Collarspace Discussion Forums


Home  Login  Search 

Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier


View related threads: (in this forum | in all forums)

Logged in as: Guest
 
All Forums >> [Casual Banter] >> Off the Grid >> Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier Page: [1]
Login
Message << Older Topic   Newer Topic >>
Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier - 8/29/2008 6:58:34 PM   
Level


Posts: 25145
Joined: 3/3/2006
Status: offline
quote:


MOBILE, Ala. - Patrick Lett returned to south Alabama when he finished an unblemished 17-year Army career, including two tours in Iraq. Then his father died, he couldn't find work to support his two daughters and his life took a wrong turn.



Lett pleaded guilty in federal court to cocaine possession for his involvement in a cousin's drug operation and was sentenced in 2006 to five years in prison.



U.S. District Judge William Steele didn't want to order Lett to serve time at all, but he thought the law required it. Steele noted at the sentencing Lett had led "an exemplary life up until the time of the offenses and even after," when Lett re-enlisted and served another 17 months before his indictment.



Lett, 39, probably would be in prison today if a friend hadn't helped Steele realize that he had misunderstood the sentencing requirements. Steele changed the prison term to three years of supervised release, and Lett was free to go, the judge's honest mistake apparently cleared up.



But that didn't satisfy prosecutors, who appealed the lighter sentence on the grounds that Steele didn't have the authority to change the initial five-year sentence. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, saying Steele couldn't undo his own error.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26460810/

Should the prosecutors have just let this slide? Or did ethics compel them to object? Or does Lett deserve to have the book thrown at him?

< Message edited by Level -- 8/29/2008 6:59:24 PM >

_____________________________

Fake the heat and scratch the itch
Skinned up knees and salty lips
Let go it's harder holding on
One more trip and I'll be gone

~~ Stone Temple Pilots
Profile   Post #: 1
RE: Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier - 8/29/2008 7:09:15 PM   
Alumbrado


Posts: 5560
Status: offline 		That is unusual, but it doesn't look like they said his sentence couldn't be overturned, just that the judge who made the mistake couldn't decide on his own to reverse and re-impose it. 
People have won appeals because judges misinterpreted instructions before, I think he may just have to appeal on those grounds to a higher court.

And no prosecutor with an ounce of ambition is going to do the right thing, if it means that later on during an election campaign, their opponents can use it against them.

(in reply to Level)
Profile   Post #: 2
RE: Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier - 8/29/2008 7:30:06 PM   
slaveboyforyou


Posts: 3607
Joined: 1/6/2005
From: Arkansas, U.S.A.
Status: offline 		The prosecutors should have let it go.  We need a sane drug policy in this country, but that is another matter.  Right now it's illegal, and that is OUR fault.  Survey after survey show that Americans don't want to legalize or decriminalize drugs.  People want these harsh sentences, because they are easily swayed by propaganda.  We are all led to believe that all drug dealers are heartless, cold-blooded murderers like you see in the movies.  We never seem to think of dealers in the romantic terms that we do for moonshiners.  I don't know one person that doesn't have an addict in their family.  We all have them.  The people they are locking up are our family members.  I don't understand it, and I suppose I never will.  I have started to give up on humanity.  

(in reply to Level)
Profile   Post #: 3
RE: Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier - 8/29/2008 8:14:44 PM   
Alumbrado


Posts: 5560
Status: offline 		http://november.org/thewall/cases/lett-p/lett-p.html


Don't imagine for a second that I like the way prosecutors think, or use their office to further their political ambitions, but if they hadn't opposed this, that mug shot of Patrick Lett with some photoshopped stubble ala OJ, would have been flooding the TVs next election, along with a sonorous narration accusing 'While DA, he allowed a killer to walk free from a 5 year sentence for drug dealing!!...( cut to faux headlines '8 Dead in Gun Battle', using number of enemy engaged by Sgt Lett in Iraq as 'victims'...).  

That is the shark tank prosecutors swim in, and things political have really gotten that bad, and the number of people who will unquestioningly accept such stuff is apparently skyrocketing.


Hopefully the correct sentence will be will be set right through the ordinary appeals process.



(in reply to slaveboyforyou)
Profile   Post #: 4
RE: Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier - 8/30/2008 3:05:16 AM   
Vendaval


Posts: 10297
Joined: 1/15/2005
Status: offline 		Given his lack of prior criminal behavior and having served in the military and been gainfully employed, I am fine with the 3 year sentence.

