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The Post is reporting that Robert Hannah has indeed pleaded guilty on simple assault charges in the beating death of Tony Hunter. Word of a plea agreement in the case first leaked out two weeks ago, which prompted D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson to fire off a letter to Acting U.S. Attorney Channing Phillips, urging him to take the case to trial. The deal, it turns out, came about because Hannah was arrested for shoplifting last month for allegedly trying to steal items from an H&M, according to the Post. In exchange for his guilty plea, the shoplifting charge was dropped. Hannah's case has been controversial since the original charges against him were reduced from a felony to misdemeanor, based on his assertion that he only hit Hunter, a gay Maryland man, because Hunter sexually assaulted him before the attack. A friend of Hunter's who was with him at the time has maintained that Hannah's actions were unprovoked. Hannah will be sentenced on Oct. 14. He faces a maximum of 180 days in jail.
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Tons of armed security at the Navy Yard Metro this morning. Any ideas on what might be going on?
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trading a man's life to get out of a shoplifting charge.
great job, USA office. you guys are real champs.
"Guily" Plea? Spell check please.
This is bullshit. Total bullshit.
I 2nd that motion.
I'm starting to wish EHN would wage a stronger fight to have some else for US Attorney...
I third it. What a crock.
Can some lawyer explain this to me?
Because Hunter died of injuries sustained when he hit his head on the sidewalk, Flynn said, Hanna was not "legally responsible for the homicide but morally responsible for his death." He urged Diaz to sentence Hanna to the maximum of 180 days in jail.
Isn't that at least involuntary manslaughter? I might be able to understand if he fell on an upturned spike on the ground that no one could have predicted was there, but the sidewalk?
So, if that's true, then would that apply to this case: A drunk driver hits a pedestrian on the side of the road, the pedestrian strikes head on sidewalk which is what actually killed said pedestrian. Therefore drunk driver is no longer at fault for pedestrians death.
Setting such a legal precedence would open a whole can of worms where no one would ever be held accountable for their actions.....
Again, I am not a lawyer, but I believe that if you drive drunk the law assumes you know you have a potential to kill someone.
I know I am going to get flamed for this, but I am starting to understand this. Guy grabs other guy's junk, guy 2 punches him, guy one falls to ground and hits his head. If you went to trial, I could see an argument that not only was there no intent, but that that a reasonable person would not equate one punch resulting in someones death. If there were any alcohol content in guy 1's body, that could also help the defense.
When I first read this I was outraged. But, not being a lawyer, after reading the WaPo article, I can kind of see how prosecutors came to this plea deal. Yes, Hunter's friends deny inappropriate touching, but investigators believe, due to witness testimony, that inappropriate touching did occur. Secondly, the term "beating" his hyperbolic. Hunter was punched. The likelihood of death from striking one's head on the ground is minimal. The likelihood of a fatality has to have some effect on whether a prosecutor pursues involuntary manslaughter.
But I'm probably going to get flamed for this too.
I would have taken the same action as Robert Hannah if I was sexually assaulted; touching my ass, breasts, or any other part of my body is a good way for someone to get a foot up their ass.
Well, I'm certainly not going to condone his actions. I actually have been inappropriatly touched by a man who was drunk at the time. Somehow I managed to mitigate the situation by slapping his hand and snarling at him. Another friend of mine, who was drunk and pulled over for a DWI in Florida, inappropriatly touched the arresting police officer. He was so violently beaten that he spent a week in the hospital and, luckily for him, had his sexual assault charge dropped.
I guess the morals of all these stories are, don't grope people when you are drunk, and if you are groped, don't assault the groper. No good ever comes out of any of these situations.
i thought the only person saying that the killer was sexually assaulted by the victim was the killer himself.
it seems more likely to me that there was no sexual assault, considering other witnesses statements and how I understand the situation.
Well, for some reason investigators believe Hannah. I don't know why, but I certainly don't have enough information to conclude that it is more likely that a sexual assault didn't occur.
Did the Washington Post update and reword this article? I could have sworn that when I read this earlier that it said the investigators concluded from witness testimony that the defendant was inappropriately touched. After rereading it a moment ago, it's obvious to me that it actually says the defendant was "allegedly" touched, with no reference to witness testimony in that paragraph.
Either I completely misread this or it has been changed. Weird. If i misread this than I apologize and likewise consider this likely to be a B/S plea bargain.
I caught that as well!
After brushing up on the details of the case, I recant my previous statement. It does not seem likely that Robert Hannah was sexually assaulted. I do, however, stand by my previous reaction to slap and/or junkpunch someone who has just touched me in a sexual or lewd manner.
