We need more prisons.

[aujeff11 6,243]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

Define "Penny ante" stuff please?

I'd say the easiest way to define the term would be the kind of stuff you could be guilty of and still hope to have a second chance at a college football career under Gus.

wow. I believe using Saban would be a better example than Gus.

[TitanTiger 20,465]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

Define "Penny ante" stuff please?

I'd say the easiest way to define the term would be the kind of stuff you could be guilty of and still hope to have a second chance at a college football career under Gus.

wow. I believe using Saban would be a better example than Gus.

I think he's pointing at Nick Marshall as an example.

[Strychnine 1,802]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

That alone should tell any rational person that we are doing something terribly wrong in our criminal justice system.

One would think.

I mean, we have a population that is 1/4th the size of China, but we have more people incarcerated than they do. Simple logic should tell you there's no way those numbers should even be close and the fact that we have more people in prison tells you we need to fix our system. Because it ain't like the Chinese are soft on crime.

Recidivism rates also tell you that our prisons are not working effectively. I consider incarceration to be intended to serve two basic purposes:

1. Provide a means to securely isolate effectively condemned people (life or death sentences) from the rest of society.

2. Provide a means to punish and ultimately rehabilitate those convicted of a crime, with the goal being to return a reformed person to society.

We are very good at the isolation and punishment aspects of prison, but I think we fail miserably at rehabilitation. It takes a truly exceptional person to be released from prison in the United States and then go on to establish a legitimate career that pays well enough to escape poverty.

[aujeff11 6,243]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

Define "Penny ante" stuff please?

I'd say the easiest way to define the term would be the kind of stuff you could be guilty of and still hope to have a second chance at a college football career under Gus.

wow. I believe using Saban would be a better example than Gus.

I think he's pointing at Nick Marshall as an example.

Maybe so. I remember Nick Marshall was technically kicked off the team for being the look out guy while the other teammates stole from other players. I'd imagine he wouldn't even be in prison anyway because that would be considered a petty theft and a misdemeanor.

[TitanTiger 20,465]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

Define "Penny ante" stuff please?

I'd say the easiest way to define the term would be the kind of stuff you could be guilty of and still hope to have a second chance at a college football career under Gus.

wow. I believe using Saban would be a better example than Gus.

I think he's pointing at Nick Marshall as an example.

Maybe so. I remember Nick Marshall was technically kicked off the team for being the look out guy while the other teammates stole from other players. I'd imagine he wouldn't even be in prison anyway because that would be considered a petty theft and a misdemeanor.

Well, there was that incident before last season where he was pulled over, officer smelled weed and did a search and turned up a small amount of marijuana. Granted, it wasn't an arrest, but guy are arrested all the time over small amounts of weed for personal use that just doesn't seem worth taking up valuable space and money to incarcerate.

[alexava 6,972]

You folks live in a different world. There are very very few people in prison for "penny ante" crimes. And I find it completely ironic that drug offenses especially sales and trafficking are excused so easily. DRUGS CAUSE THE VAST MAJORITY OF VIOLENT CRIMES. How hard is that to understand? I just heard this guy in the story I linked was shooting ICE up his ass. The Chattanooga shooter was on "party drugs" whatever the hell that is. China probably has such stern punishment or death penalty to deter crime. You folks don't know the people I know personally that have been busted upwards of 5-6 times with weed and still sell it. Most of the laws are strict enough but sentences don't get carried out. Few people learn a lesson because the punishment is not enough.

[aujeff11 6,243]

You folks live in a different world. There are very very few people in prison for "penny ante" crimes. And I find it completely ironic that drug offenses especially sales and trafficking are excused so easily. DRUGS CAUSE THE VAST MAJORITY OF VIOLENT CRIMES. How hard is that to understand? I just heard this guy in the story I linked was shooting ICE up his ass. The Chattanooga shooter was on "party drugs" whatever the hell that is. China probably has such stern punishment or death penalty to deter crime. You folks don't know the people I know personally that have been busted upwards of 5-6 times with weed and still sell it. Most of the laws are strict enough but sentences don't get carried out. Few people learn a lesson because the punishment is not enough.

If drugs are causing the problems, that is just more of a reason to rehabilitate,,,,,right?

[AURaptor 1,121]

We just need more jobs for these people . Like with ISIS. Give them more schooling, better paying jobs, and they'll put down their guns and butcher knives and stop raping women.

Problem solved.

prisons will bring more jobs.

They can guard each other! Brilliant .

[TitanTiger 20,465]

You folks live in a different world. There are very very few people in prison for "penny ante" crimes.

I gave you four examples already. Those are not outliers. They are representative of a larger trend because of mandatory minimum sentencing that gained popularity over the last 20-30 years.

And I find it completely ironic that drug offenses especially sales and trafficking are excused so easily.

True sales and traffficking is not being excused. Where the bar is set for trafficking is being questioned. The logic of pairing basic personal use and owning a weapon is. The sentencing where prior history and specifics of involvement are being questioned.

