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Louisiana needs to rethink their habitual offender law. Life sentence for a failed attempt at stealing hedge clippers is grossly out of proportion to the crime and deeply distorts the purpose of the penal code.
Bryant was convicted in 1979 for attempted armed robbery, in 1987 for possession of stolen things, attempted forgery of a check worth $150 in 1989 and for simple burglary of an inhabited dwelling in 1992, all before his 1997 arrest for the failed attempt at stealing the hedge clippers.
This jerk had 20 years to turn his life around and he didn't. I used to think mass incarceration and life sentences were bad but now that I have seen all the 'peaceful' riots I changed my mind.
He should have thought about it before committing his crime.
The guy had years to learn to not do things like steal, he refused to simply just live a civilized life.
At that, it is excessive in my opinion, though there needs to be something done about people who just cannot understand the concept of civilized living. So maybe it is the correct ruling, he refuses to live civilized, then remove him from society.
However, your thread title is ridiculous. He was stealing hedge clippers, not food. Hedge clippers are hardly essential to life.
I must have missed the part where the thread title said he was stealing essential items. I read petty theft and that's exactly what this was.
I get what the law says, it's LA's version of a 3 strikes system. But those systems are for felonies or other serious crimes, not for stealing a hedge clipper. This is downright crazy and the citizens will be paying a million dollars for his incarceration.
Last edited by DaveinMtAiry; 08-06-2020 at 04:55 PM..
I must have missed the part where the thread title said he was stealing essential items. I read petty theft and that's exactly what this was.
I get what the law says, it's LA's version of a 3 strikes system. But those systems are for felonies or other serious crimes, not for stealing a hedge clipper. This is downright crazy and the citizens will be paying a million dollars for his incarceration.
“Les Miserables” is the story of a man named Jean Valjean who served 19 years in prison; 5 years for stealing a loaf of bread, and 14 more for attempting to escape. The OP’s title insinuates that the person in question in Louisiana is being treated the same as the poor in early 1800’s France. However, there is no moral equivalency to stealing a loaf of bread to save a starving child and stealing hedge clippers.
Furthermore, in “Les Miserables”, Jean Valjean does find redemption and more than atones for his sins and crimes. The central question is, can a person be considered “good” if they commit a crime for a good reason, or does atonement make up for a crime? Not sure if the man in Louisiana is on that same kind of level, given his repeated record.
Steal a loaf of bread and eat for a day. Steal hedge clippers to harvest wheat for bread and eat for life.
Wrong. He could have gone to an aid agency or a church or somewhere and said he needed a certain tool to do his job....which of course we don’t know if he was actually working as a landscaper.
Last edited by calgirlinnc; 08-06-2020 at 06:22 PM..
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