Good
Teen gets branded a felon for life for robbing man of 7 cents
I know! Sounds like overkill, right? Except our little choir boy did not ask the man for his 7 cents. Instead:
Stewart and Ninham carried BB guns that looked like real pistols when they knocked a 73-year old man to the ground–Stewart punching him in the face–and took all the cash he had on him, prosecutors said.
Now, I’m on record as stating there are too many laws that make people felons. But pummeling a 73 year-old man is one where I think it’s ok. And, you know, that whole armed robbery thing.
August 31st, 2011 at 9:48 am
The charges definitely shouldn’t be reduced just because the felony assualt wasn’t as lucrative as intended.
Hell, it’s not unheard of for armed robbery to escalate to murder because the scum is pissed that the victim wasn’t carrying more.
August 31st, 2011 at 9:48 am
I’m beginning to think that the bringing back the stocks and maybe even actually branding someone a felon might not be such a bad idea.
August 31st, 2011 at 9:56 am
“Walsh said he issued the harsh sentence because Stewart declined to plead guilty, choosing to fight the charges. A jury found him guilty of first degree robbery.”
That statement frightens me.
August 31st, 2011 at 10:06 am
I vented a bit on that last night. The act is a felony. I don’t think the court is concerned with the “take”.
Freiheit – I thought the same thing at first. But then I realized the journalist probably couldn’t write. The judge only determines sentence. The perp decided to fight the felony conviction that he knew he had done. The jury convicted him of a felony and it was his choice to go to court on that charge. The judge most likely was sentencing him based on his lack of remorse and probably a lot of other things, but the journalist probably didn’t want to waste ink with facts. Still, I’m guessing here myself.
August 31st, 2011 at 10:34 am
He is ‘branded a felon’ for assault with intent to rob, not for ‘7 cents’.
I’m sure the little thugs didn’t know he had only 7 cents.
This is just another example of the liberal press and their tear-jirker response.
August 31st, 2011 at 10:42 am
The first thing I thought was, “Tool, you screwed up your own life for 7 freaking cents.”
August 31st, 2011 at 11:46 am
Yep. It’s the act, not the amount.
The amount only matters when he gets to jail, and the other convicts get wind of it.
August 31st, 2011 at 12:25 pm
It’s not the amount that matters, it’s the predatory violence he engaged in that matters.
I don’t care if the old man didn’t have a penny on him and the kid left empty handed, he’s still a violent felon and a scumbag.
August 31st, 2011 at 12:36 pm
Yeah whatever how much they got out of that poor man..! They knocked him out!
August 31st, 2011 at 12:39 pm
Markie Marxist sez: “What an outrage! That poor little boy! His life destroyed over a mere 7 cents! Obviously we need to do more to change the law to protect our junior Marxist/warrior/hero/criminals. How is he supposed to help us rip off capitalism and bring down America if the poor little lad is locked up? It’s just not common communist sense. You don’t want to imprison young children, do you?”
August 31st, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Some places, that “Teen” would be having more than 7 cents worth of Copper Jacketing in his Chest, and the only “Branding” would be “R.I.P.”
Stay Alert, Stay Armed, Fight Back.
Hmm. Somebody put that on a T-Shirt.
August 31st, 2011 at 5:35 pm
This happened where I live now haha
“”For 7 cents, now you’re making someone a felon for the rest of his life,” Haddad told the Post-Standard.”
Uhm, no … Your client made himself a felon when he knocked out an elderly man and robbed himmof all his cash.
But hey, the defense attorney has a job to do, and saying shit like that is part of doing it, so I can’t even fault him.
August 31st, 2011 at 6:44 pm
Years ago, the Los Angeles Times railed against a “Three Strikes” conviction for a man who robbed a homeless guy of a pizza. The third strike mandating a life prison term.
My reaction was always that the homeless guy, just because he only had a pizza, was no less entitled to the protection of the law against armed robbers.
August 31st, 2011 at 9:38 pm
What if he’d had $300 dollars, rather than 7 cents??? Armed robbery is armed robbery PERIOD!
August 31st, 2011 at 10:15 pm
“Years ago, the Los Angeles Times railed against a “Three Strikes” conviction for a man who robbed a homeless guy of a pizza.”
Was it a homeless guy, SPQR? The canonical example of the LAT railing against a three strikes conviction that I remember did involve a pizza, but the felon in question was accused and convicted of taking the pizza from a couple of teenagers.
It wasn’t until you dug deeper into the story that you found out he was convicted of threatening the teenagers with a knife in order to get the pizza. In that light, a third strike sure seems reasonable to me. (If anyone has more details on this case, I’d sure appreciate a heads-up. I’m working from memory, and my Google-fu on this one is weak.)
September 1st, 2011 at 12:23 am
I to feel armed robbery is armed robbery.It is to bad that such a young kid has to learn the hard way.You do the crime you gotta do the time.
September 1st, 2011 at 12:32 am
Tim, I’m glad he’s learning early, before it costs the life of some one I love, or any innocent for that matter. His life will go one behind bars, maybe not as nice as mine, but then again I work my a$$ off instead of committing armed robbery.
September 1st, 2011 at 2:16 am
I maybe wrong on this, but I seem to recall that in the pizza theft story the issue was that he went into an attached garage. This act meets the California “3 Strikes” law’s definition of a home burglary/invasion. No recollection of the knife threat.
September 1st, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Pizza thief: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/10/local/la-me-pizzathief10-2010feb10
Pizza stolen from children outdoors, no weapon involved. Convicted of felony petty theft.
September 1st, 2011 at 7:02 pm
My recollection of the story in my memory was that the victim was a homeless guy. Obviously the above story does not match my memory. Don’t know if poor memory or I’m thinking of a different one.