State charges included kidnapping, first-degree burglary and false imprisonment of husband of Nancy Pelosi
The man who was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for attacking the husband of Nancy Pelosi with a hammer in their California home was sentenced on Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole following a separate state trial.
A San Francisco jury in June found David DePape guilty of charges including aggravated kidnapping, first-degree burglary and false imprisonment of an elder.
Before issuing the sentence, Judge Harry Dorfman dismissed arguments from DePape’s attorneys that he be granted a new trial for the 2022 attack against Paul Pelosi, who was 82 years old at the time.
“It’s my intention that Mr DePape will never get out of prison, he can never be paroled,” Dorfman said while handing out the punishment.
“This is a man who has always been a peaceful, law-abiding person up until his activation,” Lipson said.
When given the chance to address the court before his sentencing, DePape, dressed in prison orange and with his brown hair in a ponytail, spoke at length about September 11 being an inside job, his ex-wife being replaced by a body double, and his government-provided attorneys conspiring against him.
“I’m a psychic,” DePape told the court, reading from sheets of paper. “The more I meditate, the more psychic I get.”
And the attorney wants them to reconsider the sentence? Sounds like he needs some serious therapy, and institutionalized, not let out.
“This is a man who has always been a peaceful, law-abiding person up until his activation,” Lipson said.
Oh fuck all the way off, asshole. His brain was rotted from right-wing media- there was no secret hidden sub-programming which could be turned on with a code word.
Also, fuck you again. Everyone is a peaceful, law-abiding person until they decide to break the law.
Until they’re caught breaking the law, anyway.
People with certain mental illnesses are far more susceptible to conspiracy theories and other such nonsense. It doesn’t excuse what he did but it’s important to recognize this. Our society is a much more dangerous place for these kinds of vulnerable individuals than it was before mass media, simply because of the huge amount of exposure they have to harmful materials.
I think Europe has been a bad place for them for a long time, because the church has put religious paranoia into their heads any also was petty terrible to them.
The only societies I can think of where they had a place were some indigenous American ones, where there was a role for people who are in connection with the spirit world.
Did they not try an insanity defense? He must have been declared competent, I guess.
My understanding is that insanity defense has a very high bar, beyond what the public would commonly consider “crazy”, so it’s not actually something that happens often. And even then, actually getting out of whatever institution you’re remanded to isn’t guaranteed.
I dont want to armchair assess too much, but reading a statement that involves your psychic powers, assuming that’s real, the guy is not mentally fit.
I agree that the man is clearly off his rocker, but from a legal perspective, what matters is whether or not you understand that you have, in fact, killed a dude, and that this is in fact a bad thing. Having voices in your head telling you to do it is a completely separate issue. Again, this is my understanding as a layman, so any actual lawyers please feel free to tell me I’m full of shit.
Probably if he ever sought help. He was married at one point. Did it come up in the divorce? All these things can be a factor from my understanding.
You have to be completely divorced from reality and really have no idea what you’re doing. This guy is a kook but knew that hitting old people with hammers is bad.
Generally speaking the bar for the insanity defense isn’t even insanity. If he were insane but capable of understanding that beating someone with a hammer was wrong he’d fail to meet the bar. You basically have to have no idea at all what you’re doing or that it’s wrong, and you have the burden of proving it.
True. It’s not “pleading insanity” it’s pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. You can be off your damn rocker but unless your mental illness caused you to not understand that you were doing something wrong or illegal or that it caused you to believe you were in a position of legitimate self defense then you’re still guilty, just guilty and insane. And it’s not being let out. It’s being sentenced to treatment however long it takes
And sometimes that goes the exact opposite way. For example, Lorena Bobbitt was acquitted on an insanity defense and spent less than two months in counseling.
I wonder if his psychic powers told him he’d be getting a life sentence
I honestly think there’s a movement that believes if they deny reality at trial that the courts will just let them go because “oops! We can’t punish a crazy person!” and then they’ll never ever check up on them again.
I’m not claiming they’re smart.
Yeah if it isn’t an act he should be not guilty by reason of insanity. He’s having capgras delusions for fucks sake. I do seriously worry about the increased spread of mental illness similar to his through stuff like qanon. We’re at risk of rule by the clinically insane. But yeah if he’s too crazy to know better he’s not guilty and needs institutionalization until such a time that his delusions are gone and he’s safe to return to society (with obvious parole style follow-ups)
Just think, voting for Trump means you’re voting in a pardon for this guy.
Life sentence is from the state charges. President can’t pardon that. But, yeah, he’ll pardon the federal charges if he gets the chance.
