The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    The Bed-Stuy Chain Saw Massacree

    By jollyroger on Sat, 09/22/2012 - 6:31am |

    From the annals of Brooklyn justice an illuminating tale, casting in bold relief the true venality of prosecutors trolling for easy pleas.

    As the charging documents would have it, defendant Shaborn Emmanuel was a particularly dangerous fellow. In a common commercial conundrum, he had accepted drugs on consignment and now found himself, through circumstances not made immediately clear, in possession of neither the inventory nor the money owed therefore.

    His supplier, evidently unconvinced by the bald assertion that a thief had unfortunately made off with the goods, gave Emmanuel a choice. "Present me", he said "with my money or the head of the thief".

    I think you can see where this story is going.

    At a loss to actually produce a thief (hint:like so many retailers of fine drugs, he was probably.his own best customer) Emmanuel did the logical thing. He picked out a random junkie, and took a chain saw to his neck, thus placing himself in possession of the necessary trophy to satisfy his irate creditor.

    So saith the indictment. (Emmanuel currently denies his previous plea of guilty).

    Here is where the instructive part of the tale comes in. In return for his plea, the prosecutor agreed to a stipulated sentence of TWO YEARS TO SIX!!.

    This can only be a monstrous miscarriage of justice: If guilty, a heinous psychopath will be loosed upon an unsuspecting public before the next set of presidential primaries. If innocent, a plea of guilty to a horrible act has been extorted by bringing the defendant to a precipice threatening him with spending his life in jail. (I incline towards the latter theory).

    Simply put, it beggars imagination that a prosecutor sincerely believing a defendant to be such a cold blooded psychopath would offer a plea deal involving such a trivial sentence. One way or another, this prosecutor exemplifies everything that is wrong with our criminal "justice " system.

    Comments

    You are nuts, you know?

    The reason I know that I am nuts is why I know you are nuts!

    But why would anyone side with the sanes?

    2 years to six?

    There are Black folks doin 6 to life because they had too much fun in their pockets?

    In the end....

    I guess we know how to get ahead in this society.

    Now if you brought me the head of Tony Robins....

     

    Well I would be impressed!

    What was the question again?

     


    by Richard Day on Sat, 09/22/2012 - 8:49pm

    Fire walk with me..unleash the power within!

    by jollyroger on Sat, 09/22/2012 - 9:02pm

    GOD I HOW HATE THAT GUY.

    HAAHAHAHAH


    by Richard Day on Sat, 09/22/2012 - 9:09pm

    Mind you, I am not necessarily coming down on the side of long sentences, but, chain saw! head! Ya feel me?

    by jollyroger on Sat, 09/22/2012 - 9:19pm

    .

    by jollyroger on Sat, 09/22/2012 - 9:18pm

    From the Dec 2, 2011 trial report linked to in your link:

    Prosecutors, Michael Ross (the victim's brother) said, were worried that the former addicts would falter on the witness stand. So they allowed Mr. Emmanuel, now gray and 53, to plead guilty to manslaughter.

    There's other interesting info there:

    On Madison Street, the story of what had happened was taking shape. Mr. Emmanuel was a drug dealer selling large amounts of cocaine for his supplier. He had sent a girlfriend to pick up a kilogram from the supplier, and she was robbed of the drugs before she could bring them to Mr. Emmanuel. The supplier then held the woman as ransom. You can have her back, the dealer told Mr. Emmanuel, if you pay for the missing drugs or bring the head of whoever stole them.

    Mr. Emmanuel had no idea who stole the drugs. So he drove to the Bronx and found a homeless man and grabbed him or lured him into the car, then brought him to that basement. A woman who was present told the police, “The dead guy had his hands like he was praying, and was saying, ‘Please, please.’ ”

    Mr. Emmanuel picked up a chain saw. Outside, witnesses heard buzzing and screams. Finally, Mr. Emmanuel emerged from the house with a duffel bag and drove away.

    A crack addict entered the basement and saw the headless corpse. A drug dealer who lived upstairs told the addict to get rid of the body, and the addict demanded $150 for his troubles. The dealer paid him, and the addict pushed the body in a shopping cart to the school’s trash bin.

    Etc etc

    This should have gone to trial; it's not like he wasn't suspect Why should we believe Mrs Emmanuel that he's a great guy? She knew him as a kid, and then somehow got in touch with him again, and married him 10 years ago while he's in prison, as he's been in prison 19 years, so she hasn't lived with him as a grownup. That she is a retired New York City correction officer with a job at a security firm doesn't reassure me--she could be one of those types that has a reformer complex as regards prisoners and/or tough bad guys. Should have gone to trial. It's a pity that murder of homeless often happens in bad nabes where reliable witnesses are scarce, and the person may get away with it and the wrong person blamed, but still.


    by artappraiser on Sat, 09/22/2012 - 10:19pm

    Your additional data (which I missed) makes the prosecution extra special primo feckless.

    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/23/2012 - 1:43am

    I recommend, BTW, noting down the name of the defense counsel. If I have the misfortune to catch a beef, I want this guy...

    by jollyroger on Sun, 09/23/2012 - 1:48am

    As the victim of the violent assault that led to ten of the years Mr. Emmanuel spent in prison, I disagree with your inclination towards the "plea extortion" theory.  I know I'm a little late to the table with my remarks, but I just happened upon your blog tonight.

    I also fully understand the prosecutor's fear that a 25 year old "cold case" with unreliable witnesses would be difficult to win, but the two years he served for this crime are not enough.  I have seen the murderous intent in his eyes and heard the calm in his voice as he methodically intended to kill me.  It is my personal opinion that he should never be permitted outside the confines of a correctional facility.


    by diesel (not verified) on Fri, 07/01/2016 - 11:19pm