TX - Repeat offender gets 50 years in prison for stealing $35 worth of food.

[Anti Federalist]

Man in Waco, Texas, gets 50 years in prison for stealing a $35 rack of ribs

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/man-in-waco-texas-gets-50-years-in-prison-for-stealing-a-35-rack-of-ribs-8640078.html

Willie Smith Ward had five previous felonies and four convictions for misdemeanours

A habitual offender may have committed his final felony, after a jury sentenced him to 50 years for stealing a rack of ribs from a shop.

Willie Smith Ward, 43, attempted to steal the $35 large rack of ribs at the H-E-B store in Waco, Texas, by smuggling it underneath his shirt. Ward was then apprehended in the car park by a shopping assistant, who noticed the bulge and tried to stop him leaving.

According to the Waco Tribune-Herald, his act of theft was heightened to robbery when he threatened the employee by telling him he was in possession of a knife. According to the employee’s testimony, he added: “If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll show you what I got,” before running off. He was later arrested.

A jury in Waco’s 19th State District Court took just two minutes to convict Ward for robbery and an hour to recommend a sentence. Ward already had five previous felonies and four convictions for misdemeanours. His previous convictions have been for crimes including burglary, attempted robbery, aggravated assault, leaving the scene of an accident and possession of cocaine.

Assistant District Attorney J.R. Vicha, prosecuting, told Ward: “This verdict shows that the citizens of this county will not tolerate a continued disrespect and disregard for other people and their property. People who choose to do so will be dealt with seriously and appropriately.”

He will have to serve at least a quarter of his sentence before being eligible for parole. He allegedly rejected a 20-year prison sentence in a plea bargain before the trial.

[jclay2]

As planned, let the violent criminals out in 5-10 and replace them with petty thieves.

[kcchiefs6465]

According to the Waco Tribune-Herald, his act of theft was heightened to robbery when he threatened the employee by telling him he was in possession of a knife. According to the employee’s testimony, he added: “If you don’t leave me alone, I’ll show you what I got,” before running off. He was later arrested.
I've known someone given 4-6 years for stealing a candy bar. If you run from a shoplifting, they can run wild with it and charge you with a robbery. And your public defender won't have much to say about it.

Thirty five years is outrageous. The whole article annoys me. Texas would have been my third guess next to California or Florida - States I don't even want to so much as fly above.

Twenty year 'plea' deal... lord have mercy.

I'd much rather (and I'm sure him too) have had him get a good ass whooping for taking the man's property and that would be that. There should be punishment but damn, there are rapists and killers walking the streets. Poor man in a prison town hit with a book for more or less that. (this is around the area of Tulia is it not?)

I'm sure some here will be defending this sentence.

[TaftFan]

I guess threatening had a role in it as well.

I wouldn't have put him away for that long, but I don't think he has gotten it through his thick skull not to committ crimes.

[CaseyJones]

I have actually met this dude when I lived in waco or at least seen him about

[Christian Liberty]

I've known someone given 4-6 years for stealing a candy bar. If you run from a shoplifting, they can run wild with it and charge you with a robbery. And your public defender won't have much to say about it.

Thirty five years is outrageous. The whole article annoys me. Texas would have been my third guess next to California or Florida - States I don't even want to so much as fly above.

Twenty year 'plea' deal... lord have mercy.

I'd much rather (and I'm sure him too) have had him get a good ass whooping for taking the man's property and that would be that. There should be punishment but damn, there are rapists and killers walking the streets. Poor man in a prison town hit with a book for more or less that. (this is around the area of Tulia is it not?)

I'm sure some here will be defending this sentence.

Its ridiculous.

I think I've finally been convinced that "Prison" in a typical sense is simply a bad idea. There's ALWAYS something else you can do...

[anaconda]

Store lost $35 in sales revenue. Texas taxpayers pay maybe $1 million incarcerating this person for a lifetime.

Gee..I wonder if this person has been committed to a privately run prison?

Nullify.

[kcchiefs6465]

Its ridiculous.

I think I've finally been convinced that "Prison" in a typical sense is simply a bad idea. There's ALWAYS something else you can do...
Well...

Vendettas would be a problem. Someone kills your family member, so yours kills one of theirs. Back and forth, innocent people caught in the middle. It would be a mess. There are neighborhoods that are essentially that.

Some people ought to be kept away from society. Rapists and child molesters, for example. Some may be innocent though, so I could never advocate the death of all accused. (or even convicted) Some blatant cases with a tremendous amount of evidence, they should be sentenced to death.

