4 ms·
While I agree it's unconstitutional to park someone in jail for eight years without bail or a trial, this particular guy is probably ecstatic at how it all work
by gozur88 9y ago
While I agree it's unconstitutional to park someone in jail for eight years without bail or a trial, this particular guy is probably ecstatic at how it all worked out:
>As a parolee with a previous drug charge to his name, Smith was looking at a sentence of 20 years to life if convicted as a habitual offender, according to one of his lawyers.
- sergers 9y agoFrom the article, he potentially had a plea deal to get out in 2015, but turned it down. > “He could have come home as early as January of 2015,” said defense attorney Martin Regan, whose firm handled the case from the start. “There’s a man who just steadfastly said, 'I don’t care, you can keep me. I’m not guilty, I want a trial.' ” I am thinking it was strategy to wait it out, perhaps not initially. Or thinking about how he's gonna become a millionaire after suing because of the delays/ loss of right to speedy trial
- derefr 9y agoPrevious drug charge? Does that mean that he wasn't convicted the first time, either? The only thing "habitual" there, then, would be the police's desire to arrest him.
- dragonwriter 9y agoHe was a parolee on the previous charge, which means he was convicted, sentenced to incarceration, and released from that incarceration on parole.
- tyingq 9y agoOr, most likely, a plea bargain. Which is an entire other can of worms.
- solotronics 9y agoit's pretty standard in the US for the district attourney to offer a plea bargian of parole in exchange for pleading guilty. This results in high win rate for the attourney and they look at it as most of these parolees end up making a mistake during parole and going in for longer sentances.
- dragonwriter 9y agoUnless some jurisdiction uses “parole” to include what “probation” usually means, that's incorrect, and even if that's true in some jurisdiction it's not in Louisiana, where (as is generally the case) you can be sentenced to probation, or released from a prison sentence on parole. So, as a parolee, he had previously been sentenced to prison and released under supervision.
- ams6110 9y agoIf you're out on parole. you're effectively on probation though.
- dragonwriter 9y agoYes, but you don't get parole as a plea bargain, as suggested in GP.
- Feniks 9y agoYeah an actual trial with a jury is expensive. The DA wants to avoid that hassle. Look most people in the US can scrape together 50k for bail and a decent lawyer who tells them exactly how to handle the prosecution. The people who can't are SoL. The burden of poverty.
- Zaheer 9y agoUhhh what ever happened to Innocent until proven guilty? The case never went to trial so he was never even proved as guilty - for all you know he could be completely innocent regardless of his past convictions.
- gozur88 9y agoThat's all true. I'm playing the odds here - it's likely he was guilty, and even if he was innocent it's always possible he would have been found guilty anyway. Especially on a drug charge.
- maxerickson 9y agoThe article doesn't provide a lot of information about why he was charged, just Smith’s saga behind bars began on Feb. 11, 2010, when State Police and federal drug agents said they discovered baggies of crack cocaine inside a safe in his Carrollton residence. To me that sounds like he was at the customer end of the distribution, dealing on the street. A potential life sentence for that is bonkers.