Defend your daughter? 20 years in prison

This story is just insane. Stupid ``mandatory minimum sentences`` and stupid jurors strike again.

Are severe mandatory minimums for certain gun crimes especially problematic after Heller?
What happened :

In June 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment to the Constitution protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm “and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”... This [ruling] must ring awfully hollow to Orville Lee Wollard who, two years ago tomorrow was sentenced to two decades in a Florida prison for protecting his family with a firearm.

On a spring morning in 2008, Wollard got a panicked call from his wife. The teenage boyfriend who had been beating up his 15-year old daughter was back at their house causing trouble. Wollard rushed home and found the boy on the porch and his daughter with a black eye. Wollard told the boy to leave, but instead, the boy attacked him, ripping out stitches from Wollard’s recent surgery, and then ran off with Wollard’s daughter. When the two returned several hours later, the boyfriend began shoving Orville’s daughter around the Wollards’ home. Wollard’s wife and eldest daughter screamed for him to do something. Wollard was frightened for his daughter’s and his family’s safety.

He grabbed his legally registered pistol and confronted the boy, again asking him to leave. The boy stopped assaulting Wollard’s daughter. He smiled, punched a hole in the wall, and began moving toward Wollard. Wollard, who had had firearms training as a former member of the auxiliary police force, aimed a bullet into the wall next to the boyfriend to scare him. No one was hurt, and the boy finally left. That is where this story should have ended, but it didn’t.

What's crazy :

Several weeks later, the abusive boy called the police to report Wollard for aggravated assault, and Wollard was arrested. Orville Wollard did not think he had committed a crime by protecting his family. He rejected a plea deal that would have given him probation and a felony record and instead took his case to court. Prosecutors charged Wollard with various crimes, including shooting into a dwelling (his own house), child abuse (because the boy was under 18) and aggravated assault with a weapon. A jury convicted Wollard of possessing and discharging a firearm, which triggered Florida’s mandatory minimum sentence for aggravated assault with a weapon. Wollard was sentenced to the mandatory prison term of 20 years without parole.

Even the judge thought it was BS.

At sentencing, the judge said, “This [sentence] is obviously excessive … if it weren’t for the mandatory minimum … I would use my discretion and impose some separate sentence, having taken into consideration the circumstances of the event.”

Stupid jurors :

Wollard is right.... To be clear, a jury found Wollard guilty. Jurors apparently did not believe he acted in self-defense..... Whether this jury reached the correct conclusion is open to debate.

One good guy in jail for 20 years because of some stupid politicians and stupid voters who wanted ``mandatory minimum sentences`` to ``not be soft on crime``...

Life sucks really we have rapists, serial killers, and psycho elites going free while innocent people are being jailed

yeah that is the biggest bunch of bs i have read on here.

a father protecting his daughter from an idiot.

truthfully i would have done the same thing.

there is no justice in this world in a country that is suppose to have justice and liberty for all.

Bad Ju-Ju but Im betting there is more to the story than this

reply to post by Vitchilo


Controllers of a police state would never want its citizens to take the "law" into their own hands, oh no that would be demonstrating freedom of rights...instead he should of just called the police and waited 10-15 minutes until the proper authorities arrived..

reply to post by Vitchilo


This is a screwed up case. Do you know if he has appealed it? Myself, if it had been my daughter and my house, I would probably also be in jail. And the boy, dead and buried.

Better to be tried by 12, than be carried by 6.

this is why mandatory minimums are a complete crock of crap

Yea he should have called the cops. There are others ways to defuse situations against someone who doesnt have a weapon. And #, if your gonna just try to scare somebody have a cap gun or blanks near. Sounded like he had plenty of time to do other things than to just shoot a round into his own house.

honestly you know who write gun control laws if they cant ban guns outright

this is the flip side of the arguement.

own a gun go to jail if it s not on a list that we tell you that you can own.

use a gun but only if we deem it to be a lawful act or else you go to jail.

not to make this partisan but you know what party wrote that manditory bs.

if we dont revolt soon then all is lost

He shoulda just called the cops. Not like he didn't have enough time to hit 911.

I agree he shouldn't be in jail or anything and this is an example of how firearms usually cause more problems than they solve. Had he not had a weapon he would have handled the situation differently (like calling the cops) but instead his first instinct was to grab his firearm.

Pulling a gun on a kid should be an absolute last resort and this was not the case here otherwise he would have shot him dead.

Man that really sucks, but I have to ask:

Why did the man not press charges first? He is not the law, and should have called the police.
If the kid was pointing a loaded gun at him I could understand firing the shots. But there really was no need
to fire the gun.

The punishment certainly does not fit the crime and it is sad that he will be subject to such BS.

He should have shot and killed the punk and put a knife in the punks hand then called the police...You have to play their game the way the play it "To Win".....They lie, cheat, steal, and kill, we should follow pursuit.....when it comes to bringing bastards down you need to do it any way you can.....Lets get rid of these puck a$$ people and have a better world for it........

This would most likely have had a different outcome had the boy been brought up on assault charges prior. The courts seem to reward the first complainant, the first in best dressed.
Im all for mandatory minimum sentencing but only for repeat offenders, first time offenders should not be locked up for twenty years.
Murderers dont do ten years here unless its a cop!

Originally posted by lestweforget
This would most likely have had a different outcome had the boy been brought up on assault charges prior.

Exactly.

I'd like to add that he wasn't protecting his daughter he was flexing his muscle and it bit him in the ass.

I f he had killed him and pleaded guilty.
he would be out in less time.
Like most true criminals.

I would have shot him dead and then put one of the kitchen knives in his hand.
That punk is just going to hurt someone else now.

Completely over the top punishment. This man should of got a slap on the wrist at the most.

But It leaves one big question in my mind, Why did a fully grown man need a pistol to scare off a minor? What happened to fists, surely he could of just given him a clip round the ears (or beaten the crap out of him) and thrown him off his land.

reply to post by Vitchilo


Another example of the corrupt so called justice system...stupid jururs.

Originally posted by Reprobation
reply to post by Vitchilo

 

Another example of the corrupt so called justice system...stupid jururs.

Jurors do not get to write their own laws you know. There were specific crimes laid out before them (read them above) and they do not have the option of looking at things outside the scope of that. Every law presented them was a no-brainer as to what their decision was with no wiggle room whatsoever.

The jurors could not have decided differently if they wanted too. The issue isn't that he broke the laws though it's more about the mandatory sentence which does not allow a judge to look at other evidence as to the reasons why a crime was committed. In this case neither the jurors or the judge could do anything to help this man out.

The law had effectively tied their hands.