Posted on 05/27/2003 8:18:35 PM PDT by FairOpinion
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court ordered Florida courts on Tuesday to reconsider the sentence of a burglar who was sentenced to life because he had a pocketknife in his trousers when he broke into a closed steakhouse.
Had Clyde Bunkley left the knife at home, he would have received no more than five years and would have gotten out of jail more than a decade ago.
The high court said in an unsigned opinion that Bunkley may deserve a lighter sentence.
Bunkley was convicted in 1987 of armed burglary for the break-in at a Western Sizzlin' Restaurant.
Although Florida law has long excluded pocketknives from the definition of weapons, the state Supreme Court didn't interpret the law until 1997, too late for Bunkley.
The state court later ruled that Bunkley should not benefit retroactively from the decision that common pocketknives are not deadly weapons. Justices ordered the state court to reconsider that decision.
Florida prosecutors argued in lower courts that it would be difficult to sift through old cases involving pocketknife crimes to determine which sentences would have to be changed.
Bunkley filed his own appeal, part of it handwritten in neat print, urging the court to intervene to protect his constitutional rights. Bunkley was a repeat offender when he was caught at the restaurant, which was closed and vacant at the time. He did not use the knife in the crime, but admits having it in his pocket.
The state Supreme Court upheld the state law that defined weapons as "any dark, metallic knuckles, slingshot, billie, tear gas gun, chemical weapons or device or other deadly weapon except ... a common pocketknife."
Three justices said Bunkley did not deserve a second shot at a lower sentence: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.
The case is Bunkley v. Florida, 02-8636.
The judicial system needs a serious overhaul, when a guy like this gets life term, and dangerous criminals are let go.
The state court later ruled that Bunkley should not benefit retroactively from the decision that common pocketknives are not deadly weapons. Justices ordered the state court to reconsider that decision.
I don't understand this at all. He was charged with and convicted of armed burglary because he carried a pocketknife, in spite of the fact that the law explicitly excluded pocket knives from the definition of "weapon." That's OK, though, because the state Supreme Court hadn't "interpreted" the law? And Bunkley shouldn't benefit from this "retroactive" decision, in spite of the fact that the law was on the books at the time of the crime?
That's just crazy. Even now, in the era of Roe v. Wade, I have yet to hear anyone suggest that laws are in some way not official until they have a court's stamp of approval. And I cannot conceive of Rehnquist or Thomas accepting such a view.
I can't help but think that this story gets some aspect of this story completely wrong, since as it stands, it makes no sense whatever.
I remember this presidential election once...
do you know how much it is going to cost to house and feed this man for life at a minimum of $20,000 per year?
Prison should be people who actually commit violent crimes.
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