DRUGS CAUSE THE VAST MAJORITY OF VIOLENT CRIMES. How hard is that to understand? I just heard this guy in the story I linked was shooting ICE up his ass. The Chattanooga shooter was on "party drugs" whatever the hell that is.

And we have harsh prison sentences for violent crimes that aren't being questioned here. But there is a difference in someone smoking a joint on occasion vs shooting heroin or manufacturing meth. The laws increasingly do not take factors like this into account and as a result we over-incarcerate too many people, creating overcrowding and strain on limited resources.

China probably has such stern punishment or death penalty to deter crime.

1. Not enough to make up a difference where they have over 4 times our population.

2. The death penalty has not shown itself to be a deterrent at all.

And China was just an extreme example to show the massive disparity in prison rates for a country much larger. When you look at rates for other Western, industrialized nations (looking at it in terms of X number of prisoners per 100,000 in population), our numbers are astronomically higher than our peers such as Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Australia, Sweden, etc.

You folks don't know the people I know personally that have been busted upwards of 5-6 times with weed and still sell it. Most of the laws are strict enough but sentences don't get carried out. Few people learn a lesson because the punishment is not enough.

Or perhaps, the punishment simply isn't effective. It doesn't work because we need to consider other options. If I discipline my child and find that a spanking doesn't seem to be an effective means of correcting their behavior, does it not make sense to look to other options? The best parents realize there are numerous ways to get through to a kid - restrictions, losing privileges, a serious heart to heart talk. I'm not saying these are the things you do with a criminal, but I'm using it as an analogy to say that imprisonment isn't necessarily the best way to handle all things. It may satisfy your "that'll show 'em" itch, but it won't give you the outcome you are really striving for - changing behavior.

[aujeff11 6,243]

Link

This is a very informative link and very much relevant if we want to talk "penny ante" crimes. The Title is "Life in Prison for Selling 20 Dollars of Weed."

Pay attention to the fact that the defendant's public defender only giving a thirty second opening argument in favor of the defendant, and he didnt even mention the defendants name.

Currently, there are 3,278 prisoners sentenced to die in prison for nonviolent offenses. Some of these offenses involve property crimes, ranging from stealing tools from a tool shed to shoplifting a $159 jacket. The vast majority, however, stem from drugs. Seventy-nine percent of these inmates are serving life for drug offenses. Sixty-five percent of them are black.

Nowhere is the inequity of this system more apparent than Louisana. With 429 inmates serving life sentences for crimes like Winslow's, the state holds the recordfor the most nonviolent offenders locked up for life. A staggering ninety-one percent of these inmates are black. Louisiana State Penitentiary, where Winslow is housed, has the largest population of black men serving life sentences for nonviolent crimes in the world. It’s a problem so rampant, even the warden of the prison itself is speaking out.

“There’s an answer to this without being so extreme. But we’re still-living-20-years-ago extreme. Throw the human away. He’s worthless. Boom: up the river,” says Angola Prison Warden Burl Cain. “And yet, he didn’t even kill anybody. He didn’t do anything, he just had an addiction he couldn’t control and he was trying to support it robbing. That’s terrible to rob people—I’ve been robbed, I hate it. I want something done to him. But not all his life. That’s extreme. That’s cruel and unusual punishment to me.”

[alexava 6,972]

Link

This is a very informative link and very much relevant if we want to talk "penny ante" crimes. The Title is "Life in Prison for Selling 20 Dollars of Weed."

Pay attention to the fact that the defendant's public defender only giving a thirty second opening argument in favor of the defendant, and he didnt even mention the defendants name.

Currently, there are 3,278 prisoners sentenced to die in prison for nonviolent offenses. Some of these offenses involve property crimes, ranging from stealing tools from a tool shed to shoplifting a $159 jacket. The vast majority, however, stem from drugs. Seventy-nine percent of these inmates are serving life for drug offenses. Sixty-five percent of them are black.

Nowhere is the inequity of this system more apparent than Louisana. With 429 inmates serving life sentences for crimes like Winslow's, the state holds the recordfor the most nonviolent offenders locked up for life. A staggering ninety-one percent of these inmates are black. Louisiana State Penitentiary, where Winslow is housed, has the largest population of black men serving life sentences for nonviolent crimes in the world. It’s a problem so rampant, even the warden of the prison itself is speaking out.

“There’s an answer to this without being so extreme. But we’re still-living-20-years-ago extreme. Throw the human away. He’s worthless. Boom: up the river,” says Angola Prison Warden Burl Cain. “And yet, he didn’t even kill anybody. He didn’t do anything, he just had an addiction he couldn’t control and he was trying to support it robbing. That’s terrible to rob people—I’ve been robbed, I hate it. I want something done to him. But not all his life. That’s extreme. That’s cruel and unusual punishment to me.”

i read your first link about life for a stolen jacket and i dont even believe it to be credible. but nevertheless people find extremes to try to prove a point and miss the much bigger problem.

[alexava 6,972]

Posted Today, 11:24 AM

alexava, on Today, 10:21 AM, said:

You folks live in a different world. There are very very few people in prison for "penny ante" crimes.