There is illegitimacy in sending him away for 35 years when cops can beat a man to death on camera and not be indicted. The system is broke. (less broken than it was, perhaps.. but still broken)

I've seen a man who was sentenced to 4-6 years for running when he stole a candy bar. He was what they call a 'repeat offender.' (Most crimes probably nonviolent offenses and they charged him with a robbery) I became friends with a kid who stole a candy bar from the local Arab store. The owner chased him down and smacked the shit out of him. Laugh about it years later.

There's other ways to handle things without involving the state, who wants to make as much money as possible and set examples on people, not that 35 years would ever be justifiable for this crime. (no matter his record)

[HOLLYWOOD]

FYI...





The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:


Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1791, has three provisions. The cruel and unusual punishments clause restricts the severity of punishments that state and federal governments may impose upon persons who have been convicted of a criminal offense. The Excessive Fines Clause limits the amount that state and federal governments may fine a person for a particular crime. The Excessive Bail Clause restricts judicial discretion in setting bail for the release of persons accused of a criminal activity during the period following their arrest but preceding their trial.

Courts are given wide latitude under the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment. Fines imposed by a trial court judge or magistrate will not be overturned on appeal unless the judge or magistrate abused his or her discretion in assessing them (United States v. Hyppolite, 65 F.3d 1151 [4th Cir. 1995]). Under the "abuse-of-discretion" standard, appellate courts may overturn a fine that is Arbitrary (http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Arbitrary), capricious, or "so grossly excessive as to amount to a deprivation of property without due process of law" (Water-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas, 212 U.S. 86, 111, 29 S. Ct. 220, 227, 53 L. Ed. 417 [1909]). Fines are rarely overturned on appeal for any of these reasons

[kcchiefs6465]

I have actually met this dude when I lived in waco or at least seen him about
Yeah?

I'd imagine he was a local addict. Was he homeless or anything?

[brandon]

What do you guys think would be a better way to handle this? The guy obviously isn't fit to live in society and if he got a 5 year sentence it seems like he would just commit more crimes as soon as he got out. Sounds like he'll be out in about 12 years and I bet he ends up back in within 13.

[kcchiefs6465]

Personally I'd like to have seen him get his ass whooped, the property returned, and him hobble his way home to think about life and consequences.

Someone steals your property, it would depend on the blatancy. Hell, if the man was hungry, I might offer him something to eat. But there is a line.

Instead of the man getting thirty five years I'd much rather see that. It might not change his life forever, but it will change his life momentarily. If he was simply hungry and was down on his luck, let him off with a warning.

I suspect this was over drugs and he probably wasn't even stealing the ribs for himself. A strong word of encouragement about property might have helped. Especially considering the 35 years he was given.

My whole point is that the state isn't needed for every little thing. It's like the obligation to call the police if you're in a fender bender. Two parties are surely able to work something out without the state mandating the result. Especially when the result is so heavy handed and biased.

[oyarde]

I have work for him.

[Anti Federalist]

Some kind of 8th Amendment terrorist talk...

Cue Laughing Jack.

[aGameOfThrones]

Patricia cook's killer got 3 years.

[Anti Federalist]

Patricia Cook's killer got 3 years.

After committing fraud, perjury and murder.

Just Us.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Some posts in this thread are dyslexic:

He got 50 years for stealing $35 worth of ribs.
not
He got 35 years for stealing $50 worth of ribs.

That said, one of my early jobs was working in a grocery store. Store security dealt with shoplifters like this:

We've got 3 strikes laws, where after 3 convictions you are classified as a habitual criminal. At that point mandatory minimum sentences kick in with no chance of parole.

So the first time a shoplifter is observed, they get video of them in the act and perhaps an undercover directly observes them stealing.
Then they let them walk and distribute their photo to all other stores as someone to watch.
Second time, again video and observation. All documented.
Third time, as above and they might bust them then or let them go and get a 4th theft so they are sure of 3 solid convictions.

This results in something like 30 years with no possibility for parole.

The one time I had a big problem with this policy was a female shoplifter stealing baby formula... then again, she should have gone to a food bank.

The one customer that really pissed me off what a black woman who was rather openly teaching her 8yo son how to shoplift...

Couple of other secrets:
They always settle in cases of slip and fall as well as grocery buggy scratches cars paint job.

-t

[WhistlinDave]

Store lost $35 in sales revenue. Texas taxpayers pay maybe $1 million incarcerating this person for a lifetime.

