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http://www.talkleft.com/story/2009/5/19/9115/72140


Three Strikes and Johnny Holley, Jr: 30 Years for Stealing a Toolbox
By Jeralyn, Section Crime Policy


In Alabama, Johnny Holly, Jr. has been freed after serving 30 years of a sentence of life without parole. His crime: he stole a toolbox. His sentence was the result of a three-strikes law.

How did he get free?

He is free today only because the Legislature changed the repeat-offender law early this decade.
The change in the law allowed for the possibility of parole. Even so, it took him several years to be resentenced and to get out.
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Who helped him ? The prosecutor and a host of prison guards.[More...]

The toolbox's owner, who has since died, didn't want to press charges, but was talked into it by a young deputy district attorney who later concluded that he'd made a mistake.

"I was acting as a knee-jerk prosecutor without the benefit of enough experience to know that law cannot be a 'one size fits all' process," Bruce Maddox, now a lawyer in private practice, wrote in a 2005 affidavit in support of Holley's release.
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60 prison guards urged his release, saying he was a changed man.

The cost to Alabama for his incarceration: $400,000.

As one law enforcement official says, if you want a policy where you lock people up forever, "You better get out your wallet."

As for what Holley's been doing since his release:

Since his release, Holley has gone from church to church to share his testimony and dissuade young people from following the "corrupt" path that did him so much harm. He hopes to find a job using some of the skills learned in prison. Assuming that he meets his parole conditions, a pardon is possible as early as 2011.
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I'm glad he got out, but really. He did know about the three strikes thing, right?

I wouldn't even move towards the appearance of breaking the law if I had that hovering over my head.
 
Grind said:
shouldn't have stolen the tool box.
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Agreed. But life without parole? That's fucking stupid. So is the very idea of a three strikes law. Life isn't a baseball game for Christ's sake.

In any sane country the person that first came up the idea of a three strikes law would have been laughed at and sent away to work as a street sweeper or something where his or her dumbass ideas would remain just dumbass ideas instead of laws.
 
the purpose of the three strike rule (at least here in CA) was to get violent or extremely harmful offenders off the street....however, the legislatures got drunk with power and made virtually any 3rd strike a life sentence. such a law goes against the califonia constitution and IMO, though struck down, violates teh 8th amendment.

the danger to society of someone stealing a toolbox is de minumus and should not result in a life sentence.
 
Dungheap said:
Agreed. But life without parole? That's fucking stupid. So is the very idea of a three strikes law. Life isn't a baseball game for Christ's sake.

In any sane country the person that first came up the idea of a three strikes law would have been laughed at and sent away to work as a street sweeper or something where his or her dumbass ideas would remain just dumbass ideas instead of laws.
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look obviously I'm against wasting a prison cell for what (appears) to be a non violent offender. By the same token however, I don't give much of a shit about stupid people.
 
Grind said:
look obviously I'm against wasting a prison cell for what (appears) to be a non violent offender. By the same token however, I don't give much of a shit about stupid people.
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Well, you're a dick. That's been established long ago.

Not caring about stupid people is fine. But not caring whether stupid people rot in prison with life without parole for stealing a toolbox is something else altogether.
 
30 years for stealing a toolbox? If he was a violent felon I could see it. But 3 instances of theft like that should not land someone in jail for 30 years.
 
he did not get 30 years for stealing a toolbox. That is the red herring in all of this. He got 30 years for being a habitual offender. nothing more, nothing less. If it turned his life around, and it looks like it has done that, then i'd say it was successful.
 
Yurt said:
the purpose of the three strike rule (at least here in CA) was to get violent or extremely harmful offenders off the street....however, the legislatures got drunk with power and made virtually any 3rd strike a life sentence. such a law goes against the califonia constitution and IMO, though struck down, violates teh 8th amendment.

the danger to society of someone stealing a toolbox is de minumus and should not result in a life sentence.
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I agree and the important point that you make with de minimus considerations is that if the punishment for a crime is not proportional to the severity of the crime then the rule of law in undermined. The same is true in reverse. When a white collar criminal like Ivan Boeski gets a few years at the Federal country club for white collar criminals after stealing millions of dollars then the rule of law is also undermined.
 
SmarterThanYou said:
he did not get 30 years for stealing a toolbox. That is the red herring in all of this. He got 30 years for being a habitual offender. nothing more, nothing less. If it turned his life around, and it looks like it has done that, then i'd say it was successful.
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He got life without parole for stealing a toolbox, not 30 years. He only got released because the dumbass law was changed to allow for parole.

There is no reasonable basis for a three strikes law. The idea that the criminal justice system should be modeled after the game of baseball is drown-on-your-own-spit stupid.
 
SmarterThanYou said:
he did not get 30 years for stealing a toolbox. That is the red herring in all of this. He got 30 years for being a habitual offender. nothing more, nothing less. If it turned his life around, and it looks like it has done that, then i'd say it was successful.
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Please explain to me, how you can justify incarcerating a petty criminal, even a habitual one for most of their life? Using your reasoning, if they had shot him for his 3rd offense then it would have been succesful as he would have been incapable of repeating the crime.
 
Dungheap said:
Well, you're a dick. That's been established long ago.

Not caring about stupid people is fine. But not caring whether stupid people rot in prison with life without parole for stealing a toolbox is something else altogether.
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what part of I don't agree with a non violent offender taking up cell space do you not understand shithead?
 
SmarterThanYou said:
he did not get 30 years for stealing a toolbox. That is the red herring in all of this. He got 30 years for being a habitual offender. nothing more, nothing less. If it turned his life around, and it looks like it has done that, then i'd say it was successful.
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His life was turned around by putting him away for 30 years and spending $400K on him.

I'd call that a failure. And unless his other two crimes were much worse giving him life was way out of line.
 
Dungheap said:
He got life without parole for stealing a toolbox, not 30 years. He only got released because the dumbass law was changed to allow for parole.

There is no reasonable basis for a three strikes law. The idea that the criminal justice system should be modeled after the game of baseball is drown-on-your-own-spit stupid.
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k, life without parole. At least it was changed and so was he. I still say it worked for him. Tell me how something that WORKS can be stupid?
 
Mottleydude said:
Please explain to me, how you can justify incarcerating a petty criminal, even a habitual one for most of their life? Using your reasoning, if they had shot him for his 3rd offense then it would have been succesful as he would have been incapable of repeating the crime.
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WinterBorn said:
His life was turned around by putting him away for 30 years and spending $400K on him.

I'd call that a failure. And unless his other two crimes were much worse giving him life was way out of line.
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then maybe they should have shot him instead. however you want to see it. I see it as a man that was rehabilitated. Isn't that what all you libs are about? rehabilitating criminals instead of punishing them?
 
SmarterThanYou said:
then maybe they should have shot him instead. however you want to see it. I see it as a man that was rehabilitated. Isn't that what all you libs are about? rehabilitating criminals instead of punishing them?
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How about we give them a plane ticket to another country and $250,000? That would save us about $149,000.

"Isn't that what all you libs are about?" You libs? Because I think putting someone away for 30 years and spending $400,000 to warehouse them for committing 3 petty crimes is a waste?

The concept behind the 3 Strikes law is a good one. But this is not what it was aimed at.
 
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