Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Wally Does Something!!!


Attorney-General Wally Oppal has stopped acting for a moment - shaking hands, slapping backs, looking solemn when the occasion demands it - and actually ACTED. This is banner news, indeed.


As reported in this morning's Province, the AG has called for a second look at those hideously inadequate sentences for the pigs who put Michael Levy into a wheelchair and hell for the rest of his young life.


Here's the whole story:



Attorney-general orders review of sentences in Michael Levy case


Jack Keating, The ProvincePublished: Wednesday, December 12, 2007


Attorney-General Wally Oppal Tuesday ordered a review of the aggravated-assault sentences given two young offenders who attacked 18-year-old Michael Levy and left him a quadriplegic.


"I think when a person walks out of a courtroom and laughs at the judge's decision that maybe the judge didn't get the message to the particular offender," Oppal told Global News. "And in those circumstances, I think the sentence deserves to be reviewed."


Oppal was reacting to news footage that showed Tuan Minh Nguyen, 18, and his friends entering an elevator after his 20-month conditional sentence and then an outburst of laughter being heard when the door closed.

Michael Levy was left a quadriplegic after the attack

"I'm ecstatic," Deborah Levy, Michael's mother, said of the review announcement. "What they got, I thought, was totally unjust. There was no justification whatsoever."


Mike Farnworth, the NDP's justice critic for public safety, also called for Crown counsel "to very seriously consider an appeal" of the sentencing by Judge Kenneth Ball in Surrey Provincial Court


"Family members and the public are understandably outraged at the sentence," said Farnworth. "This was a brutal, senseless crime that very nearly resulted in a death."


Levy was attacked by at least three teens during a dance at the Tynehead Community Hall in Surrey on Oct. 28, 2006. He was punched, pepper sprayed, hit over the head with a bottle and hit in the back of the head with an axe, severing his spinal cord.


Nguyen admitted punching Levy and Robert Alexander Green, 18, was given a three-year sentence to be served at the youth custody centre in Burnaby for hitting the teen with a bottle.
The third teen, who wielded the axe, will be sentenced Jan. 23.


"They're laughing at what they got," said Deborah Levy. "They're laughing at their sentence. That is a slap in the face to us. To Michael and I. Also to the judge."


"These guys are straight cowards," said Michael Levy. "You can't get any worse than that."
jkeating@png.canwest.com

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's an alternative sentence: The victim gets to be hit by an axe three times, he can even choose the body parts that get lopped.

Even if it's two little toes and his tiny penis, it'll be a lifelong reminder of his heinous crime.

Anonymous said...

Walk down any street, ask the first 10 people you meet, " do you believe the Criminal Justice System is fulfilling it's mandate", and after they pick themselves off the sidewalk from laughing, 10 of them will give you a very adamant "NO". Trust me on this one folks. And don't put any faith in Wally "it's before the Courts" Oppal, a leopord NEVER changes it's spots. And guess what boys and girls, citizens are already lining up to re-elect him! God, or someone, please help us.

Anonymous said...

Notice how "slap on the wrist" Wally only calls for a review, rather than an appeal like Farnworth is calling for.

Anonymous said...

Alas! Global Tv interviewed the young con artist at his home yesterday and all of a sudden he is expressing remorse, apologozing. saying his friends were laughing about something else. Yeah, right. WE are an international joke for our non-existent Immigration policies and our lax sentences. Those folks lining up to re-elect him are probably the ones who give cash to the politicans-see Kim Bolan's
book Loss of Faith: The Air India disaster. The criminals who did this got off scott free (wonder why) and still live here.