Gee..I wonder if this person has been committed to a privately run prison?

Nullify.

I agree. Flippin' geniuses on that jury, apparently. I'm not saying he should be let off scott free either just because he was hungry, but...

The supreme irony of this is, the guy was obviously hungry, and now for his punishment, the taxpayers of Texas will provide him with free meals for the rest of his life.

[tangent4ronpaul]

the guy was obviously hungry

ribs are a luxury item and hard to conceal. If he was simply hungry, there are much better things to steal from the nutritional and preparation perspective as well. Where was he planning on cooking them? I'm guessing he wasn't homeless if that's what he stole.

-t

[kcchiefs6465]

ribs are a luxury item and hard to conceal. If he was simply hungry, there are much better things to steal from the nutritional and preparation perspective as well. Where was he planning on cooking them? I'm guessing he wasn't homeless if that's what he stole.

-t
"Cocaine is a hell of a drug." - Rick James

Why he took the ribs is probably because someone told him they wanted them.

You'd be surprised to see what people are doing.

Not that that excuses his behavior.

[kcchiefs6465]

Though he might have just been hungry.

The logic behind that is why go to jail for stealing a package of ramen noodles when the ribs are aisles over.

My money would be on that he is a drug addict stealing for his dealer.

[Warrior_of_Freedom]

he's had prior convictions for violent crimes, no sympathy from me

[kcchiefs6465]

he's had prior convictions for violent crimes, no sympathy from me
Indeed.

Why'd they even let him out, you know?

[asurfaholic]

50 years... Wow.

There's not many things i hate more than a thief, but jeez what a sentence.

But whatever, jury of his peers....

[tangent4ronpaul]

50 years...

-t

[Demigod]

They should bring back physical punishment.Give him 20 lashes + to pay the ribs and send him home.I don't see a reason to keep him in a cage for decades and spend money on him when he is of no threat to anyone.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Stocks and public humiliation worked once upon a time... actually there was a thread about a judge doing something like that recently. Sentenced the guy to so many days wearing a billboard stating what he did by an intersection.

-t

[aGameOfThrones]

They should bring back physical punishment.Give him 20 lashes + to pay the ribs and send him home.I don't see a reason to keep him in a cage for decades and spend money on him when he is of no threat to anyone.

He has this,


Ward already had five previous felonies and four convictions for misdemeanours. His previous convictions have been for crimes including burglary, attempted robbery, aggravated assault, leaving the scene of an accident and possession of cocaine.

But the Ribs was the worst.

[luctor-et-emergo]

A quick Google search told me that it costs 50.79$ a day to incarcerate someone in Texas.
That means that if costs did not increase over these 50 years it would cost 926,917.5$ to incarcerate this man, for 35$ worth of stolen goods ? REALLY ?

That's 26,483 times the amount he stole... And taxpayers are on the hook for it. Why ? Who exactly does this make sense to ?

The US incarcerates 716 people per 100k, the Netherlands incarcerates only 87 people per 100k according to Wikipedia. The longest jail sentence here (apart from life which hasn't been used for 20 years) is 20 years in prison. With good behavior prisoners can be out after 2/3's. Even murderers won't get more than that. The most notable example is probably the guy who killed a very popular aspiring politician who was on his way to become prime minister in 2002. He's about to be released in 2014.

I have not studied this subject into much detail but I do know that it's hard to say that longer sentences will cut down on crime.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Good math, bad knowledge of US sentencing. That girl in NM that was just found guilty of murdering her BF is looking at a max sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

Charlie Manson is eligible for parole.
So is that guy that shot Reagan for Jodie!

The system is F'd up!

-t

[kcchiefs6465]

Career criminals

... According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, every single one of the top ten weapons contractors was convicted of or admitted to defrauding the government between 1980 and 1992. For example:

* Grumman paid the government $20 million to escape criminal liability for coercing subcontractors into making political contributions.

* Lockheed was convicted of paying millions in bribes to obtain classified planning documents.

* Northrop was fined $17 million for falsifying test data on its cruise missiles and fighter jets.

* Rockwell was fined $5.5 million for committing criminal fraud against the Air Force.

In another study, the Project on Government Oversight (PGO) searched public records from October 1989 to February 1994 and found-in just that 4~/~-year period-85 instances of fraud, waste and abuse in weapons contracting. For example:

Boeing, Grumman, Hughes, Raytheon and RCA pleaded guilty to illegal trafficking in classified documents and paid a total of almost $15 million in restitution, reimbursements, fines, etc.