I gave you four examples already. Those are not outliers. They are representative of a larger trend because of mandatory minimum sentencing that gained popularity over the last 20-30 years.

they are outliers. i can give dozens of examples in my county alone that go in the opposite direction. they never learn a lesson.

[aujeff11 6,243]

Link

This is a very informative link and very much relevant if we want to talk "penny ante" crimes. The Title is "Life in Prison for Selling 20 Dollars of Weed."

Pay attention to the fact that the defendant's public defender only giving a thirty second opening argument in favor of the defendant, and he didnt even mention the defendants name.

Currently, there are 3,278 prisoners sentenced to die in prison for nonviolent offenses. Some of these offenses involve property crimes, ranging from stealing tools from a tool shed to shoplifting a $159 jacket. The vast majority, however, stem from drugs. Seventy-nine percent of these inmates are serving life for drug offenses. Sixty-five percent of them are black.

Nowhere is the inequity of this system more apparent than Louisana. With 429 inmates serving life sentences for crimes like Winslow's, the state holds the recordfor the most nonviolent offenders locked up for life. A staggering ninety-one percent of these inmates are black. Louisiana State Penitentiary, where Winslow is housed, has the largest population of black men serving life sentences for nonviolent crimes in the world. It’s a problem so rampant, even the warden of the prison itself is speaking out.

“There’s an answer to this without being so extreme. But we’re still-living-20-years-ago extreme. Throw the human away. He’s worthless. Boom: up the river,” says Angola Prison Warden Burl Cain. “And yet, he didn’t even kill anybody. He didn’t do anything, he just had an addiction he couldn’t control and he was trying to support it robbing. That’s terrible to rob people—I’ve been robbed, I hate it. I want something done to him. But not all his life. That’s extreme. That’s cruel and unusual punishment to me.”

i read your first link about life for a stolen jacket and i dont even believe it to be credible. but nevertheless people find extremes to try to prove a point and miss the much bigger problem.

Try google.......http://caselaw.findlaw.com/la-court-of-appeal/1042986.html

And none of this is extreme. Pull your head out of the sand and face the facts. If anything is extreme, that would be declaring we need more prisons just because of a murder in your local neighborhood.

[TitanTiger 20,465]

i read your first link about life for a stolen jacket and i dont even believe it to be credible. but nevertheless people find extremes to try to prove a point and miss the much bigger problem.

"I don't believe it to be credible" is not a sufficient response. For what reason to you find it not credible? What evidence to you have to show it isn't credible?

[alexava 6,972]

Link

This is a very informative link and very much relevant if we want to talk "penny ante" crimes. The Title is "Life in Prison for Selling 20 Dollars of Weed."

Pay attention to the fact that the defendant's public defender only giving a thirty second opening argument in favor of the defendant, and he didnt even mention the defendants name.

Currently, there are 3,278 prisoners sentenced to die in prison for nonviolent offenses. Some of these offenses involve property crimes, ranging from stealing tools from a tool shed to shoplifting a $159 jacket. The vast majority, however, stem from drugs. Seventy-nine percent of these inmates are serving life for drug offenses. Sixty-five percent of them are black.

Nowhere is the inequity of this system more apparent than Louisana. With 429 inmates serving life sentences for crimes like Winslow's, the state holds the recordfor the most nonviolent offenders locked up for life. A staggering ninety-one percent of these inmates are black. Louisiana State Penitentiary, where Winslow is housed, has the largest population of black men serving life sentences for nonviolent crimes in the world. It’s a problem so rampant, even the warden of the prison itself is speaking out.

“There’s an answer to this without being so extreme. But we’re still-living-20-years-ago extreme. Throw the human away. He’s worthless. Boom: up the river,” says Angola Prison Warden Burl Cain. “And yet, he didn’t even kill anybody. He didn’t do anything, he just had an addiction he couldn’t control and he was trying to support it robbing. That’s terrible to rob people—I’ve been robbed, I hate it. I want something done to him. But not all his life. That’s extreme. That’s cruel and unusual punishment to me.”

i read your first link about life for a stolen jacket and i dont even believe it to be credible. but nevertheless people find extremes to try to prove a point and miss the much bigger problem.

Try google.......http://caselaw.findl...al/1042986.html

And none of this is extreme. Pull your head out of the sand and face the facts. If anything is extreme, that would be declaring we need more prisons just because of a murder in your local neighborhood.

damn, do i need to start linking every murder that is committed by a paroled convict? every person who is released early and goes back in almost immediately ? i can do that you know.

[aujeff11 6,243]

Link

This is a very informative link and very much relevant if we want to talk "penny ante" crimes. The Title is "Life in Prison for Selling 20 Dollars of Weed."

Pay attention to the fact that the defendant's public defender only giving a thirty second opening argument in favor of the defendant, and he didnt even mention the defendants name.

