Talk:2003 standoff in Abbeville, South Carolina

This article was nominated for deletion on February 20, 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

Objectivity and resources used

This entire article is saturated with unsubstantiated and undocumented POV, and was written by an editor with no objectivity regarding the incident. The strongest example was the statement, now edited, which read "the Bixbys murdered the two police officers over what would have been their good fortune." This statement ignored the fact that no trial has yet taken place, let alone a conviction. The phrase "The Abbeville Horror" itself is not the name given to the event locally, but a catchphrase name given to the event by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil-rights watchdog organization in Alabama, on their website. In fact, the large majority of the Wiki article is based on information contained in the SPLC article itself, which is entitled "The Abbeville Horror". (As an indication of the article's bias, it displays a photograph of a Confederate-flag-wearing citizen in Laurens, SC, which has no connection at all to the Abbeville Standoff.[1]) When you base the entirety of your research on websites with an unabashed political POV, regardless of whether or not such a POV is supportive or contrary to your own, the result is an equally-as-biased commentary. It is outrageous that the original editor could not have based the information on the numerous local news articles or coverage, at the very least. As a result, the article smacks of inappropriate commentary that embarrassingly displays the editor's attachment to website-based inaccuracies. Example: "The events of December 8, 2003 still haunt many citizens of Abbeville. This haunting is magnified by the fact that Abbeville is a small, close-knit town where violence of this magnitude is essentially unheard of." I trust that the individual who wrote these words has never visited Abbeville or the Piedmont area, and knows little of anything about the Abbeville community except that which they have read on a website. This article is the worst example of historical revisionism I have seen regarding this incident, and I know that Wiki deserves far better. 129.252.60.60 14:15, 5 February 2007 (UTC)Henry Gondorf[reply]

WP:BLP

Given that this article is primarily about two living people (Steven Bixby and his father), the policy requiring sources for all material, especially contentious or negative material, about living people (WP:BLP) applies. Anything in here that's not sourced needs to come out or be sourced. | Mr. Darcy talk 02:51, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

two?

only in south carolina can the courts be stupid enough to give one man two death sentences. you can only be executed once, and after that I think 125 years of prison is out of the question. they want to kill him TWICE and still have him serve over 100 years? how stupid is that? anyone else notice? I cant imagine the advantage of recording giving a man that many penalties, I seriously think one execution would do the trick. but that's just me.

Yes, it seems weird, but sentences like this are handed down as an insurance policy (for the prosecution) against convictions being overturned on appeal. For instance, if Bixby were somehow able to get one death sentence vacated by an appellate court, he'd still have one death sentence left - and then, if he were able to get that one vacated, he'd still have 125 years in prison - and then, if he were able to get that reduced, he'd still have a very long sentence, etc. etc. Basically, the State is saying "look, you committed a crime so heinous and we are so sure that you did it, that you would have to essentially instigate a snowball fight in Hell to ever have a chance of walking out of prison alive". This is not just a South Carolina thing: the Beltway snipers were sentenced to something like six life sentences in Virginia *and* were brought to trial in Maryland, where they received another six life sentences. So, even if Virginia goes completely soft on crime and lets them out, Maryland has ensured that they will end up behind bars for quite a while - not to mention the other states that would likely line up to prosecute them. I'm not sure about the part of the world in which you live, but this all stems from the number of appeals, as well as the not-so-literal meaning of a life sentence, that exist in the American justice system.

By the way, Wikipedians appreciate users signing their comments; you can do this by typing four tildes (four ~'s side-by-side), like so: BobbyLee 09:47, 14 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]