Assuming his conviction and sentence survive the appeal process, Raymond Stinde and I will be 59 years old when he is released from prison.
Stinde, who is exactly two months and 18 days younger than me, was sentenced to 35 years in prison today for his role in a September, 2008 murder.
Being a police/courts reporter, I see a lot of kids in the courtroom. I say “kids,” but I really just mean folks younger than me. Nonetheless, I’ve covered any number of court appearances involving people up to seven years younger than me. I’ve seen these kids brought up on all sorts of criminal charges. But seeing Stinde sentenced to more than three decades kind of blew my mind.
It’s not that I don’t think a guy my age can be convicted of felony murder. Quite the contrary. I grew up in Chicago. I first saw “kids my age” convicted of murder when I was 14. Rather, it’s the length of the sentence that floored me.
I don’t know what I’m going to be doing with my life next year. Heck, I barely know what I’m going to be doing with my life six months from now. I have ideas, but those could change any time.
Not so for Raymond Stinde. He knows where he’s going to be for the next 35 years. He knows that with few exceptions, each of those 12,781 days is going to be pretty much like the one before it and will likely be about the same as the day after it. And that’s impossible for me to fathom.
I can be pretty glib about the stuff I cover. I have to be because if I’m not, I’ll burn out fast. But that moment when that judge sentenced that man to 35 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections, I was snapped rudely back to Earth. I guess it just serves to underscore that folks my age are capable of some pretty serious stuff and that a lot of that stuff we are capable of has some pretty serious consequences.
Author’s note 1: For the record, I’m not trying to suggest that Raymond Stinde’s punishment was anything more or less than he deserved, having been tried in a court and found guilty of a crime. It’s not my place to suggest such things.
Author’s note 2: The reason my first sentence starts out, “Assuming his conviction and sentence survive the appeal process” is because while he was found guilty, Mr. Stinde has notified the court he intends to appeal the jury’s verdict, as is his right. I have no idea whether the guilty verdict will survive the appeal process, nor am I expressing any opinion on whether it should survive the appeal process.