Currently, there are 3,278 prisoners sentenced to die in prison for nonviolent offenses. Some of these offenses involve property crimes, ranging from stealing tools from a tool shed to shoplifting a $159 jacket. The vast majority, however, stem from drugs. Seventy-nine percent of these inmates are serving life for drug offenses. Sixty-five percent of them are black.

Nowhere is the inequity of this system more apparent than Louisana. With 429 inmates serving life sentences for crimes like Winslow's, the state holds the recordfor the most nonviolent offenders locked up for life. A staggering ninety-one percent of these inmates are black. Louisiana State Penitentiary, where Winslow is housed, has the largest population of black men serving life sentences for nonviolent crimes in the world. It’s a problem so rampant, even the warden of the prison itself is speaking out.

“There’s an answer to this without being so extreme. But we’re still-living-20-years-ago extreme. Throw the human away. He’s worthless. Boom: up the river,” says Angola Prison Warden Burl Cain. “And yet, he didn’t even kill anybody. He didn’t do anything, he just had an addiction he couldn’t control and he was trying to support it robbing. That’s terrible to rob people—I’ve been robbed, I hate it. I want something done to him. But not all his life. That’s extreme. That’s cruel and unusual punishment to me.”

i read your first link about life for a stolen jacket and i dont even believe it to be credible. but nevertheless people find extremes to try to prove a point and miss the much bigger problem.

Try google.......http://caselaw.findl...al/1042986.html

And none of this is extreme. Pull your head out of the sand and face the facts. If anything is extreme, that would be declaring we need more prisons just because of a murder in your local neighborhood.

damn, do i need to start linking every murder that is committed by a paroled convict? every person who is released early and goes back in almost immediately ? i can do that you know.

Can you link all the convicts who served their time in prison, got paroled out, and never went back to prison? Or do you just care to tell one side of the story?

[TitanTiger 20,465]

Here's a good story explaining some of the problems with hyper-strict sentencing and mandatory minimums even for non-violent offenses. It touches on why the shoplifting story above was possible.

Tough sentencing laws keep Louisiana's prisons full

Cindy Chang, The Times-Picayune

Brian Martin is serving 24 years behind bars -- without the possibility of parole -- for a car burglary. The 22-year-old had two other burglaries on his record when he was arrested near Abita Springs on June 8, 2011, after stripping a BMW of its stereo and steering wheel. If charged as a three-time offender, he could have received life without parole. His attorney, Doyle "Buddy" Spell, persuaded prosecutors to consider only the two most recent car break-ins, taking a life sentence off the table, but doubling the 12-year maximum for a first-timer.

Martin, a drug addict with a mop of unruly blond hair, will be 46 when he is released from prison in 2036. "I would suggest that we just threw away a life and that the punishment did not fit the crime," Spell said.

Sentences of several decades, or even life, for nonviolent crimes are not unusual in Louisiana. The state's prisons are filled with Brian Martins -- petty criminals who in another state would have received a much shorter sentence or no jail time at all. Unusually tough sentencing laws are one major reason Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

"We see the only goal that is being reflected accurately might be retribution," said Katherine Mattes, a professor at Tulane Law School and interim director of the university's Criminal Litigation Clinic.

In Texas, no bastion of liberalism, a two-time car burglar would be guilty of a misdemeanor and sentenced to a maximum of six months. California's famous three-strikes law does not kick in unless at least one of the crimes was a rape, murder, carjacking, residential burglary or other major felony. There, Martin would have received no more than a year behind bars.

In Louisiana, about 160 habitual offenders whose most recent crime involved nothing more harmful than marijuana are serving 20 years or more. More than 300 people serving life without parole in Louisiana have never been convicted of a violent crime.

It's not just low-level criminals who fare worse here. Louisiana is the only state that automatically sentences murderers to life without parole.

St. Tammany Parish, where Martin was convicted, is known as "St. Slammany" because prosecutors so often seek the maximum penalty. But the same sentencing laws apply throughout the state, hemming in judges with mandatory minimums. Louisiana is also one of only two states where a defendant can be convicted on the votes of 10 of 12 jurors. The threat of habitual-offender prosecution is a powerful tool to get defendants to plead to long sentences, as Martin did.

Gov. Bobby Jindal has charged the Louisiana Sentencing Commission with finding politically viable ways to reduce the incarceration rate. But the sheriffs and district attorneys who serve on the commission tend to object to all but the most modest proposals. Bringing state sentencing laws more in line with national norms seems a distant possibility.

Meanwhile, the costs mount. Human lives tick away. The state's finances suffer as prisoners' sentences stretch into old age. The Department of Corrections spends about $24 million a year caring for 300 or so infirm inmates who are no longer physically capable of committing a crime.

"The best practice is to house them long enough to rehabilitate them," said Judge Fredericka Wicker of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeal, a leader on the Sentencing Commission. "In some respects, that's to age out the violent factor. You don't just release the guy who went into the Time Saver and shot two people. The ones we are housing we should house for the amount of time it takes to protect society, ensure rehabilitation and lower recidivism."

