You wrote: He didn't fail to appear. Read the article.
You're correct, I read it wrong.
I wrote: "and calling foul when finally caught doesn't sound responsible to me."
You wrote: I'm pretty sure that it's people with common sense that are calling foul. Perhaps yours rolled under the desk. Did you check? It should scare you that the evil government clowns have no common sense. I know it scares Cliven Bundy...
He was tried, and convicted (unlike Bundy). He appealed his rightful sentence, and his appeal was rebuffed (unlike Bundy). He owes a debt to society - and he has always known it. We don't pay debts because we're forced to. We pay debts because we owe them. Because we want to do the right thing. We do the right thing whether someone is watching or not.
I wrote: and if you know you have a jail sentence, know that they'll eventually catch up with you if you walk away from your punishment.
You wrote: OK - once again, he didn't walk away from his punishment.
He absolutely did know and did walk away. He knew he wasn't where he should be - in prison. He knows because he appealed his sentence repeatedly and the appeals were denied.
Did you read some article written by the evil clown prosecutor for St. Charles County, the one with no common sense?
Why is the prosecutor evil? Did he point a gun at someone's face and demand money?
The article says:
* He got bail and appealed the sentence unsuccessfully several times
You don't appeal "not-guilty". Not "several times". He absolutely knew he was a convicted felon.
* He should have been re-arrested and jailed following his last failed appeal but he never was
I don't know about you, but I do the right thing even when no one is watching. I wouldn't steal even if I knew I wasn't going to be caught. I don't live my life based on the odds of getting caught, as that is surely immoral and wrong. This isn't revolutionary - it's the minimum we're required to do by God.
Right and wrong are not subjective. They are objective. You did the crime, you do the time. You knew you were a convict - you spent years hoping no one would find you. Well, they did.
Now that you mention it, the prosecutor DOES get a paycheck from someone sticking a gun in the faces of local taxpeasants and demanding money.
Actually, I think he's evil because he's "talking his book" (a stock market term). He gets paid because of "zero tolerance" crap like this. The more common sense floating around, the more chance that he'll have less work.
Also, he has an Inspector Javert attitude (like some few FReepers). Did you think that Javert from Les Miserables was a hero?
Common sense would inform most people who don't work for the government and thereby stand to GAIN from the incarceration of Cornealious that once he's in stir for the whole sentence, the TAXPEASANTS will be paying for his maintenance, after paying for the many handlers in the Great Justice Machine Whirligig that put him there. Then, we'll probably be asked to pick up the tab for maintaining his wife and children. AND THEN, if that happens, with four children, the odds that some of them will end up being a DRAIN on society, instead of children from a stable middle-class working-family 2-parent household.
I think of these things, because I have common sense, and because I despise the thinking of the Inspector Javerts of the world.
He absolutely did know and did walk away. He knew he wasn't where he should be - in prison. He knows because he appealed his sentence repeatedly and the appeals were denied.
What sort of fool volunteers to be locked up in the animal cages the State itself can't control (nor keep track of, apparently)?
I don't know about you, but I do the right thing even when no one is watching. I wouldn't steal even if I knew I wasn't going to be caught. I don't live my life based on the odds of getting caught, as that is surely immoral and wrong. This isn't revolutionary - it's the minimum we're required to do by God.
Right and wrong are not subjective. They are objective. You did the crime, you do the time. You knew you were a convict - you spent years hoping no one would find you. Well, they did.
I'm pretty sure the Christian God got over the whole Javert thingee back in the first few years AD, if I recall my history & New Testament reading correctly.