11-27-2011, 02:11 AM
My Tax Dollars at work, glad thios POS is getting such good representation, got to be sure his rights are not impinged apon.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-be...9906.story
Suspect in children's deaths appeals 10-year gun sentence
By Peter Franceschina, Sun Sentinel
6:43 p.m. EST, November 26, 2011
Even though he faces three potential death sentences if convicted of murdering two children found in a Delray Beach canal and their mother, Clem Beauchamp is appealing a 10-year prison term he received for possessing an illegal handgun silencer.
Beauchamp, 34, has been held in federal custody since the day after the bodies of the children were found in March, stuffed into luggage. He pleaded guilty in August to possessing the illegal silencer, and now is being held in a federal penitentiary in southwest Virginia.
He is not appealing the firearms conviction, just the 10-year sentence, which was the maximum possible that could be imposed by U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas.
Dimitrouleas relied on evidence presented by prosecutors at the October sentencing that Beauchamp's federal public defender says should not have been considered by the judge.
Robert Berube, Beauchamp's attorney, said his client should have been given about three years in prison under sentencing guidelines, not three times that. "We don't think it was a proper sentence, that's all," he said.
Three weeks before the sentencing, a Palm Beach County grand jury charged Beauchamp with three counts of first-degree murder in the homicides of Jermaine McNeil, 10, and Ju'Tyra Allen, 6, who had been living with Beauchamp in his Delray Beach home since the disappearance of their mother, Felicia Brown.
Beauchamp also is charged with the murder of Brown, 25, his on-and-off girlfriend whose body was found at a trash-processing facility in August 2010 and went unidentified until the deaths of her children.
Federal prosecutors alleged Beauchamp may have been motivated to eliminate Brown because she was a key witness against him the gun case.
The firearms charge against Beauchamp arose when Brown's car was repossessed from his Delray Beach home in October 2009. A tow-yard employee searching the car found a black bag in the trunk, containing a .22-caliber revolver, a homemade silencer, 12 rounds of ammunition, a black knit cap and a cigar tube containing pieces of fake crack cocaine.
Prosecutors introduced evidence from a secret recording Brown's ex-husband made, using his cellphone, of a conversation he had with her. Peter Brown urged his ex-wife to cooperate with the federal agent investigating the gun case.
Peter Brown testified at Beauchamp's sentencing that after his cellphone quit recording the conversation, his ex-wife told him that Beauchamp wanted the gun to kill another girlfriend, Michelle Dent.
The judge determined that since the gun was going to be used in a murder conspiracy, Beauchamp deserved the maximum punishment.
"I was never involved in a murder plot. I never murdered anybody," Beauchamp told Dimitrouleas.
Beauchamp's attorney contends Peter Brown's version of events was "unreliable."
It likely will take the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal in Atlanta a year to decide the case, Berube said, and several more years to bring Beauchamp to trial on the murder charges.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/palm-be...9906.story
Suspect in children's deaths appeals 10-year gun sentence
By Peter Franceschina, Sun Sentinel
6:43 p.m. EST, November 26, 2011
Even though he faces three potential death sentences if convicted of murdering two children found in a Delray Beach canal and their mother, Clem Beauchamp is appealing a 10-year prison term he received for possessing an illegal handgun silencer.
Beauchamp, 34, has been held in federal custody since the day after the bodies of the children were found in March, stuffed into luggage. He pleaded guilty in August to possessing the illegal silencer, and now is being held in a federal penitentiary in southwest Virginia.
He is not appealing the firearms conviction, just the 10-year sentence, which was the maximum possible that could be imposed by U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas.
Dimitrouleas relied on evidence presented by prosecutors at the October sentencing that Beauchamp's federal public defender says should not have been considered by the judge.
Robert Berube, Beauchamp's attorney, said his client should have been given about three years in prison under sentencing guidelines, not three times that. "We don't think it was a proper sentence, that's all," he said.
Three weeks before the sentencing, a Palm Beach County grand jury charged Beauchamp with three counts of first-degree murder in the homicides of Jermaine McNeil, 10, and Ju'Tyra Allen, 6, who had been living with Beauchamp in his Delray Beach home since the disappearance of their mother, Felicia Brown.
Beauchamp also is charged with the murder of Brown, 25, his on-and-off girlfriend whose body was found at a trash-processing facility in August 2010 and went unidentified until the deaths of her children.
Federal prosecutors alleged Beauchamp may have been motivated to eliminate Brown because she was a key witness against him the gun case.
The firearms charge against Beauchamp arose when Brown's car was repossessed from his Delray Beach home in October 2009. A tow-yard employee searching the car found a black bag in the trunk, containing a .22-caliber revolver, a homemade silencer, 12 rounds of ammunition, a black knit cap and a cigar tube containing pieces of fake crack cocaine.
Prosecutors introduced evidence from a secret recording Brown's ex-husband made, using his cellphone, of a conversation he had with her. Peter Brown urged his ex-wife to cooperate with the federal agent investigating the gun case.
Peter Brown testified at Beauchamp's sentencing that after his cellphone quit recording the conversation, his ex-wife told him that Beauchamp wanted the gun to kill another girlfriend, Michelle Dent.
The judge determined that since the gun was going to be used in a murder conspiracy, Beauchamp deserved the maximum punishment.
"I was never involved in a murder plot. I never murdered anybody," Beauchamp told Dimitrouleas.
Beauchamp's attorney contends Peter Brown's version of events was "unreliable."
It likely will take the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal in Atlanta a year to decide the case, Berube said, and several more years to bring Beauchamp to trial on the murder charges.