Not meant to be a flame, New, but do you really think it likely that Hunter would blatantly grope some kid with a group of his friends on the streets of DC (yeah, that happens all the time, because gay guys have no self control or sense of self preservation and go out of their way to provoke street thugs)?
Or is it more likely said kid and friends jumped Hunter at random or because they suspected he was gay (this has only happened to, hmm, 3-4 people I personally know), punched him mutliple times as Hannah admitted, things went worse than expected, and then Hannah and friends lied about some bogus sexual assault in the (100% correct) assumption that the "gay panic" defense still has juice and would get him off.
How the testimony of the unidentified "witness" to the sexual assault carries so much more weight than Hunter's friend's flat denial that it happened, I guess we'll never know, since there won't be a trial. That works out well.
agreed, whitman22, the story from the friends (and only witnesses other than the accused) just seems more likely and believable.
NewHCE, did the Post reword it or did we completely misread the original article?
Whitman22, after digging through the tags for Tony Hunter and Robert Hanna on DCist, and now being more familiar with the case than I was from either the Post article and this DCist posting, I withdraw all of my reservations earlier in this thread. It was a robbery and assault by a group, not a single assailant, it was multiple strikes, not a single punch. I am now obsequiously on board with everyone elses outrage. This plea was B/S.
This is so, SO unbelievably fucked up. If the Blade needs a token breeder to offer comment for a front-page story, please contact me.
According to this article, if Tony Hunter were to have survived he would currently be facing charges of sexual assault and thus a much longer sentence than Hannah, the person who beat him to death.
This utterly flabbergasts me.
This makes absolutely no sense!!! This guy kills someone….then shoplifts, and is only charged with simple assault? Does this US Attorney have a vacation that's about to start and just wants to get the case over with?
I don't understand this plea deal. "So, you killed someone, if you plead guilty to simple assault, we'll also drop your shoplifting charge." So, for this man, two negatives turned into an absolute positive.....
Why not prosecute him on both the murder, and the shoplifting charge? Is that just TOO much work? It sounds as if both cases are pretty solid, so I have no idea what is going on here. In most places, if someone dies as a result of your actions, or even if they die while you are commissioning another crime, you are responsible for that persons death. This person physically assaulted someone and that person died as a result of that assault. How is that not at least manslaughter?
This sets quite the precedence, all the little kids who are killing others around the city can simply shoplift afterwards, have it all wiped clean for pleading guilty to simple assault.
The justice system in this city is depressing.
a MAXIMUM of 180 days? that is the very definition of disgusting.
I cannot ever being so disgusted. The govt lawyer needs to be fired, period.
We all know that the U.S. Attorneys for the District of Columbia do not give a shit about local criminal prosecution. None of them is going to make a name for him/herself by prosecuting chump thugs and drug dealers.
So what do the U.S. Attorneys do? They drop/plead out as many local felony cases as possible. In fact, they're not even bothering to charge suspected felons anymore -- U.S. Attorney filings of new D.C. felony cases declined from over 8,000 in 03-04 to 5,250 this year.
Of course, there are no consequences for the actions taken (or rather, not taken) by the U.S. Attorneys. They are not accountable to anybody in this city and should be removed from prosecuting local D.C. felonies. Let the U.S. Attorneys prosecute federal crimes in federal court and allow an elected D.C. Attorney General to prosecute all other local crimes.
The judge needs to throw out the plea bargain and bring this unmitigated disaster to trial. This is almost as bad as the Twinkie defense - "he groped me so I had this uncontrollable urge to hit him so hard he cracked his skull on the pavement. Sorry!"
Not sure I understand the outrage. A guy punched a guy - I don't even care about the alleged sexual assault - but I can't imagine there was intent to kill with a single punch. A minuscule difference in the angle at which the victim hits the ground, and we aren't even having this conversation.
AKA manslaughter
Yeah, why would anyone have a conversation about a gay bashing in this city? It's not like that ever happens anyway, right?
The outrage stems from the fact that a man who was responsible for another man's death is likely only going to spend 180 days in jail. The criminal justice system has a crime for people who inadvertently kill other people: manslaughter. Regardless of Hannah's intentions, and regardless of whether it was the punch or the landing on the sidewalk that killed Hunter, the fact remains that a deliberate action on the part of Hannah caused the death of Hunter.
Fair enough - I get the outrage about the sentence, and involuntary manslaughter seems appropriate. But Mendelson describes it as a "homicide," which doesn't appear to be based in the facts of the case.
Nearly all definitions of homicide includes both manslaughter and murder, it's not simply a synonym for the latter. A person died here as the direct result of the action of another person ... that qualifies as a homicide and it's neither inaccurate nor an exaggeration for Mendelson to use the term.
I'm obviously not a lawyer.
