The Garden City Telegram
NEW E-Edition!
Subscription
Required
Add Your Comment | Read (4) Comments
House arrest
Published 12/26/2012 in Commentary : Editorial
Already penalty enough for paralyzed convict.Hunter Hillmer is a prisoner in his own body. At 19 years old, that will be the case for the rest of his life.
He is now paralyzed from the waist down, but the Topeka man deserves no sympathy. He brought on his condition by driving drunk. He also killed a man in the process and has been convicted of second-degree murder — a crime that carries with it as much as a 13-year prison sentence.
Still, the courts should consider Hillman's condition and come to the conclusion that house arrest — in this instance — is penalty enough.
Friends and family members of the 15-year-old killed as a result of Hillmer's bad decision might disagree. The state might have the prison facilities to house paraplegics and quadriplegics, but from a financial standpoint it simply should not pay the extra freight for Hillmer's incarceration.
A Kansas Department of Corrections spokesman told the Topeka Capital-Journal that the state pays an average of $70.30 a day to house an inmate. The cost to care for paraplegics and quadriplegics — once you get past the one one-time expense to buy equipment needed to accommodate them — is only slightly higher.
Still, it is spending more to house a special-needs inmate. And at a time when every dollar counts, the state simply can't afford the added expense, which would compound daily. ...
This is a story not confined to Topeka. It easily could have happened anywhere. Hillman has been in the Shawnee County Jail since late May. Officials there say their cost to house an inmate is $89.76 a day, adding that it costs an additional $12 a day to house Hillmer because of medication and specialized materials he requires.
That's a substantial expense to the state over the course of his sentence. ...
Put him under house arrest. This would force his family to care for him — and, just as important, pick up the bill for his care.
Hillmer will have no joy ride in avoiding a stay in prison. His life never will be the same. The freedoms he once knew and obviously took for granted are gone. His life hence forth will be a series of challenges, beginning each day with climbing out of bed.
He now begins his life sentence.
-- The Hutchinson News
Found 4 comment(s)!
Is the family guilty, too?
I guess I didn't see where this man's family was found guilty of driving drunk and causing a death. Why, then, should they have to pay for his actions? He is an adult, is he not? Why should his family have to care for him, did they make him drive drunk? Whatever his sentence, he should have to suffer the consequences of his actions. His family shouldn't be punished either financially or through state mandated servitude.
Posted by: Me on 12/29/2012
Boo hoo
I'm to sick, to beautiful, to fat, to thin to be in prison. You know what?
TOO BAD!
Posted by: Jon on 12/28/2012
House arrest
House arrest? Really? Why should we pay for him to be on house arrest. Send him to prison and let us support him there. Otherwise he will get disability, paid for by the taxpayer, to lounge around in his home. No deal. Prison!
Posted by: taxpayer on 12/26/2012
Seems right, kind of....
First, it was a 15 year old girl he killed, not a man, as said in the second paragraph. I kind of like the idea of the cost of his care being covered by his family instead of the state, but what happens when they run out of money? When he turns of age? And what about the social life he could have at home, even in a wheelchair, that he wouldn't get in prison. Lock him up so that he feels some of the same lonely feelings that his victims' family now feels.
Posted by: Kate M Smith on 12/26/2012