We interrupt our ongoing coverage of a criminal case that raises a few minor questions about the Tennessee justice system to comment on a criminal case that raises one very large question about the Tennessee justice system.
Aaron Wilson pointed out earlier tonight that former Titans and current Redskins defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth is in the process of resolving reckless driving charges in Williamson County, Tennessee.
As Aaron noted, the incident occurred while Haynesworth was on probation for driving his car more than 100 miles per hour in March 2008, also in Williamson County. Aaron also pointed out that Haynesworth ultimately faced no jeopardy to his probation because officials weren’t aware of the new charges until after the 30-day period of supervised probation ended.
Um, are you freaking kidding me?
I’m not, and never was, an expert in criminal law (a reality with which some of you who disagree with our suspicions as to the Steve McNair case would surely agree). But how in the hell does the person on probation not have an absolute duty to immediately disclose to his or her probation officer any new incidents occurring during the probation period.
And how in the hell does that not constitute a separate violation that survives the conclusion of the probationary period?
Frankly, someone screwed up here, and as a result Haynesworth has gotten away with an otherwise clear violation of his probation.
So can someone remind me again what we’re exactly paying all these taxes for?
THe lesson, as always, is don’t live in Tennessee.
something just stinks to me about this one…i bet shawn taylor is on some conspiracy here too
Good point. Someone screwed up. Hopefully no one in the future gets hurt by a vehicle Albert Haynesworth drives.
You don’t pay taxes in Tennessee, Florio. You pay taxes in West Virginia, you should be complaining about how only half of the roads are paved, or how the only running water is yellow and comes off the mountain.
So can someone remind me again what we’re exactly paying all these taxes for?
—————
I hear it’s to fight global warming.
Because as everyone knows, heat is afraid of money.
Mr Florio,
You are so naive!
We pay taxes in order to pay the salaries of 100 Senators and 435 members of the House of Representatives.
Anything beyond that…..not sure.
Important things like Michael Jacksons service!
“So can someone remind me again what we’re exactly paying all these taxes for?”
So not only are you not a defense attorney, you’re not a tax attorney either, or you’d have a caymans account like I do. Taxes are for fools.
I learned all my legal advice from John Grisham novels and I seem to be a step ahead of you today…for shame. Have some old paperbacks laying around I can send you if you want, but be advised, I don’t want sci fi qb books in return. Having read Grisham was slumming enough.
this is bullsh*t.. f- haynesworth, f- the judicial system & f- the redskins!
@Florio: So can someone remind me again what we’re exactly paying all these taxes for?
Not nearly as much taxes the Albert is paying….
“(a reality with which some of you who disagree with our suspicions as to the Steve McNair case would surely agree). ”
Let’s see…young unstable woman, rich man acting like she is a queen, busted for DUI, left in the back a police car w/out talking to her, rent payments doubling, paying 2 car payments, selling all her furniture on Craigslist, buying a gun for $100, and seeing another woman leaving her “love nest”…Oh and did I mention the hole in the side of her head with burn marks from the barrell and the matter left splattered on his body as she fell on his lap….
Yeah – lots of suspicion left here…must be some crazy lack of competence by another police dept.
Good grief…some things just are what they look like they are…
tru dat smush. FTW.
I’m sorry, but I’m that twisted that I’m happy for the man. This is why you don’t call the jokers on the back of your yellow pages. Lawyers make all the difference. I wonder if I could interest you into starting “Criminaldefenselawyertalk.com” I’d be a bigger fanboy of that site than even this one, and I push PFT(not the fruity juice) like weight. It’d be so much easier to tell people to go to PFT.com, than profootballtalk.com which no doubt people forget by the time I say it.
Speaking of the fruity juice, now that we’re on NBC, can’t we scrounge up enough coin from under the couches to buy up PFT.com from those fruity juice pushers?
Also learn me this, Mikey, exactly what the hell kind of lawyer were you? Obviously a good one if you could do the bare minimum at the law practice and make enough money to support a household while running this site on your own for 8 years, but what kind of law? I’ve always wondered.
Well, given that its nearly 100% certainty that it was “unsupervised probation” then this is not noteworthy. Unsupervised probation means just that, no one monitors you. Sooooo, if you get in trouble somewhere else, and no one finds out about it or moves to revoke you, then after your probation is done then that charge is over. Happens all the time.
