40.
"That was intense", whispers Alice as we walk out the courtroom.
I don't reply. My throat is too dry for me to utter a single word and my head is pounding as well.
Royce King is a thirty five year old man who hasn't been able to keep a job for more than a few weeks at most. He's a gambler, drinks regularly, abuses his wife and treats his son like trash.
He begged the judge to spare him. He said that he made a mistake and was going to put his act together.
Liar.
I watched with furious eyes which softened once Vera King, his wife, confessed how she was being treated at home. She has bruises all over her face, tears falling down her face and her body shaking with fear. She only stayed with Royce because she had nowhere else to take her twelve year old son, Henry.
She didn't have any choice but to stay with him. She did it for her son.
Henry was there too. He sat in the back and glared at his father with hatred. Once the judge announced Royce's sentence, he threw himself into his mother's arms and hugged her tightly.
Shows that he's a good boy who loves Vera.
What did a kid like him do to deserve a parent like Royce?
This world is a twisted place.
A sick, twisted place full of equally cruel people.
~X~
I enter my house and am engulfed by a scent of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.
I can hear giggles coming from the kitchen where I last saw Masen and Bella before leaving. They're both sitting on the floor, covered in flour and huge smiles on their faces.
"How did it go?" asks Bella as soon as she sees me.
"He's been sentenced to prison for six and a half years", I say bitterly. "Two and a half years each for killing Rosalie and Emmett which put together, is five years and another 365 days for domestic violence."
That's too less.
Way too less.
That asshole deserves to be locked up for life. He doesn't deserve to see daylight. He ought to be hanged. But that's not going to happen.
Six and a half years only and then he'll be back in the open, among innocent people.
Washington State's implementation of drunk driving laws have been under criticism by victims of drunk drivers and their families for some time now. Many have criticized the inconsistencies in a few of the state's laws, namely the apparent double-standard in DUI cases; a person who inadvertently kills someone in a fistfight faces approximately eight years in prison, but a drunk driver gets between 2 ½ and 3 ½ years in prison for killing someone. In search for justice, families of loved ones that have fallen victim to drunk drivers have been working to increase the punishments for these crimes.
-Source= Drunk driving accident/ drunk driving laws in Washington.
Domestic violence offenses in Seattle Municipal Court are either misdemeanors, punishable by up to 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine, or gross misdemeanors, punishable by up to 365 days in jail and a $5,000 fine. Felony domestic violence offenses are punishable by more than one year in jail.
-Source= Seattle Govt. Court.