It seems so long ago that one of the NFL’s premiere wide receivers walked into a New York City nightclub wearing sweatpants and wielding a gun, and then subsequently shot himself in the leg, reusulting in his arrest on charges of second-degree criminal possession of a loaded and unlicensed weapon.
New York Giant and former Super Bowl hero Plaxico Burris faces mandatory minimum of 3 1/2 years in prison in connection with the incident.
But we’ll know Tuesday how seriously the state of New York views the word ‘mandatory’ when Burris appears in court to enter a plea.
His friends/teammates were optimistic that there would be some leeway in the term mandatory. Both Brandon Jacobs and Osi Umenyiora talked to the New York Daily News about the Burris situation.
For his part, Umenyiora has done a bit of research on Plax’s behalf:
I’ve talked to law-enforcement officials and they’ve said to me that for a first-time offender he’ll get five years’ probation, he told the paper.
Jacobs, meanwhile, attempted to spin the situation thusly:
With the people they’ve got running around on the street, I don’t think that someone like him should be convicted for what he’s done. He didn’t hurt anyone but himself. We’ve got murderers and killers and rapists and everything else that’s running around the streets now. But you know, it is a messed up world and a messed up country and you never know what they’ll do.
Indeed, it’s a messed up world and a messed up country where the those
who fire unlicensed guns in crowded clubs should be prosecuted under
the law, and are subject to the same penalties as the general public.