@Akshon
@Akshun You should get a hug from one of your two dads. Tell them only a hug. HAIL!
Car that goes 185 mph + idiot = the exposure of more idiots.
well the blood will be on the hands of whoever let Haynesworth off if he decides to be stupid again but kills someone.
“So can someone remind me again what we’re exactly paying all these taxes for?”
Flo-Rida…there’s a great quote from a great country overseas, and I’ll translate it for you to answer your question.
“So you can waste even more energy out your @$$.”
Think about it for a sec…
@RedskinPete- the only FAIL here is your attempt to spell “akshon” and “akshun”
First, TN has no state income tax.
Two, Florio you don’t live in TN and wouldn’t be paying them if they did exist anyway.
Three, TheWhiz has it right and beat me to the punch.
Where the hell did you go to law school, Florio? Did they not have criminal law classes there?
No Kiddin Mike,
This is your system and tax dollars at work for you, and neither one is set up to do much of anything efficiently. Now I’m not up to speed on TN law, but let me tell you what probably happened. This is a case of an overworked P&P (probation and parole) officer who believed Albert when he told the guy he hadn’t been in any trouble. The P&P signed off on his paper saying Albert had the seal of approval from the great state of TN. Later it comes out he violated his parole, but an overworked, heavily burden prosecutor’s office is told by a highly paid defense attorney that all means necessary will be sought to prove his clients innocence. This means huge amounts of man power and tax dollars go into a court case that will get decided on the whim of a judge who may or may not wake up on the wrong side of a bad hair day one morning. So the question the prosecutor’s ask is…is one reckless driving charge worth it? I fall onto both sides of this argument and realize that… I don’t know. So Albert did get lucky again. And that’s what money can do for some people. And the other thing money does, for ALL of you believing that Albert gaining that huge contract requires him to pay more taxes, is buy a good tax attorney to seek out ways around paying taxes, such as purchasing assest to donate but leaving you a huge tax write-off instead. Uhh huh, not to fair all around if you want mho!
well Mike,
Your massive Federal Income tax goes DIRECTLY to the pockets of the private, for-profit bank we (for some reason) call the Federal Reserve in order to pay the INTEREST on past war loans.
Does anybody care?
Google video search : George Carlin, Who Owns America.
R.I.P. George Carlin.
Eddie Drycleaner says: July 8, 2009 10:25 PM
“Also learn me this, Mikey, exactly what the hell kind of lawyer were you? ”
——————–
i think he is a property lawyer. i believe Mrs. Florio might be a lawyer too…Florios mug has scheister written all over it…
Mike: reminds me of an interview with Junior Johnson, the late NASCAR driver, when asked about doing a stint in jail for bootlegging. Junior said down where he was from they never thought they were doing anything wrong. “Hell,” he said “my uncle was the sheriff.”
We already knew in tennessee you can use the:
“i didn’t know the stressed out immigrant girl i sold the gun to in the parking lot was under 21″ explanation.
Or the
“the only thing i moved in the whole condo was one bullet casing” explanation.
So what about the “its not a violation of your probation if the paperwork doesn’t arrive until after your term expires” explanation surprises you?
OK actual lawyer here. There are two types of probation. Supervised (by a probation officer) and unsupervised (which no one is keeping an eye on.) Unsupervised probation is given to nearly everyone that pleads to anything, particulary traffic matters. I would very surprised if he had a probation officer for speeding.
Also the word parole has been misused repeatedly in this conversation.
Also, Tennessee has no income tax.
as i practice criminal law in PA, the same avoidance of probation revocation could happen here (and probably has countless times): a district attorney can’t revoke probation after the probation sentence (or any other sentence, i.e., parole) has ended, because the legal effect of the end of the probation sentence means the case is closed. it might raise double jeopardy issues otherwise… but as everyone can see 30 days is such a short time to ‘fail to disclose’ this kind of event, and then a short timeline for the DA to file the petition to revoke. carnage has it right about unsupervised probation being the likely story here. also, because the speeding may have only been a summary offense, the effort to revoke might not be worth what he would be resentenced to.
the other thing to note is that there are other people who might have brought this to the probation or the DA’s attention: the police officer who investigated Haynesworth on the second incident (did he run a criminal history check?)…the victim himself, maybe the victim’s insurance company…these would all be unusual events, but not impossible.