should not be the ruling factor; facts of the case should. Lack of remorse can and should be an aggravating factor, but when compared to the deed, only a secondary one, not, as in this case, the primary factor of the sentence.

[MADem]

7. It's not a question of "getting" it, it's just how the system works

If an old lady gets up and boo hoos and acts as though she's been suffering horribly because of her actions, and sells the idea of a terrible, unpremeditated accident, most judges will go easy on her, and juries will nullify, even if they suspect the witch actually killed the kid deliberately. Short sentence, probation, even house arrest. Why? Geriatric care in prisons suck. Quality of mercy. Lack of rehabilitative need (assuming sincerity of remorse). That kind of thing.

In any event, remorse was only an aggravator. She pulled an Annie Oakley--shot the kid in the back of his head while he was running across the street. Then, she tried to claim it was an accident while acting like a complete and arrogant shithead.

With a bit of drama and tears, she might have sold the 'accident' story, but making commentary suggesting the deceased got what he deserved didn't help her at all.

Time to pick up the book and toss it at her. Hard.

[madmusic]

8. Thanks.

And now that I've read the article... :)

Assistant State Attorney Audrey D. Frank-Aponte had recommended the long sentence. It represented the 31 years and three days that elapsed from when Otero killed 13-year-old Johnnie Perez and when she was rearrested in April in Allapattah, plus six months for skipping bail.

Was the recommendation before or after her current testimony? If before, then her lack of remorse only made it easier for the judge to follow it.

She told Judge Young that she never came back to court or turned herself in because she didn't have faith in her lawyer, Donald Bierman. ''Flee? I never fled. They didn't look for me,'' she said defiantly.

Young dismissed her excuse, calling Bierman ``an incredible lawyer.''

''What's so sad about this whole situation is that if you had respected the courts and appeared when you were supposed to appear . . . I suspect the sentence you got would have been finished five years later,'' he said.

Indeed, probation officers at the time recommended ''a minimal sentence.'' And the original lead detective, Otis Davis, had argued for the same.

Maybe she's senile now. Anyway, the sentence recommendation is based on the time she fled, not, it seems, her lack of remorse. I'm not so sure felony "lack of respect for the court" is enough reason, either. If justice was 5 years then, then being stupid enough to flee and being a smart ass now doesn't seem enough to multiply that by 6. The crime itself is still the same. Does that make sense? In any event, the climate of crime and punishment changed drastically in the last 31 years, so that is probably a factor as well.

[hlthe2b]

5. Why is it when I read about this woman'[s lack of remorse...

and refusal to take responsibility... I am somehow reminded of Nancy Grace and the interview that led to suicide for her troubled guest (woman whose child was missing)...

I'm just saying it somehow reminds me....:shrug:

[madmusic]

10. Excellent point.

There is an enlightening book about how the Right hijacked victim's rights and adopted it to their tough on crime philosophy. Nothing has served Republicans as well as this has.

http://www.amazon.com/Cruel-Justice-Strikes-Politics-America/dp/0520246683/">Cruel Justice: Three Strikes and the Politics of Crime in America's Golden State (Paperback)

Book Description
When the people of California overwhelmingly voted for the 1994 "three strikes" law, many had no idea what they were approving. The official ballot argument in favor of what Newsweek called "the toughest law in the nation" kept it simple: "Three strikes keeps career criminals who rape women, molest children and commit murder behind bars where they belong." What few people realized, however, was that the sweeping nature of the law would put thousands of nonviolent men and women in prison for twenty-five years to life, for crimes as minor as shoplifting $2.69 worth of AA batteries, forging a check for $94.94, or attempting to buy a macadamia nut disguised as a $5 rock of cocaine. In his riveting, well-documented book, Joe Domanick reveals the drama of the shattered lives involved with the law. Focusing on personal stories, Cruel Justice expands to tell the larger tale of how the law came into existence; how it has played out; what political, social, and economic forces lie behind it; and how the politics of crime and fear work in America. Domanick demonstrates how laws passed in haste, without deliberation, and in reaction to public hysteria can have unforeseen consequences as tragic as those they were designed to thwart. Domanick draws powerful portraits of the two innocent young girls--Kimber Reynolds and Polly Klaas--whose murders were the catalyst for the three strikes law; of the men who killed them; of the fathers who sought their revenge; and especially of the many people serving lengthy prison terms who are victims of the three strikes law itself.

What surprised me was that Mike Reynolds, the major proponent of 3-Strikes, had friends in high Republican places, and this was a concerted political effort that had more to do with elections than with victim's rights. It worked beyond their wildest dreams across the country.

[Hav]

11. .

Oh my God...she deserves a place worse than hell.

[Taxloss]

6. Good. n/t

[SmokingJacket]

9. That terrible old woman should have been on Wanted posters. nt

[michreject]

12. I don't suspect

She will last long. Maybe not even be here to see Santa.