Far tougher than Texas

If Louisiana is out of line with the rest of the country in the harshness of its punishments, the United States is out of line with the rest of the Western world.

Until the 1980s, U.S. incarceration rates were comparable to Europe's. Then came the war on drugs and a new tough-on-crime ethos. State after state enacted longer sentences, particularly for drug offenses and other nonviolent crimes. Today, the United States keeps a higher percentage of its citizens behind bars than any other nation -- outpacing France, Germany and Great Britain by 10 times or more.

As criminal punishments increased throughout the United States, Louisiana went to unheard-of extremes. Money is a driving force in Louisiana, where sheriffs profit from the incarceration of more than half the state's prisoners.

Louisiana's sentencing laws are significantly tougher than those of neighboring Texas, which has the nation's fourth-highest incarceration rate and has executed more condemned criminals than any other state.

Like many states, Texas has a tiered system of punishment. Felonies fall into one of five broad categories: capital, first-degree, second-degree, third-degree and state jail felonies. The sentencing range is the same for most crimes in a category.

Most murders are classified as first-degree felonies. A murderer can get as little as five years, with an upper limit of 99 years, compared with Louisiana's automatic life without parole.

In Texas, passing worthless checks is the lowest type of misdemeanor, a class C, carrying no prison time and a maximum fine of $500. In Louisiana, writing a worthless check can lead to 10 years behind bars.

The Louisiana Sentencing Commission is charged with directing efforts at sentencing reform. It is also an object lesson in how hard it can be to get changes passed through a legislature where the law enforcement lobby wields tremendous influence and the governor has refused to back any measures that do not have that lobby's blessing.

In Louisiana, each offense carries its own tailor-made punishment, so justice can seem arbitrary. For example, the Legislature passed a law in 2005 to punish people who were stealing sackfuls of crawfish from farmers' ponds. The crime of crawfish theft carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, depending on the value of the crustaceans.

"Each statute has its own penalty that you don't have in other states. You've got a lot of statutes where you've got no parole, no probation, mandatory minimums and such," said Richard Jerome, a project manager for the Pew Center's Public Safety and Performance Project. "You've got provisions where the third-time offense means no parole at all. Those things certainly do have an impact."

Judges have one choice

About two dozen states have habitual-offender laws, but Louisiana stands out for its unyielding treatment of nonviolent criminals.

Generally, Texas bumps a repeat offender up to the next category of crime. The lower limits on such prosecutions remain fairly generous to the defendant. Someone convicted of a first-degree felony who already has another felony conviction can get less than 15 years.

In Louisiana, a trio of drug convictions can trigger life without parole. Three nonviolent crimes with sentences of 12 years or more, such as the car burglaries Martin committed, also subject the defendant to automatic life without parole. Many defendants plead guilty to lesser charges rather than risk losing a trial where so much is at stake. When judges only have one choice, sentencing hearings become a mere formality.

In 2001, the Legislature modified the habitual-offender statute to take some petty crimes off the list, a rare instance where lawmakers softened a punishment. Still, anyone sentenced under the old law has little recourse except for a pardon from the governor, which is hard to come by. In nearly five years in office, Jindal has only freed one person from prison.

A bill that would give nonviolent lifers a shot at parole after several decades is a step from final passage in the current legislative session, perhaps due to a growing recognition that some people deserve a second chance. Jindal has indicated he will sign it.

"We have to really start taking a deep, deep look at how we are treating human beings," said Rep. Terry Landry, D-New Iberia, former head of the Louisiana State Police. "Somewhere in a book it says, 'By the grace of God go I.' Some of us, the difference between us and the people who got incarcerated is that they got caught and we didn't."

Timothy Jackson has picked up woodworking during his 15 years at Angola state penitentiary and can make everything from rocking chairs to dining-room sets. He looks forward to the semiannual inmate rodeo and crafts fair, where he catches up with relatives and hawks his wares.

Jackson, 50, is serving life without parole for stealing a jacket from a department store. In 1996, using two car-burglary convictions and a two-decades-old robbery conviction, Orleans Parish prosecutors put him behind bars for the rest of his life.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeal initially downgraded Jackson's sentence, calling it "excessive, and a prime example of an unjust result." Then the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that judges may not second-guess the habitual-offender law except in rare instances. The 4th Circuit reluctantly reversed itself.

Under current law, the jacket theft would no longer count as a fourth offense, but the change is not retroactive. Jackson, a Mid-City native who worked as a cook at Brennan's and other local restaurants, is out of luck.

"I'm going to be honest. I'm locked up like I killed someone. They've got people who killed people got less time than I did," Jackson said. "A $159 jacket. If somebody had told me I could get life for that, I wouldn't believe them."

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2012/05/tough_sentencing_laws_keep_lou.html

[TitanTiger 20,465]

Some more good info to point out that this isn't just a case here or there. It's thousands across the country.

