There are a lot of misconceptions about the "Hockey Dad."
There is no disagreement that the victim, Michael Costa, was the first to start the fight. There is a lot of disagreement about what happened afterward, as between witnesses for the defense and for the prosecution. The victim had a long record of violence, such as assaulting a police officer, and a history of psychiatric problems. These were not revealed to the jury. Still, the jury brought in a verdict of involuntary manslaughter, for which the sentencing guidelines call for 3 to 5 years. In the guidelines, the 5 years applies to persons with long criminal records; i.e., repeat felons. Junta had not been convicted of anything, although he had been charged once with beating his wife 10 years ago, as well as assaulting a cop. The judge doubled the maximum guideline sentence for involuntary manslaughter with the 6 to 10 year sentence.
It appears that the judge nullified the jury's verdict by imposing a sentence more appropriate to a case of voluntary manslaughter, a more serious crime. The judge said he was influenced by Junta's previous incident of wife-beating, but this raises the issue of why that should be relevant, if the victim's previous criminal history was not. The judge in his sentencing remarks characterized the case as "beating another man to death," even though the jury's verdict by definition was that Junta did not intentionally and knowingly try to kill someone.
This case is not nearly so clear-cut as a big burly truck driver grabbing an innocent bystander and beating them to death. Most guys get into a few altercations or shoving matches in their lifetime. One unlucky shove that happened to send a person to the floor where they hit their head and died from a blood clot on the brain could land you in court facing a manslaughter charge ... a million to one shot. But it could happen. And you could deserve punishment, but not on the order of ten years in prison.
IMO, the judge was unduly influenced by all the publicity surrounding this case. |
