Posted on 05/05/2014 11:04:37 AM PDT by Second Amendment First
Better editing (whoops)
A man convicted of robbery in 2000 but never sent to prison until last year because of a clerical mistake walked free Monday after a judge lauded his “exemplary” behavior during 13 years of freedom.
Cornealious “Mike” Anderson dabbed tears from his eyes as the judge announced his decision during a hearing that lasted just 10 minutes. Anderson left the courtroom with his wife and 3-year-old daughter on one arm and his mom on the other.
Anderson was 23 when he was sentenced to 13 years in prison for his role in the robbery of a fast-food restaurant’s assistant manager. He told The Associated Press last month that he waited, and even asked about going to prison, but the order never came.
The man he robbed thought he should be a free man.
Justice is served!
Can you translate this for me?
Prison was in order for an armed robbery, but living 13 years waiting for the hammer to drop is its own punishment. As long a no one was hurt in the crime I see no sense in sending a reformed, productive man to jail.
quite possibly written by an automated journalist. Or one that stayed up too late last night...
Thanks for posting this.
It makes me very happy that the judge had enough common sense to do what was right. :-)
During his long purgatory he still continued to build a constructive family life. Prison isn’t going to reform him.
Think of the money we'll save!/sarc
What is the goal of incarceration? I think that justice is better served when a man commits to admitting the severity of his crime and shows by his actions that he rejects the crime and would never do it again.
This incident has saved the state a lot of money. Has there ever been restitution of the victim?
I applaud the freeing of this man.
Copy and paste picked up title links to other stories on the site.
He was sentenced to time not served.
Outstanding!
Obviously, we have prison for a reason, and we would never do this, because the vast majority of those in prison are there because they are dangerous, and we don't want them around. They are supposed to be rehabilitated and learn their lesson, but in reality, they usually don't. The thing that usually stops a young hoodlum from continuing to commit crime is growing old.
However, in this case, my initial reaction is that the state has forfeited its right to incarcerate this defendant, who happened to be one of the few who turned his life around on a dime. When he was sentenced, he was a 23 year old kid who would have been out at 37, or maybe sooner if they get time off for good behavior in Missouri. He was available and never fled or hid, and they didn't put him in prison during all those 13 years. Now, he is 37, with a family and a life, and it would be cruel to force him to serve those 13 years NOW, having him in prison until age 50, separating from that life that he built while they failed to put him behind bars.
The penalty now would be something far harsher than the original sentence. You can't impose it on him now, to do so would be cruel. In my opinion.
In the case of the woman who escaped prison in Michigan, went to San Diego, changed her name and had a family, I think there is a distinction. Namely, that she escaped and hid. It was her fault, not the state's, that she did not finish out her sentence. If having a good life after escape allowed a person to avoid their sentence, then prisoners might as well escape at will and give it a go.
In that case, justice was served by forcing her back to Michigan, putting her in prison, but letting her out after a suitable interval had passed (I think they let her out after 6 months or a year, instead of making her serve out her entire sentence.) One factor making that just is that the laws she was in prison for had changed drastically. I think it was a small amount of marijuana she had, and she got a 20 year sentence that would today be a misdemeanor with no prison time.
“I guess we should not put anyone that has been convicted of a violent crime in prison for at least a decade. If they are not convicted of any serious crimes in that time they’re free to go.”
We do that all the time depending on the circumstances. It’s called probation. Probation for armed robbery isn’t typical, but it isn’t exactly rare either, happens quite a bit with young first time offenders.
Regardless of that, I don’t see any justification at all for sending a man with 4 kids, his own business, and an otherwise clean record back to prison on the taxpayer’s dime, because of a government clerical error. I’m good.
What would your just action be? This man never hid where he was. He never tried to keep from going to prison. The court just overlooked him. So he waited. And waited.
Now that they have discovered the oversight, he was arrested. But if he had served all of that term, he would be free now anyway.
So tell me, would justice be served if he now spent 13 years in prison? If so, please define what you believe to be the purpose of prison and what you believe justice consists of.
Prison isn't cheap and personally, I believe the goal of incarceration should be to protect society from violent, sociopathic predators, not to destroy people.
Sending this guy to prison would not have protected society and would have basically turned him from a tax-paying producer into a ward of the state, his family included.
I hope he can recover his livelihood.
23 yrs old is not a kid. He was a grown man when he committed a violent armed robbery.
I am extremely disturbed that this man has been turned into a hero. So he turned his life around. Good for him and society, but that's what he should have been doing instead of armed robberies.
I would need far more information than is provided by the msm. That they judiciously state that he hadn't been convicted of a serious crime prior to the robbery puts me on alert.
Why didn't he contact authorities? I can understand why, I probably wouldn't either. If he did in fact ask his lawyer and the lawyer told him to keep quiet then the lawyer is partly at fault for his predicament.
If, in fact, this story is completely true as reported, which I doubt there should still be punishment for the crime.
Prison is not rehabilitation, it is punishment.
Community service, house arrest, weekends in jail.
Again, this man committed a violent criminal act and punishment is appropriate. He is not a hero and is not being oppressdd by da man.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.