_____________________________

"Beware, the woods at night, beware the lunar light.
So in this gray haze we'll be meating again, and on that
great day, I will tease you all the same."
"WOLF MOON", OCTOBER RUST, TYPE O NEGATIVE


http://KinkMeet.co.uk

(in reply to Level)
Profile   Post #: 5
RE: Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier - 8/30/2008 10:53:13 AM   
philosophy


Posts: 5284
Joined: 2/15/2004
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Vendaval

Given his lack of prior criminal behavior and having served in the military and been gainfully employed, I am fine with the 3 year sentence.


(my italics)

.......would there be the same sense of cutting this poor man a little slack if he'd been a nurse or a teacher?

(in reply to Vendaval)
Profile   Post #: 6
RE: Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier - 8/30/2008 10:56:12 AM   
scifi1133


Posts: 8529
Joined: 3/27/2007
From: virginia
Status: offline 		Mandatory minimums have been the bain of the justice system since they were made. It takes the sentencing out of the hands of judges. It's not how the system was supposed to work.
The D.A. should have left well enough alone.

_____________________________

I'm the happy fascist slut.
awwwwwww yeeeeeeeeah
And I see your schwartz is as big as mine.
My heart 10-01-72 / 10-16-09


(in reply to philosophy)
Profile   Post #: 7
RE: Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier - 8/30/2008 10:59:02 AM   
scifi1133


Posts: 8529
Joined: 3/27/2007
From: virginia
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: philosophy

quote:

ORIGINAL: Vendaval

Given his lack of prior criminal behavior and having served in the military and been gainfully employed, I am fine with the 3 year sentence.


(my italics)

.......would there be the same sense of cutting this poor man a little slack if he'd been a nurse or a teacher?
Honestly I do believe there would be after as long in service with a clean record. It happened here about 2 years ago. A teacher that had gotten divorced and lost everything was doing some mule work for her cousin and the judge said that because of her clean record for 45 years and her 20 years of teaching that he thought it was a one time thing. She got 3 years probation.

_____________________________

I'm the happy fascist slut.
awwwwwww yeeeeeeeeah
And I see your schwartz is as big as mine.
My heart 10-01-72 / 10-16-09


(in reply to philosophy)
Profile   Post #: 8
RE: Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier - 8/30/2008 11:06:23 AM   
philosophy


Posts: 5284
Joined: 2/15/2004
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: scifi1133

quote:

ORIGINAL: philosophy

quote:

ORIGINAL: Vendaval

Given his lack of prior criminal behavior and having served in the military and been gainfully employed, I am fine with the 3 year sentence.


(my italics)

.......would there be the same sense of cutting this poor man a little slack if he'd been a nurse or a teacher?
Honestly I do believe there would be after as long in service with a clean record. It happened here about 2 years ago. A teacher that had gotten divorced and lost everything was doing some mule work for her cousin and the judge said that because of her clean record for 45 years and her 20 years of teaching that he thought it was a one time thing. She got 3 years probation.



.....fair enough, thanks for the answer......

(in reply to scifi1133)
Profile   Post #: 9
RE: Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier - 8/30/2008 12:15:58 PM   
Alumbrado


Posts: 5560
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: philosophy

quote:

ORIGINAL: Vendaval

Given his lack of prior criminal behavior and having served in the military and been gainfully employed, I am fine with the 3 year sentence.


(my italics)

.......would there be the same sense of cutting this poor man a little slack if he'd been a nurse or a teacher?


And what part of... "a five-part statutory "safety valve" that permits shorter sentences for defendants with unblemished backgrounds who played minor roles in crimes that did not involve violence and who had told the truth about what happened. Few defendants qualify. Sergeant Lett did."... suggests otherwise?

(in reply to philosophy)
Profile   Post #: 10
RE: Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier - 8/30/2008 12:59:03 PM   
Kalista07


Posts: 4240
Joined: 7/1/2007
Status: offline 		My problem with this is until we decriminalize something that is an addiction, a disease we are boing to continue to have these difficulties. i'm not saying people shouldn't be held accountable for their behavior, but i do think we've reached a point in time in society where we have to realize that the only thing we are accomplishing by continuing to jail people for engaging in behaviors which support their disease the only thing we are accomplishing is creating institutionalization.
Just my 53 cents worth.
Kali


_____________________________

“Love me when I least deserve it, because that's when I really need it.”
~~Sweedish Proverb


(in reply to Alumbrado)
Profile   Post #: 11
RE: Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier - 8/30/2008 3:47:03 PM   
philosophy


Posts: 5284
Joined: 2/15/2004
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Alumbrado

quote:

ORIGINAL: philosophy

quote:

ORIGINAL: Vendaval

Given his lack of prior criminal behavior and having served in the military and been gainfully employed, I am fine with the 3 year sentence.


