The
Florida teen found guilty on
second degree murder charges has been sentenced. Rachel Wade received 27 years in prison.
I believe this
sentence is unjust. It is too harsh, because both girls had engaged in threatening messages leading up to the incident on April 15, 2009, and the bigger, heavier girl - the victim, Sarah Ludemann, 18 - had been out looking for Wade, and had threatened her also. Wade brandished a knife, at least partly in
self defense. Indeed, Wade's defense counsel, Jay Herbert, had said in court: "Sarah was the aggressor that night. She was out looking for Rachel. They couldn't stop her."
All of this was over an unworthy young male, one Joshua Comacho, 21, who apparently had a thing for using young ladies, and stringing them along. If only Wade and known just how unimportant such a male actually is within the scheme of things.
Wade was still a teenager at the time of the offense. This was a disorganized crime of passion, within
mitigating circumstances.
The harsh sentencing is a reflection of the past 25 years of Draconian punishment, and the hypocrisy of charging teens as adults, even though when sexually active with adults, they are then viewed as "children", and their offenders as pedophiles.
