Officials look into death of Stephanie Brinson, who’s second person in a year to die during family visit at Ione facility

Summary

Stephanie Diane Dowells, 62, was strangled during an overnight visit with her husband, David Brinson, at Mule Creek state prison in California.

Brinson, serving life without parole for four murders, claimed Dowells passed out, but authorities ruled her death a homicide.

This marks the second strangulation death during a family visit at the prison in a year; Tania Thomas was killed in July 2024 while visiting inmate Anthony Curry. Investigations are ongoing.

California is one of four states allowing family visits to maintain positive relationships.

  • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
    6·
    5 days ago

    The issue is laws must be written to cover more than just a single case. I may agree it would be fine for this case, but the law must be written to cover other future cases. Then it’s up to the discretion of judges to rule on future cases and apply the law as they see fit.

    The issue is that we can’t write perfect laws that will never produce bad outcomes. We can’t trust all judges to be perfectly moral and upstanding and also perfectly accurate in their judgment. In a world with perfections, I could maybe agree with it. That’s not the world we live in.