An 18-year-old in Texas is being threatened with a hideously long sentence for possessing a marijuana brownie. The theory is, as I've always understood it, that you have to be tough on gateway drugs because of the terrible social injury that will result from the later use of harder drugs. And yet the scumbag who killed my neighbors' grandson after smoking crack all night, while out on parole from a sentence for another crime (a long sheet including domestic violence, B&E, and who knows what else) is apparently being offered a plea-bargain of eight years, inclusive of the several years he still owes on the sentence on which he was out on parole--after he fled the jurisdiction and had to be recovered from Arkansas so he could stand trial for vehicular manslaughter.
I'd rather see the big guns come out when someone starts killing people because he can't stay off the hard stuff. Let the schmo with a laced brownie alone.
For whatever it's worth, I doubt this kid in Texas is going to get that life sentence or whatever -- from what I read, it looks like he just happened to have enough on him between the brownies, the weed, and the THC oil or extract or whatever that the law as written assumes he's a dealer rather than just a casual user. They're probably hoping that, facing such a high potential sentence, he'll just plead guilty to a lesser offense and spare the state the trouble of a trial. Then again, it all comes down to what a judge is willing to sentence him to...
I only wish the D.A. had that credible a threat to make against the crackhead child-killer, to induce him to accept a deal that would delay for a few more years his opportunity to do the same thing again, or something else almost equally disgusting, like finding his ex-wife and beating her up again. (Less damage, more specific intent.)
Someone told me, and I haven't even tried to verify it, that the brownie kid was the victim of a law that enables the D.A. to consider the entire weight of the brownie as the "drug," which makes it sound as though he were in possession of weight that would render him a major distributor of hash oil. Again, I understand that that kind of thing is a sort of deliberate insanity designed to create bargaining power, but it seems like too much bargaining power in relation to what can be brought to bear against a crackhead with a deadly vehicular weapon that surely will be used again.
An 18-year-old in Texas is being threatened with a hideously long sentence for possessing a marijuana brownie. The theory is, as I've always understood it, that you have to be tough on gateway drugs because of the terrible social injury that will result from the later use of harder drugs. And yet the scumbag who killed my neighbors' grandson after smoking crack all night, while out on parole from a sentence for another crime (a long sheet including domestic violence, B&E, and who knows what else) is apparently being offered a plea-bargain of eight years, inclusive of the several years he still owes on the sentence on which he was out on parole--after he fled the jurisdiction and had to be recovered from Arkansas so he could stand trial for vehicular manslaughter.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather see the big guns come out when someone starts killing people because he can't stay off the hard stuff. Let the schmo with a laced brownie alone.
'To keep you from ruining your life, we're going to send you to prison until you die' does sound like a questionable argument.
ReplyDeleteFor whatever it's worth, I doubt this kid in Texas is going to get that life sentence or whatever -- from what I read, it looks like he just happened to have enough on him between the brownies, the weed, and the THC oil or extract or whatever that the law as written assumes he's a dealer rather than just a casual user. They're probably hoping that, facing such a high potential sentence, he'll just plead guilty to a lesser offense and spare the state the trouble of a trial. Then again, it all comes down to what a judge is willing to sentence him to...
ReplyDeleteI only wish the D.A. had that credible a threat to make against the crackhead child-killer, to induce him to accept a deal that would delay for a few more years his opportunity to do the same thing again, or something else almost equally disgusting, like finding his ex-wife and beating her up again. (Less damage, more specific intent.)
ReplyDeleteSomeone told me, and I haven't even tried to verify it, that the brownie kid was the victim of a law that enables the D.A. to consider the entire weight of the brownie as the "drug," which makes it sound as though he were in possession of weight that would render him a major distributor of hash oil. Again, I understand that that kind of thing is a sort of deliberate insanity designed to create bargaining power, but it seems like too much bargaining power in relation to what can be brought to bear against a crackhead with a deadly vehicular weapon that surely will be used again.