Driver changes plea to guilty in Furp case
The marine charged with killing furry community member Furp in February 2009 has changed his plea to guilty, according to documents filed Thursday in San Bernardino Superior Court.
Jason Robert Reyna initially plead not guilty to charges of causing injury while driving under the influence of alcohol and driving with a blood alcohol level higher than 0.08%. Both are felony charges due to Furp's death. The defendant appears to have no prior record, and was spared the charges of vehicular manslaughter or second-degree murder. However, he may be subject to military justice following his sentence.
Furp's death was widely reported and resulted in the creation of a LiveJournal community dedicated to his memory. His collection of furry artwork and personal effects were auctioned off at Midwest FurFest 2009, raising over a thousand dollars for the convention charity.
About the author
GreenReaper (Laurence Parry) — read stories — contact (login required)a developer, editor and Kai Norn from London, United Kingdom, interested in wikis and computers
Small fuzzy creature who likes cheese & carrots. Founder of WikiFur, lead admin of Inkbunny, and Editor-in-Chief of Flayrah.
Comments
Is this system of law a joke?
A MARINE did this ?!?!
The accident occurred on a road close to the base, so it was quite likely to be due to someone working there.
still...
Yes, the person involved was a member of the Marine Corps.
Here's proof: http://www2.marines.mil/unit/29palms/Pages/News/2009/Apr/CombatCentermarksmenhit...
Includes a picture of him.
Why he was not charged with vehicular manslaughter I cannot comprehend.
Furp was a founding member of LAFF, and I knew him for over ten years. He's missed.
Aureth, my guess is that when a person is facing both a civilian and a military trial, double jeopardy laws still apply, so they're saving the more serious charges for a military trial.
Indeed; they actually recalled a retired soldier to active duty to retry him for murder after being acquitted in a state appeals court.
Ahh, you learn something new every day. Didn't know double jeopardy didn't apply to military folks.
It wouldn't supprise me the fact that a drunk marine did this. Two Romanians were killed (there were two 'accidents', both involving U.S. marines. One of the deceased was a priced artist) last year or so. (the marines were from a joint forces training, hosted by Romania) Both marines were simply taken back to America and all charges lifted.
Personally, while I am a firm supporter of the armed forces as my mate is also a marine, I believe this guy should get what he gave, that being DEATH. I mean really, we shouldnt even need laws to tell people driving drunk is dangerous and stupid, common sense will do that. And then, even with these laws they STILL do it? Naw, he had no place on this earth that we need to share with em. Send em to go hang out with Furp and maybe let Furp tell him the error of his ways. Someone thats too stupid to observe common sense AND the laws nee3d not be breathing our air and taking up space. Give him what he gave!
I think a better solution would be to take the driver out of the equation. Unfortunately, I don't see most people giving up control of their automobiles anytime soon - especially not in the USA.
Take the driver out of the equasion? Its a lil late when that driver had already killed someone.
In terms of future accidents, I meant. If all the effort spent on prosecuting people for killing people on the roads was instead devoted to developing technology to make sure it didn't happen again, I think we'd be better off.
Well, in this guys case, its not technology thats needed, but vigilant justice. Not so much of an affable approach, but more deliberate. I am sorry that I show no compassion towards stupidity, but this guy was just a flat out idiot. Whats really bad is my mate, the marine I mentioned previously, he used to be stationed at 29 Palms, where this guy was, and he said he was not suprised at all to hear of it. He said most of the marines he knew there drank like a fish for the most part. I think rather than making new laws and technology and such, I think they just simply need to go a different direction, and be a lil more aggressive with the punishments and such for dumb shit like this guy did.
Of course, if the technology continues to improve, maybe we won't have to wait so long after all.
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