Will he? He said he’d pardon a lot of people when he was still able and never did. He only cares about people with power or fame, not nobodies like this guy.
I guess it depends on whether he needs to rile his base. The GOP already has them frothing at the name “Pelosi”. He might do it as an intimidation tactic. Hopefully, we never find out because he never gets the chance.
That does not sound real. If a presidential power to pardon is unlimited except in the case of impeachment, why would that matter? Even Congress can’t stop it.
Because it’s unlimited for federal crimes only.
@[email protected] is right; presidents cannot pardon state level crimes: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C1-3-1/ALDE_00013316/
Specifically, the offense must be “against the United States”, and state level offenses are only against the respective state, not the United States.
Yes he can; just call it an “offical act” and suddenly it’s legal.
The immunity thing only protects the president from criminal prosecution; it doesn’t grant them additional powers if they say it’s official. Attempting to pardon people you didn’t have the authority to pardon is not a criminal act. He’d have to go hold a gun to the governor to get that pardon signed or similar.
Bye asshole!
Prison-as-a-mental-healthcare-system should not exist. Of course, that would require leadership that is neither conservative nor neoliberal.
This guy is wack, but he also tried to kill someone. He deserves jail, and needs mental help.
Exactly, 2 things can be true at the same time!
You mean to tell me… I can believe more than one thing at a time?! /s
I prefer the well being of the rest of society to the violently unwell. That is to say I would basically sacrifice the offenders health, happiness and even his life for a 1% increase in the chance that he is never free to harm the rest of society.
The justice department have become such pussies that I’m wondering what incorrect thing caused this correct level of sentencing to happen. Did he protest the genocide of Palestinians during his trial?
How long before Trump calls him a patriot and a political prisoner?
My mind hadn’t even gone here yet, so I wasn’t ready, and I was appalled rather than just being quietly furious with certainty that this will happen, probably tomorrow.
He’s a conservative hero. The next Republicunt president will pardon him and he will be treated like a star on the conservative talkshow guest circuit.
State charges can’t be pardoned by the president. The governor of California would be the one with that power.
Good riddance.
Taste the hammer of justice, scum.
Tastes like… pennies!
The comments here are pretty gross. This guy needs help, instead you’re happy to send him to the corrupt American prison system for the rest of his life. Please stop bootlicking and start caring for people.
I also despise the prison industrial complex and prefer rehabilitation over punishment, but there’s a point where losses need to be cut.
He doesn’t seem remorseful, and he’s not going to seek help when he believes he is justified in beating an elderly man with a hammer. At that point, what options are left? it’s immoral to involuntarily institutionalize and forcibly medicate individuals, and even if it wasn’t, that’s a slippery slope you don’t want to go down.
Why do you think it’s immoral to involuntarily institutionalize but moral to lock them in a jail cell?
I never said that was moral either. I hold the stance that, despite the utter lack of most freedoms, at least you get to maintain some semblance of bodily autonomy while in prison.
On the other hand, forced institutionalization with involuntarily sedation and/or medication is directly violating bodily autonomy. We don’t need to return to the days of deciding to “fix” people without their permission like we used to with transorbital lobotomies.
I don’t know why you think there’s more autonomy in a mental institution than prison, or why you keep bringing up forcing drugs and surgery on people like that’s the only way to help people with mental health issues. Your stance is still not making sense from a moral standpoint.
Edit: just want to note that the first sentence of the comment above wasn’t there when reply was written
Mental illness treatment and rehabilitation is the path forward, but it’s not a one-size-fits all solution. I was more direct about this in my other comments: What do you do with people who don’t want help and actively refuse to be rehabilitated?
Practically speaking:
You can’t reintegrate them into society as they are.
You can’t ship them off to an island in the southern hemisphere and wash your hands of them.Morally speaking:
You can’t execute them.
You can’t lock them up.
You can’t treat them against their will.What now?
————————
The American prison industrial complex is a privatized slavery-for-profit feedback loop, yes. It’s an atrocity that needs to be dismantled and replaced with a justice system with rehabilitation and reparation as its core tenets. But, the inevitable truth is that either prisons must exist in some form as the lesser of many evils, or you voluntarily choose to repeat the atrocities of our past.
I’m not arguing against treating and rehabiliting people who have made mistakes. I’m arguing that championing it as the solution to prisons is either an overly-optimistic pipedream, or a hypocritical display of indifference to the idea of involiable bodily autonomy.
You seem unable to separate rehabilitation / treatment for mental health from medical interventions and drugs.
