7 ms·

Glad to hear it. Just consider this poor bastard, who was recently sentenced by said morons to 50 years for the entirely non-violent act of shoplifting a packag

• cobrausn 13y ago
  It seems he was sentenced not for stealing ribs, but because the threatened the store owner that confronted him, which is, in fact, a violent act. It also appears he was somewhat of a habitual offender, having been convincted of various violent and non-violent crimes many times previously. The sentence is somewhat harsh (eligible for parole in 12.5), but your comparison to the Taliban is absurd. EDIT: somewhat harsh in relative comparison to normal American sentencing standards, since the goal is apparently to single out Texas as some horrible place where sentencing is too harsh. I will now point out draconian three-strikes laws in other more progressive states that would have had him in jail for life. Make no mistake, I think American criminal courts and sentencing are too harsh in general and our prisons are horrible travesties of justice. But the singling out of this state is what I'm calling absurd - all of American criminal sentencing is broken.
  • jbooth 13y ago
    SOMEWHAT????????????
  • bobwaycott 13y ago
    The clarification here on the details is certainly nice to have. However, are you seriously suggesting that 50 years imprisonment is only somewhat harsh?! Taking 12.5 years at the minimum before being eligible for parole for stealing $35 ribs and "threatening" someone? By the way, saying "I've got a knife" and calling that a threat is both a stretch of what it means to threaten and what it means to call something a "violent act". $35 food theft != 50 years imprisonment. That is fucking insane, not somewhat harsh.
    • CamperBob2 13y ago
      (Shrug) I'm guessing the rest of us can get along OK without this enterprising young gentleman. It's not as if he's likely to cure cancer or start the next Google.
      • bobwaycott 13y ago
        > * It's not as if he's likely to cure cancer or start the next Google.* Why in the fuck does that have anything to do with the severity of the sentence? Should we start valuing people based on their probability to cure cancer or start the next Google?
        • CamperBob2 13y ago
          Just saying that his case sounds pretty far down the list of things that call for howls of injustice, IMHO.
          • alexqgb 13y ago
            Your grasp of justice is about as firm as Attila the Hun's understanding of orbital mechanics.
            • CamperBob2 13y ago
              I could fit in a disgruntled mutter or two next Tuesday morning between 9 and 11. Would that help?
    • talmand 13y ago
      I would think the sentence reflects more his continuing criminal career than the immediate crime at hand. I'm not sure about this case, but it could much like the three strike laws mentioned above. He only got five years for the robbery, five years for the threat, and forty years for his habitual criminal activity. As stated, in three-strike territory he possibly would have gotten life simply for the robbery of $35 worth of ribs. I agree with the above, singling out Texas as some kind of outlier for this type of thing doesn't seem quite right.
• nsxwolf 13y ago
  The charge was not shoplifting and that headline is preposterous. When will people get the difference between theft and robbery through their heads? One is a property crime. The other is a violent crime. But sure, just go ahead and say you'll get 50 years for shoplifting. You get more clicks and you can be seen as indignant and virtuous. EDIT: Ok, so I'm wrong about Ward actually threatening the clerk. But he was a multiple felon, and the jury apparently believed the testimony that he had a knife (which would have been illegal for a multiple felon to carry). My comments in general still apply to many, many stories that are presented the way I originally described.
  • alexqgb 13y ago
    Uh, you didn't actually read the article, did you? If you did, you'd understand that yes, it was shoplifting. He was apprehended after the fact, at which point the shoplifting was discovered. When asked if he had anything else, he replied that he had a knife, but didn't actually show it. In other words, there was no violence committed or even threatened in the course of the crime. There was no violence committed or credibly threatened after the fact. There was simply a statement, which could easily be seen as a confession, that he had a knife in his possession.
• angersock 13y ago
  "That's "justice", Texas style. Better than the Taliban's, I suppose. But not by much." Well we can't all have the outstanding records of quality policing of places like California...