Articles Posted in Sentencing

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A man who was charged with child endangerment and abuse for allegedly chaining his 7 year old son to a bed while he went to work was sentenced to 30 days in jail and 30 days of house arrest.

The father reportedly said he couldn’t afford childcare services while he went to work and didn’t want his son running around the neighborhood. Although the child was not injured by the heavy chain that was secured to his ankle, and the boy had access to water, snacks, and the bathroom, the prosecutor said the father’s actions “absolutely rose to the level of child abuse” according to the Herald Journal.

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Californians have just enacted the biggest change to the criminal justice system in a generation. Voters have approved Proposition 47, which will reduce most drug and many theft crimes from felonies to mere misdemeanors. This will reduce or eliminate thousands of jail sentences across the state.

Anyone who is currently serving a prison sentence that qualifies under this reclassification is eligible to petition for a new, lighter sentence, even if currently incarcerated under California’s “three strikes” law. Someone serving a 25-to-life sentence may, for example, be allowed to leave prison now with credit for time that has been served.

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woman-imageA woman was just sentenced to state prison for admitting to having sex with her adult friend’s 12-year old son. She had pled to two counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a child in a Florida court.

The incident allegedly began when the woman began contacting the boy on Facebook and through text messages. She had him a picture of herself in underwear and had arranged to meet the boy at a mall, where they instead had sex in the back seat of her car. They had met on at least two more occasions, in a secluded wooded area, also to have sex in her car.

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browniesA 19-year old teenager from Texas is facing anywhere between 5 years to life in prison for baking and selling pot brownies. Authorities arrested the teen on April 15 after a search of his apartment revealed six bags of cookies, nine bags of brownies, a pound of marijuana and $1675 in cash.

Although his criminal defense attorney claims the offense should be classified as a misdemeanor, Texas laws are harsher in its punishment of crimes involving THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. The reason for the tough penalty is due to the boy using hash oil in making the brownies. Hash oil is classified differently from marijuana as a “Penalty 2” controlled substance. This allows authorities to use the weight of the entire batch of brownies (including sugar, flour, etc.) as the weight of the drug sold.

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Only one day after the deadly Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting that took the lives of 20 children and six teachers in Newtown, Connecticut, Marcos Gurrola allegedly took out a .40-caliber Glock handgun in a crowded Orange County mall parking lot and fired 54 rounds toward the Macy’s building. He stopped shooting and surrendered when two Newport Beach police officers on bicycles arrived. Gurrola was in possession of six magazines for his handgun, with even more in his car.

He was charged with 54 felony counts of firing a weapon at an inhabited dwelling, 2 counts of assault, plus two firearm enhancements. The reasons for Gurrola’s actions are inconclusive. He reportedly claimed that when he fired his gun, it made him feel better. Police said in 2012 that Gurrola told a detective he fired his gun because he was angry, but was not aiming at anybody.

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With tax day coming tomorrow, it’s tempting to make a few tweaks to reduce the amount of tax you owe to the federal government. But allow yourself to get carried away and you may find yourself in federal prison on tax evasion charges. The former city of Bell chief administrator was convicted of allegedly falsifying losses on his taxes, but that’s only half the story.

As the city administrator, he reportedly misappropriated taxpayer funds to pay himself a salary far in excess of what he should have received, and then claimed more than $770,000 in non-existent losses to the IRS to inflate his take-home pay up to $1.18 million per year.

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In February, Joe Hundley was aboard a flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta to pay a final visit to his brain-dead son in the hospital and take him off of life support. He had not slept the previous night and was consuming alcohol as a method of coping with the pain and stress of the situation.

He was seated next to Jessica Bennett, who was holding her 19-month old son on her lap. When the flight made its final descent to Atlanta, Bennett’s son began crying. Hundley became agitated and allegedly leaned over to Bennett and told her to “shut that (N-word) baby up.” He repeated the phrase to Bennett before reportedly slapping the child on the face, leaving a scratch below his right eye.

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Home confinement is often an attractive alternative to doing jail time, but in some cases, making your ankle bracelet attractive carries its own punishment.

Rebecca Gallanagh was charged with the crime of public disorder for being involved in a fight outside of a local nightclub in the UK. As an alternative to incarceration, she was fitted with an electronic ankle bracelet that monitors her position through GPS satellites. She was ordered to adhere to a strict 9PM curfew in her home that officials could monitor through the signals received by the device.

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Imagine you’re in court, charged with a crime, telling a judge the facts surrounding your case that show your innocence. Now imagine a police officer taking the stand and contradicting everything you’ve just said. Who is the judge going to believe? Who would a jury believe? Overwhelmingly, in a battle of credibility, a cop is going to win most of the time.

Cops are sworn to serve and protect their communities, right? They dress sharp, they’re well-groomed, wear a shiny badge and appear completely trustworthy. On the witness stand, they are relaxed, confident, and nearly anyone is going to believe what they say.

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A group of Yale researchers recently conducted a jury trial study. They formed a group of 471 “jurors” of various body sizes to read a case surrounding the crime of check fraud while viewing one of four possible images of the “defendant.” Each image depicted a lean female, a lean male, an obese female, and an obese male. The participants in the mock trial were asked to rate the culpability (or guilt) of the defendant on a 5-point scale.

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