This past August, the Lafayette-based IND Monthly published a story about a 54-year-old man named Bill Winters, incarcerated at a medium-security prison in Epps, Louisiana. Winters, who is black, was arrested in June 2009, after he drunkenly entered an unlocked oncologist's office on a Sunday morning, setting off a security alarm. When police arrived, he had rummaged through a desk drawer, and was in possession of a box of Gobstoppers candy. Winters was convicted of simple burglary a week before Thanksgiving, and given a seven-year prison sentence - hardly a slap on the wrist. But a few days later, the prosecutor in his case, Assistant District Attorney Alan Haney, sought additional punishment for Winters, under the state's habitual offender law. Based on his record of nonviolent offenses, which went back to 1991 and ranged from cocaine possession to burglary, the trial court resentenced Winters to twelve years without any chance of parole. But Haney was still not satisfied. He appealed the ruling, arguing that the court had imposed an "illegally lenient sentence" and that the rightful punishment was life without the possibility of parole.

At a subsequent hearing, Lafayette Police Chief Jim Craft estimated that Winters had been arrested more than twenty times, calling him a "career criminal who victimized a lot of citizens in our city." But it seemed clear that he was more of a thorn in the side of law enforcement than a looming threat to society. His brothers, Dennis and James, testified that Winters had been homeless at the time of his offense and that he had a history of addiction; James had overcome his own drug problems and said that he would be willing to "take [Winters] in and work with him." A former Lafayette police officer who had once worked at a correctional facility where Winters was held, said that although he did not know him well, Winters "didn't cause problems" and had potential for rehabilitation. But this past summer, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals issued its decision: "The state asserts that because of the defendant's particular multiple offender status, the law mandates a minimum sentence of life in prison without benefit of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence. We agree."

Dennis Winters was incredulous when he heard the news about his brother. "What? This makes no sense," he told IND Monthly. "I don't understand what these people are trying to do. He's not a violent person. He's fragile. He wouldn't hurt anybody, except maybe for himself. I just don't get how they're going to give him life for some Gobstopper candy."

Today, Winters joins hundreds of Louisiana prisoners sent to die in prison after committing similarly nonviolent offenses, from drug possession to property crimes. The national numbers are tallied in a major new study released today by the American Civil Liberties Union, titled "A Living Death: Life without Parole For Nonviolent Offenses," which documents scores of cases with echoes of Winters's story. Across the country, defendants have been given life without parole for such crimes as having a crack pipe, "siphoning gasoline from a truck" and, in another Louisiana case, shoplifting a $159 jacket.

Tales of outsized sentencing for minor crimes may not surprise anyone familiar with the well-documented excesses of three-strikes sentencing in California, for example. But the ACLU's report is the first to attempt to grasp the national numbers, specifically concerning nonviolent offenders sentenced to die behind bars. The report found 3,278 prisoners serving life without parole in 2012 for nonviolent crimes, of which 79 percent were for drug crimes. This is not the complete picture - Bill Winters himself is not among the prisoners covered - and crucially, only includes formal life-without-parole cases. It does not include life sentences where parole is a possibility - if largely only in theory, given the increasing reluctance of parole boards to free prisoners. It also does not include, say, 100-year sentences, or the kinds of stacked, decades-long sentences that are, in effect, permanent life sentences. "The number of people serving death-in-prison sentences after being convicted of nonviolent crimes is not known," the report concludes, "but it is most certainly higher than the number of prisoners serving formal life-without-parole sentences for nonviolent crimes."

Indeed, a report released earlier this year by the Sentencing Project found that one in nine prisoners in the US are serving a life sentence and that "those with parole-eligible life sentences are increasingly less likely to be released." Including life with parole, the report estimated that "approximately 10,000 lifers have been convicted of nonviolent offenses."

Determining what qualifies as "nonviolent" is similarly complicated. As the ACLU points out, "Although the term 'violent crime' brings to mind very serious offenses such as rape and murder, some jurisdictions define violent crime to include burglary, breaking and entering, manufacture or sale of controlled substances, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, or extortion." In other words, the number of prisoners serving life without parole who are far from the "worst of the worst" is higher still.

* * *

Regardless of the exact numbers, and perhaps not surprisingly for the state known as the prison capital of the world, it is clear that Louisiana is home to a disproportionate number of these sentences. It also provides a dramatic illustration of the explosion of permanent life sentences over the past four decades: "In Louisiana, just 143 people were serving LWOP sentences in 1970," the ACLU notes. "That number had increased to 4,637 by 2012." The report found that Louisiana had the highest number of nonviolent offenders serving life without parole out of all the states: 429. Florida was a distant second, with 270. (Thanks to the drug war, federal prisoners accounted for the largest share at 2,074.)

Among the Louisiana prisoners highlighted in the report are Fate Vincent Winslow, who, while homeless, "acted as a go-between in the sale of two small bags of marijuana, worth $10 in total, to an undercover police officer;" Timothy Jackson, who stole a jacket from a department store in New Orleans, Paul Carter, convicted of "possession of a trace amount of heroin residue that was so minute it could not be weighed" and Sylvester Mead, a Shreveport man who drunkenly threatened a police officer while seated, handcuffed, in the back of a patrol car.

