The Florida Dictionary According to Legislators

Florida legislators seem to be reading a different dictionary than the rest of us if you examine the Jennifer Mee case.

Jennifer was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after being part of a fatal robbery.

At no point did he intend to kill the victim.

So we come to our first word, “Premeditated.”

What does that word mean?

“Planned in advance”, “a premeditated attack”.

In Jennifer’s case, the robbery was planned in advance but not the victim.

I understand that first and second degree murder is premeditated murder.

So how did Jennifer get charged with first degree murder?

The next word is “manslaughter.”

In school, the teacher told us that the difference between murder and manslaughter is that murder is when you kill someone intentionally, while manslaughter is when you kill someone accidentally.

So if a drunk driver kills someone, is it murder or manslaughter?

What is the difference between someone who deliberately drives a car into a crowd and someone is killed and another person who makes an error in judgment, like texting someone while driving, and gets into an accident as a result?

“intention.”

It is their intent that determines whether they have committed murder or manslaughter.

The dictionary describes intention like this: “If you intend to do something, you are determined to do it.”

There is no doubt that Jennifer never intended to kill the victim.

So how can he be guilty of murder?

I don’t know which is worse, being convicted of first degree murder or being sentenced without the possibility of parole.

This was a high-profile case due to Jennifer’s notoriety as “Hiccup Girl”. It polarized more than one community, it made television headlines beyond Florida, so I wonder if Jennifer would have received the same sentence if this was just a run-of-the-mill murder case in America.

Judges are supposed to be above emotion during court cases, but I honestly can’t say whether or not in this case the judge rose above the emotion of the case or what prompted him to pass such a sentence, but I’m interested in hear the justification for it.

The bottom line is that Jennifer shouldn’t have been charged with first-degree murder in the first place, but then sentencing her to life without parole is a sentence that rational-thinking people would consider inhumane.