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Things are different everywhere. I think Jefferson City is a lot bigger place than where I live. The population of our entire county is under 60,000, and this is a very law and order oriented community. You wouldn't see a guy here who did what the person you are talking about get a getting a sentence like the one you described. There are nearby counties where one might get a sentence like that for those crimes. Here just the breaking into cars will get someone a prison sentence even if he has a clean record. If someone did all those other crimes along with breaking into cars he's likely to do a pretty good stint here. As much as it may seem like I'm complaining that we lock too many people up, I don't have a problem with thieves going to prison, especially it's clear that it wasn't just a one time screw up.

Don't get me wrong. I don't feel sorry for all these guys. There are clients I have had I'd much rather have prosecuted than defended, but have a different job to do. There are times when I'm able to get clients deals that just floor me. If I were prosecuting the cases I'd be much harder on some of these guys. I have prosecuted before. The system can produce some really screwy, arbitrary results. Sometimes the really bad dangerous people walk with fines and suspended sentences and sometimes relatively minor offenders who aren't that bad who more than anything happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time or something get incredibly long prison sentences. People who have all committed basically the same crimes can get widely varying punishments. It could be because one case has for whatever reason gotten a lot of attention in the community and the prosecutor is worried about political consequences in that one, or it could be for any number of other reasons or combinations of reasons.

It's different from state to state, county to county, town to town, day to day. I might get a suspended sentence deal worked out with a prosecutor for a guy who really ought to go to prison because the prosecutor really wants to go on a fishing trip with his buddies on the day trial is scheduled, or we might butt heads because he's pissed about a fight he got into in the morning with his wife and he'll dig his heals in on a long prison sentence for a guy who normally would have gotten a much better deal. One prosecutor might identify better with something someone has done because he or someone he cares about has been in the same position and either done the same thing or almost did it, and another prosecutor won't identify at all because he or she has had different life experiences. It's all arbitrary. The range of possible punishments is so great and the offers we get and even sentences juries mete out are all over the map.