Posted on 02/01/2004 6:36:45 PM PST by Russian Sage
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:55:57 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
I know two people in suburban Pittsburgh neighborhoods whose homes have been broken into. It's a shattering experience. Their neighborhoods were not considered high crime neighborhoods. There's always some deviate waiting to take advantage of whatever they can get away with. The solution is to make the punishment severe so that it will deter such actions.
Given the information linked in Post #37, what do you think of the sentence? The guy had prior convictions for two burglaries, a breaking and entering, a car theft, and a violent assault. Apparently he assaulted the woman in this case.
What do you think is the proper sentence for a repeated violent offender who invades homes and beats up on 87-year-old ladies?
The Parole Board considers many factors, including the police reports of the crime and the prisoner's behavior while incarcerated. He has 63 or 55 (depending on who you believe) infractions over his time in prison, ranging from disobeying orders to fighting and tampering with a lock. What is the Parole Board to make of this information?
Apparently, in recent years he has greatly improved his behavior. If he has managed to avoid infractions for the past couple of years, parole might be appropriate. But as long as he was breaking the rules in prison, the Parole Board was right to deny him.
As far as I can tell you're either making it up, or believing only what supports your prejudices, or both.
I will admit to starting with the assumption that the State of North Carolina is not continuing to incarcerate this fellow just for jollies. When I see a slanted story like this, I do have a tendency to read between the lines and assume the information that the author is deliberately with-holding.
Turns out, in this case, I was right.
Why should I be? What does that have to do with the subject at hand, which is a man breaks into the home of a elderly lady, assaults her and steals her TV.
If he is let out can he move in with your granny?
With a history of violent assault is thrown in the mix I can find nothing wrong with the sentence.
He has had several chances at parole. He has shown himself disinclined to avail himself of these chances in the past. Maybe he will do better in the future. So far the judge has been right on the button. If he had been let out after 6 months as some on this thread have advocated is there any doubt that he would have continued on the same path he was on before?
You mean this information?
Allen, 63 , has been eligible for parole for 25 years , but the state Post-Release Supervision and Parole Commission has turned him down 25 times. It says it denied him parole because he breaks prison rules, and he might have roughed up Johnson -- though he wasn't convicted of it.
"Your release at this time would unduly depreciate the seriousness of the crime or promote disrespect for the law," the commission wrote Allen in December, after his most recent parole review. "Your continued correctional programming in the institution will substantially enhance your capacity to lead a law-abiding life if released at a later date."
"Anyone with a life sentence who has been in prison as long as this man has, and has been in close custody [highest risk] most of those years, we cannot see placing him back in the community," Baker said last week in an interview at her office in Raleigh. " He's a threat to the public."
Allen has no legal grounds for a court appeal, because he was properly convicted of second-degree burglary: breaking and entering a home at night to steal something , regardless of whether the home is occupied. He was sentenced to life in prison under an old law.
Even assuming that Allen accosted Johnson, the longest prison sentence he could get under current law for the most likely charges, burglary and robbery , would be six years.
According to court records, prosecutors reduced the charge to second-degree burglary because they couldn't prove that Johnson had been home during the theft. "It was, in effect, a stipulation by the state that the house was not actually occupied at the time," states a 1971 state Supreme Court ruling rejecting Allen's appeal.
I think the sentence is grossly unfair and the parole board is filled with incompetent liars or worse.
In post #37 the State is said to have stipulated that they couldn't even prove that the house was occupied at the time of the crime, let alone that the woman was assaulted....yet here you are trying to present the assault as a fact. What am I to think of your judgement?
The subject at hand is not the nature of this particular crime but whether the punishment fit it...and an important factor in making that judgement is comparing this punishment with that meted out to other criminals.
It offends me deeply to hear that some low-life is given life because he stole a TV from a house which may have been occupied while so-called good citizens can steal millions of dollars and destroy the jobs and pensions of thousands and receive a much lesser punishment. That you can't even see the relationship tells me that I prefer not to share the planet with you.
As I said in my previous post to you I see no evidence that this guy actually did this...but assuming he did I'm willing to accept almost any sentence, including life imprisonment.
What I'm not willing to accept is lesser sentences for larger crimes - such as stealing millions of dollars...and that's our present situation.
It cannot be called justice.
I'm asking you to present evidence for your ill-mannered, unfounded claims. Not too much to ask is it...since you think you're so much better than I at thinking rationally.
The story cited in post #37 says that the Supreme Court, in a 1971 review of the case, found that the State had stipulated that it couldn't even prove the house was occupied at the time of the crime...let alone that anyone was assaulted. What do you know that they didn't?
How many people did they physically "struggle with" while stealing that money?
Oh so that's the criteria? So stealing the savings, pensions, and jobs of thousands is a lesser crime because no one was physically assaulted? Well, then tell me how much you have in your account and your pension...and give me the same information for all of your friends or relatives. It might be worth 6 months or a year in prison.
And there's this little fact. He assualted an 80 year old woman trying to take that TV.
As for the woman who owned the television set, she was in her 80s at the time of the crime
You think that singles me out? Read the thread. Most posters were concerned about whether this particular criminal received a proper punishment - whether the punishment fit the crime - and they continually refer to what they think are the facts, but aren't.
As for the more general question of burglary vs. theft, and the proper punishment for both, it is generally agreed the more serious the crime the more serious punishment is merited - and burglary is more serious than theft. The thing is it's you who are presenting strawmen and red herrings. I never denied any of the above.
What I did say is that white collar crime is punished too leniently by comparison with burglary. You claim the whole argument is a red-herring...as if the theft of property were some minor issue. Don't yet realize that wars are fought to protect property, that private property and its defense is central to capitalism?
Do you really think that if I steal your house by legal manoevers which enable me to get the sheriff to throw you out, that I've committed a lesser crime than if I come over and throw you out myself? Apparently so, since what you seem to fear most is physical confrontation...and that tells you you're a coward.
Don't like that? Think it's to personal? Read your own posts. I'm only replying with the same vocabularly you've been consistantly using.
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