(my italics)

.......would there be the same sense of cutting this poor man a little slack if he'd been a nurse or a teacher?


And what part of... "a five-part statutory "safety valve" that permits shorter sentences for defendants with unblemished backgrounds who played minor roles in crimes that did not involve violence and who had told the truth about what happened. Few defendants qualify. Sergeant Lett did."... suggests otherwise?



*sighs*

well, oh contentious one, given some comments made on these fora regarding the respect due to those in the military it was worth asking whether posters here felt that other professions also qualified.  Honestly, not every post is what you think it is.

(in reply to Alumbrado)
Profile   Post #: 12
RE: Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier - 8/30/2008 4:00:32 PM   
Alumbrado


Posts: 5560
Status: offline 		Some comments on these fora suggest all sorts of things...but that still doesn't explain why you thought this case was a matter of special treatement that a teacher or nurse wouldn't have gotten, from the words printed in the story above.

And aren't you the one who spent post after post haranguing me about the pharmacists 'right' to not give medicine out to people who weren't using it for contraception, while you denied that the words spelling out that it was for medical conditions, not contraception appeared in print? 

And I'm contentious?  

(in reply to philosophy)
Profile   Post #: 13
RE: Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier - 8/30/2008 4:37:07 PM   
Vendaval


Posts: 10297
Joined: 1/15/2005
Status: offline 		I think most any legal profession would apply.  Nurses, teachers, taxi drivers, assembly line workers, etc.  The recent criminal behavior was out of charcter for this individual based on his previous history.


quote:

ORIGINAL: philosophy

quote:

ORIGINAL: Vendaval

Given his lack of prior criminal behavior and having served in the military and been gainfully employed, I am fine with the 3 year sentence.


(my italics)

.......would there be the same sense of cutting this poor man a little slack if he'd been a nurse or a teacher?


_____________________________

"Beware, the woods at night, beware the lunar light.
So in this gray haze we'll be meating again, and on that
great day, I will tease you all the same."
"WOLF MOON", OCTOBER RUST, TYPE O NEGATIVE


http://KinkMeet.co.uk

(in reply to philosophy)
Profile   Post #: 14
RE: Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier - 8/31/2008 10:29:56 AM   
philosophy


Posts: 5284
Joined: 2/15/2004
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: Alumbrado

Some comments on these fora suggest all sorts of things...but that still doesn't explain why you thought this case was a matter of special treatement that a teacher or nurse wouldn't have gotten, from the words printed in the story above.

And aren't you the one who spent post after post haranguing me about the pharmacists 'right' to not give medicine out to people who weren't using it for contraception, while you denied that the words spelling out that it was for medical conditions, not contraception appeared in print? 

And I'm contentious?  


.......once again.....and please read closely, i'd hate for you to misunderstand me.

i asked the question because i wanted to know whether other posters here saw this as something only the ex-military were entitled to or whether anyone who contributes positively to society is entitled to. You are being contentious, trying to make my question something that it was never intended to be. It wasn't about how the law is written, but about how (via the miracles of free speech on these fora) people in the USA think.

...as to your second paragraph, you may remember that i apologised for my misunderstanding on that issue. Mea culpa, no doubts. When i make an error i try to make it clear that i have been in error. i am sorry that your apparent mindset makes it impossible for you to remember things like that.

< Message edited by philosophy -- 8/31/2008 10:32:36 AM >

(in reply to Alumbrado)
Profile   Post #: 15
Page:   [1]
All Forums >> [Casual Banter] >> Off the Grid >> Judge's goof could imprison ex-soldier Page: [1]
Jump to:





New Messages No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages Locked w/o New Messages
 Post New Thread
 Reply to Message
 Post New Poll
 Submit Vote
 Delete My Own Post
 Delete My Own Thread
 Rate Posts




Collarchat.com © 2025
Terms of Service Privacy Policy Spam Policy

0.203