Surely there's someone around here who knows the DC criminal code. What is involuntary manslaughter for purposes of DC law? There's first degree and second degree murder in 22-2101 through 22-2103. There's a mention of manslaughter in 22-2105, but it's undefined. Does DC have some sort of common law definition or is it hidden in the dark recesses of the criminal code?
I didn't see anything that implied that. Don't you think the victims friends would have told the cops that? I think you are filling in way to many blanks. I also only see one punch referenced. I am open on this, but i haven't seen any more facts. let me dig around.
[This might be a double posting. If so I'm sorry ahead of time]
I just finished digging myself. It looks like you and I were very misinformed. It was an assault and robbery by 4 youths. Apparently, there were many strikes. The liklihood of a sexual assault are so minimal that it is laughable as a defense.
The liklihood of a sexual assault are so minimal that it is laughable as a defense.
After brushing up on the case, I completely agree. 180 days maximum? Wtf is wrong with our justice system?
See but what happened to the robbery angle? I just saw that in the first reports of it. You think there would be some mention of it, or even multiple punches.
I think you may be confusing this case for another case that happened a month or so before in the same location. Let me look. My bad. It looks like people were reporting burglary, but then that dropped off.
In digging up I found this and a year before people were complaining about the same location experiencing high amounts of hate crimes.
Ok, so how/where can we protest this crap? Seems there's enough outrage to go around- let's at least make their jobs more difficult while they wrap up this little "deal".
The reason I have my skeptic glasses on is because of this.
http://gothamist.com/2009/09/18/details_about_hofstra_students_fake.php
"MPD Acting Lt. Brett Parson, who is responsible for all MPD liaison units, including the GLLU, says suspects allegedly stole a set of car keys and $15 before fleeing in an unknown direction. "
This, from a Metro Weekly article on the attack.
How many victims of 'gay groping' steal car keys and cash before running away?
I've walked in and out of gay bars in DC far more times than I care to admit.
And NEVER have I ever seen a gay man walk up to a group of four local youth, age 18-22, and sexually assault one of them.
Particularly not in an area like where this bar is (9th and N NW).
It simply doesn't make sense.
And as Judge Judy says, if it doesn't make sense, it probably isn't true.
What, exactly, do the prosecutors get for this plea bargain? Isn't the point of offering a plea bargain to obtain information or something else beneficial for a larger public good? This whole thing reeks of mismanagement. The bargain is "you were caught shoplifting, but if you just stick out your hands for a smacking for this other, more serious, crime you admitted to wrongful involvement in, we'll just forget either ever happened."
That's a win-win for the perp! Whose side are these people on?
DCist obviously gets a good amount of web traffic...is it possible getting a petition going to get more council members, the mayor, and anyone else involved will do anything?
http://www.petitionspot.com/
This legitimately needs to go to trial. There is absolutely no gain for the deceased's family or the public in general from offering this piece of $h!t a bargain. Not only do DC residents have to put up with no congressional representation, we also have to put with prosecutors blatantly ignoring their job descriptions...
i would sign such a petition if i felt it would do any good. fact is, with an appointed USA who has no connection to the district (in other words, won't catch hell because they don't have a natural constituency), i just feel that there's no way to pressure their office.
For the sake of clarity: I don't think the thing that you want is for this to "go to trial." As it stands, the USA proposes to charge Hunter with simple assault. Putting him on trial for that will not yield your desired results.
You want the USA to charge Hunter with at least involuntary manslaughter (whatever that is in DC) or perhaps homicide. You may or may not care whether Hunter goes on trial for that, depending on how plea negotiations go.
@cactus jack: You are correct, that is indeed what I meant. Thanks.
@IMGoph: I agree that petitioning the US Atty directly won't do any good. What I'm really suggesting is making a bigger stink about this than just filling up DCist's comment threads. It appears most of us think this is a total cop-out and sets a bad de facto precedent. Where's the mayor in all of this? What about the other council members? What's Norton's position? I don't think I've seen much from them. If someone goes to them or some other large outlet with proof that a large number of people think this whole situation is ridiculous (e.g., a petition seen and spread by the number of people who frequent DCist), maybe things can change. If the US atty's reputation is on the line, he might think a little deeper.
It's simply infuriating that Hunter's family and/or the general public are given any chance at real justice because the prosecutors don't seem to care enough.
postscript: I assume all of this is too late since the kid apparently took his get out of jail (well, legit sentence) free card?
For the record: I'd do it myself, but I figure there's probably someone better informed about the law and every aspect of the case who would write a more complete and thoughtful petition. Clearly the coverage in the Blade is not getting much attention and WaPo seems content to treat the story as a "just the facts" piece.
the hrc has to be working on this, i'd think.