Drunken party girl or a victim herself?

LBR wrote:

I just wanted to update you on the E.D, sentence...the remainder of her sentence was suspended to probation.

Is this true??? You are saying she is out of prison now - on probation?
What is the background information of this sudden change - please!!?

I went to the internet and read the summary of todays hearing ,for Emily Dowdy. As I understand this she will serve two years in rehab, then wear an electronic ankle braclet for six months after her release. Altogather Emily was in prison actually in prison for about 4 years. The rest of the time she was out on bail between trials. only 4 years for killing a innocent young man whose only mistake was being on the same as a drunk driver. I do notthink justice was served today

lele wrote:

I went to the internet and read the summary of todays hearing ,for Emily Dowdy. As I understand this she will serve two years in rehab, then wear an electronic ankle braclet for six months after her release. Altogather Emily was in prison actually in prison for about 4 years. The rest of the time she was out on bail between trials. only 4 years for killing a innocent young man whose only mistake was being on the same as a drunk driver. I do notthink justice was served today

Thank you for telling me. Don't know whether you have
been following the exchange of posts and views presented on this thread. To me the E D case has been very special. I believe I cannot explain fully why I got emotionally so engaged in this case, but 1 yr (+) ago I "discovered" the existence of the various "forums" in USA, and by pure coincidence I read this case on Oklahoma forums. I started with a couple of flippant remarks to a post before I realized I was "talking" to the grandpa of the killed
young man. Rest assured I was there and then not very proud of myself, but that took me into the ciscussion and the case. I read all info available to me on internet and ended with being shocked in a way to learn something about American administration of justice - being evidently so very different from
going attitudes here.
Now, if what you tell me is what has happened now (and I hve no reason not to believe it is true) I think all of a sudden the punishment of E D has been brought in line with what would be fairly
"compatible" with our views - and "people's sense of justice" in Norway (which again is in line with most European countries I believe).
If you do "not think justice has been served today"
I think many will react like you. However, think it over: may be that a system that will take human considerations and put aside the very natural sense of "revenge" (strong/harsh punishment is deserved for "killing" someone) is the only system that can
stand a chance of being respected and accepted by the people. In the case of E D -whatever one should consider her to be - I think it is clear she had no intention of hurting anyone but did so by being behind a wheel in such a condition. If the same court another time sentence someone to lifetime for killing
someone brutally and intended the court will receive
more respect when having showed human considerations in a case like this one.
E D will have to carry to death of Ryan Brewer on her shoulders for the rest of her life, regardless.
And no doubt she knows that sh cannot run away from her own shaddow. If she is a person - like most of us - that will be a burden to carry that is more heavy than we can imagine. She will also know that one wrong step in life from now on may bring her back behind bars for a long, long time.
I am not so sure that "justice has not been served" this time - as you may think. I also sincerely hope that the latest court decision will give all the Brewers and friends of Ryan Brewer a platform of forgiveness now on which they can build peace of mind
for themselves - I think Ryan Brewer - a fine young man - deserves that.

Yes SNJ I have been reading the post on this site. I have also read everything I could find about this case including the summary of all ED.s hearings and trials, and the findings of the last apeal before this one. My post says Little Rock, Ark, but I live in a small tolwn in Texas about 12 miles from Hillsboro where E D 's parents live. I became aware of E D through a lady at church where my husband is minester. ED' s parents of this lady. I haver met ED or her parents. My husband was given a artcle out of the local newspaper by this lady. I read it and became very interested in the future of someone who was so procuted and innocent. But the more information I found the more the newspaper articles did not make sence. Everyone wanted to blame the judge for unfair trials. According to court documents Judge Caswell runed in favor of ED as much as she ruled aganist her. ED's first bail was set at only 1500 dollars by the judge. Judge Caswell even let ED move out of state with her boyfriedn while she was waiting for trial. Judge Caswell did nit sentence ED to 25 the 40 years two seperate juries at two seperate trials did. I'm not trying to change your mind, just wanted to share some information I found. Also, my husband received a E mail from ED's mother last night. She said ED will spend 60 to 90 days in a halfway house the be on probation for 2 years. She did not mention the ankle braclet. I have never met anyone directly involved in this case so I have no desire for "revenge" I just believe ED should haver served more than 4 years for killing someone. Everyone , it seems, was so busy thinking of "poor Emily" as a victim of a corrupt justic system that they overlooked the true victim, Ryan Brewer.

typo on previous post. I ment to say ED's parent are friends of this lady.