Mead's case, like Winters's, shows the way in which prosecutors' wishes consistently trump judicial power when it comes to sentencing people for such crimes. Not only did his trial judge oppose the initial charge of public intimidation, he made it repeatedly clear he opposed sending Mead to die in prison. Mead's verbal offense "does not warrant, under any conscionable or constitutional basis, a life sentence," he said. But Mead's prosecutor appealed multiple times seeking a harsher sentence because of his old convictions. After his previous sentences were vacated by a higher court multiple times, Judge Leon L. Emanuel was bound by Louisiana's mandatory sentencing statute to hand down a sentence of life without parole. "No matter how long this Court were to deliberate about this matter, it cannot fashion a legal result to explain that the life sentence without probation or suspension of sentence is unconstitutionally excessive," he concluded.

Such statements from judges are not unusual, it turns out. "In case after case reviewed by the ACLU, the sentencing judge said on the record that he or she opposed the mandatory LWOP sentence as too severe but had no discretion to take individual circumstances into account or override the prosecutor's charging decision," the ACLU found. Mandatory sentencing schemes are certainly to blame - in Louisiana, they account for almost all - 97.6 percent - of the surveyed nonviolent LWOP sentences. But while mandatory sentencing ties the hands of judges, such punishments do not impose themselves. Prosecutors have the power to seek or not seek them.

* * *

Bill Winters was not the first defendant to find himself in the crosshairs of Lafayette ADA Alan Haney. Indeed, in 2007, Haney created a "career criminal program," as described by the local Daily Advertiser, to "identify repeat offenders all over Lafayette Parish."

"We basically had to start this whole project from scratch," he told the City-Parish Council in September 2010, according to the Advertiser. Thus far, he boasted, some forty-nine people had been sentenced as habitual offenders with the help of the initiative.

In the fall of 2009, the same year Winters was convicted for stealing Gobstoppers, a 29-year-old black man named Travis Bourda was convicted for possessing 130 grams of marijuana "with intent to distribute." Writing to the ACLU, Bourda insists that no drugs were actually found in his possession and that his court-appointed lawyer "filed no motions, failed to investigate," and "made no objections at trial." His initial sentence of eight years was increased to fourteen after Haney filed habitual offender charges based on Bourda's previous record, which included "carnal knowledge of a juvenile" when he was 19. Responding to Haney's attempt to seek a sentence of life without parole for Bourda, the trial judge wrote: "I believe a life sentence under the circumstances…would be an unconstitutional sentence. I believe that fourteen years is more than enough considering the underlying charge was possession with intent to distribute marijuana, and that the amount of marijuana involved was not significant."

But in 2011 the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit agreed with Haney, vacating the fourteen-year sentence and imposing life without parole. Today, Bourda is serving his sentence at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, famously known as Angola.

Angola prisoners were not allowed to receive visits or speak on the phone to the ACLU. But in response to the questionnaire sent out by attorney Jennifer Turner, who authored the report and corresponded with more than 600 prisoners, Bourda described himself as "the most miserable person there is." He wrote that he was diagnosed as schizophrenic when he was 13 and that he hears voices that tell him to do things. In a separate, handwritten letter, he wrote to "share my thoughts about the Habitual Offender law," which he describes as "the most unconstitutional law there is."

"We paid our debts to society for the past crimes we committed," Bourda wrote." "There is never any forgiveness once you have a record." In his opinion, he added, "the prosecution is abusing his discretion on a certain race of people which we know to be black individuals."

Whether or not prosecutorial discretion is to blame, Bourda's observation about race is certainly supported by the numbers. The ACLU report shows, and Turner wrote to me in an e-mail, that "the racial disparity in life without parole sentencing for nonviolent crimes in Louisiana is staggering." While the state would not provide figures according to race, the ACLU calculated that black prisoners "comprise 91.4 percent of the nonviolent LWOP prison population in Louisiana," despite the fact that "Blacks make up only about one-third of the general population in the state." Black defendants in Louisiana "were 23 times more likely than whites to be sentenced to LWOP for a nonviolent crime."

There are many factors that could explain this. "The racial disparity can result from disparate treatment at every stage of the criminal justice system, including stops and searches, points of arrest, prosecutions and plea negotiations, trials, and sentencing," Turner explains. She adds, "In Louisiana, it may also have to do with how prosecutors wield their enormous discretion in deciding whether to charge defendants as habitual offenders."

I contacted Alan Haney's office by phone and e-mail to discuss his Habitual Offender Division, but have not received a response. In the meantime, the ACLU report is only the most recent to cast a stark light on Louisiana's sentencing excesses. While some recent reforms in the state have sought to mitigate some of Louisiana's harshest sentencing statutes, they still preserve the power of the prosecutor to decide if and when to trigger mandatory sentences. In a report released by the Reason Foundation last month, which closely examines the state's determinate sentencing laws and makes recommendations for reform, the authors found that a 2012 law signed by Governor Bobby Jindal to allow courts to waive mandatory minimums in some cases put all the power in prosecutors' hands, giving prosecutors "much more power than they previously had."

