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.
The thing about a life sentence is it can be reversed.
Death can’t.
It can’t be reversed after they’re dead.
You also can’t give them back the time that they lost.
You can give them compensation, at least.
If they’re dead you can’t make them whole.
How do you give them compensation after they’ve died in prison?
Compensate their families or other next of kin.
I’ll be honest, I believe in prison abolition. I don’t really want to defend the concept of life in prison. We don’t need to lock people up.
But it’s clearly better than killing people.
Do families get compensated after their relatives die in prison? That’s a new one to me.
I guess the families could be compensated if their relatives get the death penalty? Then that would make it “ok” by your “logic.”
Yeah, it’d be nice if people didn’t commit crimes. Unfortunately that’s not the world we live in.
You should focus on reality instead of your fantasies more often.
This exact same glib argument can be used against your own complaints about life imprisonment, so I’m not even sure what you’re arguing for at this point.
Uhh, what? I guess I need to be very specific with you, lol.
You were saying that you don’t want to defend life in prison or locking people up. I countered by saying “yeah, it would be great if we lived in a world where that wasn’t necessary, but that’s not the world we live in.”
Since you’re the one so pre-occupied in living in a fantasy world where you think prison isn’t necessary, I said “You should focus on reality instead of your fantasies more often.”
Ironic how you’re saying this after you’re the one who said “compensation for families makes dying in prison ok.” How come you completely ignored my point about giving compensation to families of people who get the death penalty?
You’re the one arguing we shouldn’t imprison people for life. People in favor of life imprisonment can turn right around and say; “yeah, it would be great if we lived in a world where that wasn’t necessary, but that’s not the world we live in.”
“You should focus on reality instead of your fantasies more often.”
I was saying it’s better than the death penalty, not that it’s okay.