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Judge Unwilling to Imprison Aloof Farmers Market Killer George Weller Despite Admitting that he Deserves Jail

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The old man hit a Mercedes, steered around it, headed through the Santa Monica Farmer's Market killing ten innocent people, injuring 63, and plowed his way to probation and no jail time.

George Weller didn't go to court to defend himself, he didn't go to court to hear his judgment, and today he didn't go to his sentencing to hear that the judge let him off the hook.

Superior Court Judge Michael Johnson today somehow said that he totally agreed with the jury and then called Weller's actions callous and showed "an enormous indifference to human life," and yet he's just as free to enjoy this beautiful weather today as anyone else in Los Angeles.

Santa Monica has just declared that if you're old and white you can unmercifully kill nearly a dozen people, including children, and get away with murder.

The judge acknowledged that the senior citizen never admitted responsibility, and in a bizarre and surprising twist, the court refused to punish the old man and hold him accountable because "it wouldn't do anyone any good."

"Today, Mr. Weller stands convicted of 10 serious felonies and he is asking for leniency in sentencing," Johnson said. "Yet, he has never once expressed in court any remorse for his actions. "I will never understand his stubborn and bullheaded refusal to accept responsibility to put this matter to rest for everyone, including himself," Johnson said.

"George Weller clearly deserves a prison sentence. The devastation that he has caused and the indifference that he has displayed support no other conclusion," the judge said.

"The fact that he deserves prison doesn't mean he should get it," the jurist noted. "I believe the courts need to be practical as well as principled and I don't see any purpose in sending Mr. Weller to jail or prison. It wouldn't do anybody any good." - LA Times

LAist has never heard of old age being a free pass out of jail, but we're glad to know that when we become the right age we can floor our Buick through a densely-populated area and get away with it. We don't have to admit responsibility, we don't have to be sorry, we don't even have to show up to court. We just need to be old and white.
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Oh shit, LAist isn't white.

That's OK. We're sure that if George Russell Weller was African-American, or Hispanic, or Middle Eastern, this sentencing would be exactly the same.

AP photo by Ric Francis

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