The ACLU also makes recommendations for reform. It calls on the states and federal government to get rid of laws that mandate or allow life without parole for nonviolent crimes, and exhorts state governors, as well as the Obama administration, to commute such disproportionate punishments. "Life without parole sentences for nonviolent offenses defy common sense," it concludes, and "are grotesquely out of proportion to the conduct they seek to punish."

In Bourda's words, "I never committed a capital offense such as murder….I don't deserve to be sentenced like a hard-core criminal."

http://www.thenation.com/article/why-should-thousands-prisoners-die-behind-bars-nonviolent-crimes

[homersapien 11,349]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

That alone should tell any rational person that we are doing something terribly wrong in our criminal justice system.

I think you have put your finger on the problem here.

[WarTim 3,456]

You folks live in a different world. There are very very few people in prison for "penny ante" crimes. And I find it completely ironic that drug offenses especially sales and trafficking are excused so easily. DRUGS CAUSE THE VAST MAJORITY OF VIOLENT CRIMES. How hard is that to understand? I just heard this guy in the story I linked was shooting ICE up his ass. The Chattanooga shooter was on "party drugs" whatever the hell that is. China probably has such stern punishment or death penalty to deter crime. You folks don't know the people I know personally that have been busted upwards of 5-6 times with weed and still sell it. Most of the laws are strict enough but sentences don't get carried out. Few people learn a lesson because the punishment is not enough.

Maybe , just maybe, certain laws are not stff enough.

[homersapien 11,349]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

That alone should tell any rational person that we are doing something terribly wrong in our criminal justice system.

I think you have put your finger on the problem here.

You folks live in a different world. There are very very few people in prison for "penny ante" crimes. And I find it completely ironic that drug offenses especially sales and trafficking are excused so easily. DRUGS CAUSE THE VAST MAJORITY OF VIOLENT CRIMES. How hard is that to understand? I just heard this guy in the story I linked was shooting ICE up his ass. The Chattanooga shooter was on "party drugs" whatever the hell that is. China probably has such stern punishment or death penalty to deter crime. You folks don't know the people I know personally that have been busted upwards of 5-6 times with weed and still sell it. Most of the laws are strict enough but sentences don't get carried out. Few people learn a lesson because the punishment is not enough.

Maybe , just maybe, certain laws are not stff enough.

Excellent timing!

[WarTim 3,456]

Maybe if we weren't locking people up for long terms over penny ante stuff, we'd have more room for the real dangers to society.

The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and yet has almost 25% of the world's prisoners. That's insane and is unsustainable.

That alone should tell any rational person that we are doing something terribly wrong in our criminal justice system.

I think you have put your finger on the problem here.

You folks live in a different world. There are very very few people in prison for "penny ante" crimes. And I find it completely ironic that drug offenses especially sales and trafficking are excused so easily. DRUGS CAUSE THE VAST MAJORITY OF VIOLENT CRIMES. How hard is that to understand? I just heard this guy in the story I linked was shooting ICE up his ass. The Chattanooga shooter was on "party drugs" whatever the hell that is. China probably has such stern punishment or death penalty to deter crime. You folks don't know the people I know personally that have been busted upwards of 5-6 times with weed and still sell it. Most of the laws are strict enough but sentences don't get carried out. Few people learn a lesson because the punishment is not enough.

Maybe , just maybe, certain laws are not stff enough.

Excellent timing! ;)/>

Thanks. I type slowly so you and your sisters have a chance...

[alexava 6,972]

Ok while Louisiana is not a state that's laws and sentencing I am familiar with, I applau them . How many times do you need to be told you go to prison for life for stealing before YOU QUIT stealing. It's pretty damn simple. And the reason I didn't believe the first link about the life sentence for stealing a jacket is it did not mention that was his 3rd or fourth conviction. Yes life without is still too stiff but he had plenty of chances.

[aujeff11 6,243]

Ok while Louisiana is not a state that's laws and sentencing I am familiar with, I applau them . How many times do you need to be told you go to prison for life for stealing before YOU QUIT stealing. It's pretty damn simple. And the reason I didn't believe the first link about the life sentence for stealing a jacket is it did not mention that was his 3rd or fourth conviction. Yes life without is still too stiff but he had plenty of chances.

For you to applaud a criminal justice system designed to pull in an extra buck while sending minorities to the big house for minor crimes is pretty pathetic.

[alexava 6,972]

Ok while Louisiana is not a state that's laws and sentencing I am familiar with, I applau them . How many times do you need to be told you go to prison for life for stealing before YOU QUIT stealing. It's pretty damn simple. And the reason I didn't believe the first link about the life sentence for stealing a jacket is it did not mention that was his 3rd or fourth conviction. Yes life without is still too stiff but he had plenty of chances.

For you to applaud a criminal justice system designed to pull in an extra buck while sending minorities to the big house for minor crimes is pretty pathetic.

i doubt the law has a clause that recognizes (minorities) or any other demographic in its sentencing guidelines.