July 10 marked only one good thing and that is that we will never again have to sit in court with ED and her family and hear her, once again, say that she is "sorry for our loss" without saying she is sorry that she is responsible for Ryan's death. She did come closer this time by saying she was responsible for the decision to go out that night. The terms that I am seeing posted by Emily's family are not the same however as the DA's office has been told so don't get so over joyed for her. She still has a long road to stay on the straight and narrow. THe background information about the sudden change is that we have a judge who is new and wanting to set a precident for himself. He is too liberal to have to follow a stiffer sentence. Thank you to lele for obviously doing some thinking deeply about this case and reading between the lines of the "news" articles. It is amazing, even with this little hearing that two news stations and the Oklahoman were there. I was standing there listening to what was said and it still was not reported the same by all. So, take what you will. Our family will rest know that we do not have to visit the court room again and we will leave this in God's hands and pray that Emily will, at some point realize that she is 100% responsible for Ryan's death and she will try to keep others from making the same mistake. And - I just have to say it one more time - there was NO WAY if you had been in court and heard EVERY MOMENT of testimony that you could have even considered GHB in this case. I realize it sounds plausible if you are reading the "news" on the case but please quit spreading that belief unless you have read the transcripts. And, if 25 years is too stiff of a sentence for killing someone then all I can think is that you have not lost a loved one and had to really think about what the laws should be. Before this I didn't give drunk driving much thought. Now I have looked up statistics and spend hours listening to offenders speak out against it - I cannot believe how mildly the punishment is for such a preventable crime. I am wanting to put this behind me so I will say goodbye. As, I will no longer have to be --in court every day. From now on I will just be - with Ryan in my heart.

Prophetic justice would be for her to get out and get whacked by a DD herself.

In your mind wrote:

Prophetic justice would be for her to get out and get whacked by a DD herself.

Give us a break please!

With Ryan in my heart, my name on this
post is now Stewie I was posted as lele for awhile, but I won't go into that. My heart goes out to you and all of Ryan's family I have been to his web sight and know in my heart he was a fine christian young man. May you have the comfort of knowing he rest with Christ.
I could not believe Judge Watson's ruling. If 25 years was too harsh what is 4 years? After two trials with two verdicts of guilty how can one man cast all that aside?
I hope when the next election comes everyone will remember this injustice. He may have thought this was justice for Emily Dowdy, but where is the justice for Ryan?

Stewie wrote:

With Ryan in my heart, my name on this
post is now Stewie I was posted as lele for awhile, but I won't go into that. My heart goes out to you and all of Ryan's family I have been to his web sight and know in my heart he was a fine christian young man. May you have the comfort of knowing he rest with Christ.
I could not believe Judge Watson's ruling. If 25 years was too harsh what is 4 years? After two trials with two verdicts of guilty how can one man cast all that aside?
I hope when the next election comes everyone will remember this injustice. He may have thought this was justice for Emily Dowdy, but where is the justice for Ryan?

You know, Ryan is no longer here. We living after him can do nothing to change that. His family will have to live with the tragedy and loss for the rest of their lives.
We can only try to understand their feelings and only those who have lost a child can nod knowingly to the
traumatic consequences.
And we have to try to understand the traumas the accident has caused to ED and her family too!

Then we - living in modern, civilized societies, be it yours or mine, inherited the necessity of law and order and those who break the laws are subject to the society's reactions. For at least two reasons:
- punishment is to serve as a deterrent 1) for the individual who broke the law and 2) as a message to all others who could be considering breaking it.

It should be a good administration of law to make punishment soberly to a minimum to achieve the individual (defendant)will not be repeating breaking
the law. If in the case of ED it should be necessary
to maintain 40 or 25 yrs imprisonment there must be
a strong reason to believe she would go out and repeat DUI. Are you saying that is exactly what you are convinced she will be doing?(I take the chance of saying "No" on your behalf)
Then: Should she be sentenced to serve 25 or 40 yrs as a deterrent for others in the future?
That would with "No" as answer to the question above be UTTERLY unfair and, I would say, miscarriage of justice.
The problem in USA (not so much here any longer actually!) seems to me being you may drive DUI as long as nothing happens with a fair statistical chance of getting away with it.(Much too few random police checks along the streets/roads and high ways?).

