Your Takeaways: Did Steven Utash Get Justice?

In a column this week in the Detroit Free Press, Rochelle Riley had some strong words about what she believes are light sentences given to the defendants who admitted their involvement in the April 2 mob beating that left 54-year-old Steven Utash clinging to life and likely disabled for the rest of his life.

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• What are your takeaways from this case? Has justice been served? How can similar acts of violence be prevented in the future?

“We watched the system at work,” Riley began.

“We watched the court proceedings and saw a judge dispense punishment in the beating of Steve Utash last spring.

“We watched — and waited — for justice.

“We’re still waiting.”

The four men who pleaded guilty in the vicious beating got combined sentences of 7.6 years.

“So the bottom line is this: Utash, who was nearly killed by a mob on Detroit’s east side, will spend more time recuperating than the men who beat him will spend in prison,” she wrote.

“And that’s a damn shame.”

» Read the full column on the Detroit Free Press.

Patch readers also questioned whether justice was served after the final defendant, Latrez Cummings, was sentenced Thursday to three years’ probation, with the first six months to be served in jail.

Nothing the defendant’s comment that his father was never in his life, Wayne County Circuit Judge James Callahan said the defendant needs “someone to beat the hell out of you when you made a mistake.”

“I think the real story here is that the judge went too light in sentencing the defendant because he excused his violent crime on not having a father figure in his life,” reader Dale Behler commented. “Another out-of-touch judge who fails to do his job in handing out justice because of his goody-two-shoes social agenda. Where do we get these weakling judges who ignore the victim's pain and suffering in favor of over emphasis on the criminal's poor upbringing? More violent crime is the unintended consequence of soft love judges like him.”

Another reader reacted strongly to the judge’s belief that the defendant should have “beaten” as a disciplinary measure by a father figure in his life and said the likely the defendant experienced violence during his childhood “and that's why he's now the monster he is.”

The reader, who posts under the name MoJo, said that’s no excuse for the defendant’s behavior and “he can rot in jail for the rest of his life.”

“But until we start addressing the causes of violent crime instead of just punishing after the fact, we'll continue to see things like this happen. I'd be willing to bet Mr. Utash's family would much prefer that this whole thing had been prevented rather than taking satisfaction in any punishment that the perpetrators might be sentenced to.”