What I’m arguing is that punishment is not justice. No person should have the right to dole out punishments to another. To think otherwise betrays a very authoritarian mindset.
I don’t have a 500 page document detailing a new version of our justice system, partly because, as you correctly stated, there isn’t a one size fits all solution. But I know whatever system that is should be focused on empathy and compassion, not making people pay for their misdeeds.
But even if I completely agreed with what you’re saying, I would still think it’s gross to cheer for anyone being sent to “an atrocity that needs to be dismantled and replaced”, especially if it’s for the rest of their lives.
You have to stop people from victimizing society and the kknds of folks who normally do so regularly ignore dialogue.
If someone rapes women you may not be able to fix them but you can be sure most of society won’t be in danger while he is in prison.
What I’m arguing is that punishment is not justice
I don’t know if I agree with this tbh. Bad people deserve a chance to reform, but at a certain point they start deserving bad things.
I also despise the prison industrial complex and prefer rehabilitation over punishment
Uh huh. Sure. Let’s find out how much.
but there’s a point where losses need to be cut.
Ah, the answer was “not at all”.
He doesn’t seem remorseful, and he’s not going to seek help when he believes he is justified in beating an elderly man with a hammer.
Okay.
At that point, what options are left?
Rehabilitation? Mental health care? All of the things that European countries do better than us?
it’s immoral to involuntarily institutionalize and forcibly medicate individuals
But somehow in your book it’s perfectly moral to lock them in a cage until they die? I’d take medication and institutionalization over being tortured to death any day.
and even if it wasn’t, that’s a slippery slope you don’t want to go down.
Ah yes, the slippery slope of not throwing people away like pieces of trash. Would hate to fall down that one… /s
Rehabilitation and mental health care are only effective when the individual is receptive to it. This guy is brainwashed, but let’s imagine that’s just the tip of the iceberg: what if it’s just a symptom of a greater issue like psychopathy, and he just doesn’t want to be rehabilitated.
What, then? Let him have the chance to convince others going through their own rehabilitation to join the q-ult? Keep dragging him to appointments where he does nothing but reinforce his own delusions of grandeur? Forcefully sedate him? Put him in a straightjacket and padded cell, causing maddening isolation? Give him a fucking lobotomy against his will?
The world isn’t sunshine and rainbows. Prison is a shit option, but it’s a hell of a lot better than being rehabilitated by firing squad or 1940s quack medical procedures.
People who show up at peoples doors to torture and kill people don’t deserve help
His mental picture of the world is pretty disrorted but at the same time he knew enough to know it was unlawful for him to take matters into his own hands and when the police showed up he had every reason to run or resist but what he chose to do is spitefully try to murder Paul whom he had no reason to hate or want to harm.
Basically you can be mentally unwell and evil and he pretty clearly is.
I don’t care if an evil man gets help. Why should I. I care that he is incarcerated.
Of course protecting the public is the first priority, otherwise there just wouldn’t be a justice system. But your willingness to label a person as evil keeps you open to calling whole groups of people evil (like say immigrants). That actually invites evil to yourself and society because ‘prison is for evil people, I’m not in prison so I must not be evil’ when in reality everyone is capable of evil and should always be guarding against those thoughts, not dismissing them as impossibilities.
There is a finite amount of help to go around. You think we should waste it on someone who is likely to kill again?
ITT: “Leftists” who love the police state and draconian punishments.
I don’t know, I ain’t no huge fan of the “law and order” types. But cracking an 80something year old dude in the head with a hammer is pretty fucked up.
A life sentence for attempted 1st degree murder isn’t draconian. What would you have us do, set him free?
attempted 1st degree murder
Just making shit up…
He wasn’t convicted of Attempted Murder. He was convicted of:
Federal: 30 years
- Kidnapping
- First-degree burglary
- False imprisonment of an elder
State: Life without parole
- Aggravated kidnapping resulting in bodily harm
- False imprisonment of an elder or dependent adult
- Threatening family of public officials
- First degree residential burglary
- Preventing or dissuading a witness by force or threat
Good thing I wasn’t talking about what he was convicted of, and instead was talking about what he did. Defense lawyers always try to negotiate and reduce charges to lower ones.
Now answer my question. What would you have us do with him?
Tell me you don’t know what draconian means without telling me.
Yeah, seriously; is Dracula even involved in any of this?
Hammer time!
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/29/david-depape-sentenced-paul-pelosi-hammer-attack
Does this guy remind you of anyone? I can’t put my finger on it.