Your challenge is fighting the attitudes that make
DUI acceptable to too many. That's where I think you all should join forces as a society to reduce road accidents due to alcohol (and drugs). Today that is perhaps the best way to find "justice" for Ryan Brewer?? Why not start that work in Oklahoma to show the rest of your country it works? Takes a generation perhaps but no time to lose, right?
And you don't achieve anything by putting pillows under your arms by sentencing ED to 40 yrs. You have to do something actively and together - without forgetting Ryan Brewer and the very many other vitims of DDs.

SNJ I do feel sorry for ED and her parents. On her last apeal before this one her sentance was reduced from 40 back to 25 years.

In our system on criminal justice she probaly would have been paroled long before that. Weather she intended to kill Ryan or not he is still dead because of her actions. Thats why she was charged with manslaughter not murder.
ED admitted under oath on the whitness stand she drank alachol while out on bond even though a condition of her bond was no driving or drinking. Because of this I think there is a good chance she will drink and drive again.
I never said she should serve 25 years, I just think 4 was too little.
I have spent a lot of time reading every thing I could find about this, one of the newspaper articles called the bar she was in that night one of her favorite places. So I bet this wasen't the first time she drove after drinking. Just the first time she got caught.

Stewie wrote:

SNJ I do feel sorry for ED and her parents. On her last apeal before this one her sentance was reduced from 40 back to 25 years.
In our system on criminal justice she probaly would have been paroled long before that. Weather she intended to kill Ryan or not he is still dead because of her actions. Thats why she was charged with manslaughter not murder.
ED admitted under oath on the whitness stand she drank alachol while out on bond even though a condition of her bond was no driving or drinking. Because of this I think there is a good chance she will drink and drive again.
I never said she should serve 25 years, I just think 4 was too little.
I have spent a lot of time reading every thing I could find about this, one of the newspaper articles called the bar she was in that night one of her favorite places. So I bet this wasen't the first time she drove after drinking. Just the first time she got caught.

So much has been said already pro et con and I think that I should absolutely not get involved in the details once again as I was not there at any time. But I would like to say that I take it the police did everything possible to find out what took place on that bar, who was there and what - exactly - happened,who did what, who saw what- both to prepare for a possible prosecution AND safeguarding info that could be in favour of the defendant. I have seen nothing about someone having under oath stated she has previously been driving under influence of alcohol, in which case your "bet" is quite an allegation unless you declare willing to repeat that under oath! You cannot accuse anyone or everyone who drinks alcohol, once a year or once a life - or every day of automatically being driving intoxicated. Just as you cannot accuse me of rape just because I am a male. I understand your points of view but I disagree with you.
As to 4 yrs being too little to stay inside in your opinion: Yes, that's fair and my views as posted before is that a similar kind of "stay" inside would be the normal here for that kind of crime. And a sentence would have been, say something between 3 and 5 years, exact length subject to the conditions and
details from case to case. So in that sense her 4 years (plus compulsory subsequent obligations)fits our "sense of justice" quite well. Not important in my opinion whether it was 3 or 7 yrs for that matter. My reaction was to the sentences of some 6-10 times the actual time inside upto the recent decision by the judge. Now that is dealt with and ED is "dealt" with by society in a way I find reasonable.
(You may accuse me of being "liberal" -which is not a nice name on many Americans' tongues, but I'll survive that).
So my thoughts no longer goes to ED, but back to the
Brewers who I hope will regain happiness and be able to enjoy the beautiful sides of life again, those that
the accident stopped Ryan from enjoying simply because he was only twenty when his life stopped.
I hope they will be strong enough to not let ED and the decision of the "liberal" judge shadow their eyes
from now on.

In court every day wrote:

July 10 marked only one good thing and that is that we will never again have to sit in court with ED and her family and hear her, once again, say that she is "sorry for our loss" without saying she is sorry that she is responsible for Ryan's death. She did come closer this time by saying she was responsible for the decision to go out that night. The terms that I am seeing posted by Emily's family are not the same however as the DA's office has been told so don't get so over joyed for her. She still has a long road to stay on the straight and narrow. THe background information about the sudden change is that we have a judge who is new and wanting to set a precident for himself. He is too liberal to have to follow a stiffer sentence. Thank you to lele for obviously doing some thinking deeply about this case and reading between the lines of the "news" articles. It is amazing, even with this little hearing that two news stations and the Oklahoman were there. I was standing there listening to what was said and it still was not reported the same by all. So, take what you will. Our family will rest know that we do not have to visit the court room again and we will leave this in God's hands and pray that Emily will, at some point realize that she is 100% responsible for Ryan's death and she will try to keep others from making the same mistake. And - I just have to say it one more time - there was NO WAY if you had been in court and heard EVERY MOMENT of testimony that you could have even considered GHB in this case. I realize it sounds plausible if you are reading the "news" on the case but please quit spreading that belief unless you have read the transcripts. And, if 25 years is too stiff of a sentence for killing someone then all I can think is that you have not lost a loved one and had to really think about what the laws should be. Before this I didn't give drunk driving much thought. Now I have looked up statistics and spend hours listening to offenders speak out against it - I cannot believe how mildly the punishment is for such a preventable crime. I am wanting to put this behind me so I will say goodbye. As, I will no longer have to be --in court every day. From now on I will just be - with Ryan in my heart.

Dear "In court every day" - I feel you have let me know you a bit and I like you for that. Please go on with your life keeping Ryan in your heart, but not "just be" - find back to the valuable things in life, start with one or two and you will be going (I sincerely hope).
If I ever knock on your door - will i be welcome?
If I come across with a local soccer team of young players (15/16 yr boys) do you think we would be welcome to play a friendly match against same age
boys of Ryans Club and field??? In a couple of years time...? If so we could go for a walk and look at all the meaningless everyday things people are occupied with together? Perhaps I could make you see things there that you don't see now ...? Think it over.
God bless you (all)!

Dear SNJ thanks for your post. I do not agree with all you said, but thats fine, my husband and I don't agree about this either. But it's nice to exchange ideas with others,
But I do think you misunderstood me. I did not say someone said they had seen Emily driving under the influence. I said Emily admitted under oath to drinking while out on bond. This was in violation of her bond which stated she could not drive or drink.
But what 's done is done and I do wish both familys the best and hope Emily can put this behind her. Even though I don't agree with the sentence, I wish her no harm.

Stewie wrote:

Dear SNJ thanks for your post. I do not agree with all you said, but thats fine, my husband and I don't agree about this either. But it's nice to exchange ideas with others,
But I do think you misunderstood me. I did not say someone said they had seen Emily driving under the influence. I said Emily admitted under oath to drinking while out on bond. This was in violation of her bond which stated she could not drive or drink.
But what 's done is done and I do wish both familys the best and hope Emily can put this behind her. Even though I don't agree with the sentence, I wish her no harm.

Very nice post, thank you ! Few things in life are either black or white - so we all have to live with a lot of grey shades - it's our own job to find a sunny back ground for those as much as we can. Let's hope everyone involved in the tragic accident 8 yrs ago, and the subsequent challenges and burdens, will be able put it all behind them and building a much happier focus for what's left of their lives.
Take care!

FORGIVING HUSBAND wrote:

FOR POINT OF INTEREST TO FOLLOW THIS CASE TO SEE OUT COME ALSO SAID TO BE DRIVING DRUNK WHERE SOMEONES WAS KILLED AND LEFT THE SCENE WOULD THAT NOT SHOW A NON CARING ATTITUDE AND THERE IS NO QUESTION OF BEING DRUGED. OR IF THEY TRY TO SHOW HE WAS NOT WEARING UNDER WARE TO SHOW HE WAS A PARTY GUY TO GET CONVICTION NOT EXPOLRING ALL THE FACTS. IF HES CONVICTED WHAT HIS SENTENCE IS.
AND I FOUND IT STRANGE HER LAWYER HAS COME OUT AND SAID CASWELL MADE HIM NURVOUS WOULD THAT NOT SHOW HE WAS NOT WILLING TO STAND UP FOR HIS CLIENT NOT TO MENTION HE DID NOT EVEN BOTHER TO INTERVIEW THE OTHER LADY;S THAT CLAIMED THEY WERE DRUGED AT THE SAME CLUB
Driver arrested in fatal wreck
TULSA -- One person died and another was arrested after a fatality accident in Tulsa, police said.
Gregory Bushyhead, 27, of Tulsa was arrested on complaints of first-degree manslaughter, leaving the scene of an injury accident and driving under the influence, jail records

Gregory Bushyhead killed my brother...no remorse...maximum sentence !!!

Coach Brown wrote:

<quoted text>Gregory Bushyhead killed my brother...no remorse...maximum sentence !!!

You seem to be the only one who hasn't noticed
the last train left some 5 months ago...better luck next time.