Help Me Out Here: Match the Sentence to the Crime

First and foremost, I offer my sympathy to the surviving family members of Mark Buhaug and Marnita Bynum. No one can fully comprehend the suffering and pain of surviving family members of homicide victims.

Robbery is wrong.
Murder is wrong.

The frustration I have is with our bizarre system of using plea bargaining to settle criminal cases.

The cases:

Last year, a man used a gun to rob a manager at a movie theatre. The manager did his best to protect his employees and patrons. The man tapped the gun on the countertop to get the manager to hurry when the gun fired, the bullet ricocheted and subsequently hit the manager and killed him. www.newsobserver.com/news/crime_safety/story/1602013.html

Four years earlier, a couple of counties away, a minister admitted that he strangled his wife to death and then stuffed her dead body into the trunk of her car. www.wral.com/news/local/story/1124875

Here are two sentences for you to choose from:
1. Life in prison

2. 64-86 months (5 to 7 years)

Match the sentence to the crime.

Did you give life in prison to the minister?

You would be wrong.

A plea bargain for first degree murder charges goes to Anthony Bimbo, who committed the armed robbery and murder. He received a sentence of life in prison.

A plea bargain for the charge of manslaughter goes to Minister Melvin Bynum, who strangled his wife to death and then told his congregation (according to www.wral.com) that his wife was home sick when she did not show up for church. He received a sentence of 64-86 months. That's less time than Marnita Bynum's mother served for writing bad checks.

And yes, I do understand how plea bargaining works and that almost every case ends up being settled outside of court. It doesn't make these deals and these sentences any more sane.

Somewhere around 2010 when Bynum has finished serving his sentence for strangling his wife to death, he will probably start establishing his new church. He will probably start looking for a new spouse as well. That same year, Anthony Bimbo will have served 1 year of his life sentence.