* Hughes pleaded guilty to procurement fraud in one case, was convicted of it in a second case and, along with McDonnell Douglas and General Motors, settled out-of-court for a total of more than $1 million dollars in a third case.

* Teledyne paid $5 million in a civil settlement for false testing, plus $5 million for repairs.

* McDonnell Douglas settled for a total of more than $22 million in four "defective pricing" cases.

But General Electric was the champ. PGO lists fourteen cases, including a conviction for mail and procurement fraud that resulted in a criminal fine of $10 million and restitution of $2.2 million. In our own research, we found several other examples of GE crimes and civil violations:

* In 1961, GE pleaded guilty to price-fixing and paid a $372,500 fine.

* In 1977, it was convicted of price-fixing again.

* In 1979, it settled out-of-court when the State of Alabama sued it for dumping PCBs in a river.

* In 1981, it was convicted of setting up a $1.25 million slush fund to bribe Puerto Rican officials.

* In 1985, GE pleaded guilty to 108 counts of fraud on a Minuteman missile contract. In addition, the chief engineer of GE's space systems division was convicted of perjury, and GE paid a fine of a million dollars.

* In 1985, it pleaded guilty to falsifying time cards.

* In 1989, it paid the government $3.5 million to settle five civil lawsuits alleging contractor fraud at a jet-engine plant (which involved the alteration of 9,000 daily labor vouchers to inflate its Pentagon billings).

In 1990, GE was convicted of criminal fraud for cheating the Army on a contract for battlefield computers; it declined to appeal and paid $16 million in criminal and civil fines. ($11.7 million of this amount was to settle government complaints that it had padded its bids on 200 other military and space contracts-which comes to just $58,000 or so per contract.)

In 1993, GE sold its weapons division to Martin Marietta for $3 billion (retaining 23.5% of the stock and two seats on the board of directors).

The largest investigation of Pentagon fraud took place between 1986 and 1990. Called Operation Ill Wind, it began when Pentagon official John Marlowe was caught molesting little girls. He cut a deal to stay out of jail and, for the next few years, secretly recorded hundreds of conversations with weapons contractors.

There's no way of knowing how much the crimes Ill Wind looked into cost the taxpayers, but the investigation, which cost $20 million, brought in ten times that much in fines. According to Wall Street Journal reporter Andy Pasztor, "more than 90 companies and individuals were convicted of felonies... including eight of the military's fifteen largest suppliers....Boeing, GE and United Technologies pleaded guilty...Hughes, Unisys, Raytheon, Loral, Litton, Teledyne, Cubic, Hazeltine, Whittaker and LTV...admitted they violated the law."

Unisys signed the largest Pentagon fraud settlement in history: $190 million in fines, penalties and forgone profits (which means they weren't allowed to charge for cost overruns the way military contractors usually do).

Assistant Navy Secretary Melvyn Paisley was the central figure in the Ill Wind scandal and the highest-ranking person convicted (he was sentenced to four years in prison). He ran his office like a supermarket for weapons manufacturers, soaking up bribes, divvying up multibillion-dollar contracts and diverting work to a firm he secretly controlled with a partner.

Paisley may have been a bit more...flamboyant than most, but there was nothing terribly unusual about his approach. As of 1994, nearly 70 of the Pentagon's 100 largest suppliers were under investigation. Fines for that year totaled a record $1.2 billion.

That may sound like a lot, but it's less than 2% of the weapons industry's net income (which averaged $64 billion a year in 1994 and 1995). A billion or two in fines is hardly an incentive to end the corruption and waste in Pentagon contracting.

excerpted from the book
Take the Rich Off Welfare
by Mark Zepezauer and Arthur Naiman
Odonian Press, 1996



Seems relevant.

Just us.

[Pericles]

There are three things one does not do in Texas:

(A) Murder
(B) Rape
(C) Steal

Do any of those 3, and your best chance of survival is for the police to get to you first.

[nobody's_hero]

There are three things one does not do in Texas:

(A) Murder
(B) Rape
(C) Steal

Do any of those 3, and your best chance of survival is for the police to get to you first.

LOL.

[phill4paul]

There are three things one does not do in Texas:

(A) Murder
(B) Rape
(C) Steal

Do any of those 3, and your best chance of survival is for the police to get to you first.

Don't call the cops. Unless, you are in Texas and have committed murder, rape or theft. Lol. :p