“What felonies?”
Mutrie, who was 6-foot three-inches tall and weighed 275 pounds, was arrested for nine steroid-related felonies on Jan. 19, 2011, and was then released on $10,000 personal recognizance bail.
In addition to his arrest on a domestic assault charge, Mutrie pleaded guilty on August 14, 2007, to two class A misdemeanor simple assault charges, which stemmed from a brawl at the Portsmouth Gas Light Co. As part of a negotiated plea agreement with the prosecution, he was sentenced to serve two days in the Rockingham County House of Corrections.
But the following November, Mutrie was allowed by the Portsmouth Circuit Court to recant his guilty pleas because, a judge ruled, he misunderstood his lawyer’s advice and the potential career consequences of the convictions. Mutrie said at the time that he didn’t realize the resulting convictions would hurt his chances of becoming a firefighter. When he entered the guilty plea, he told a judge, he was “under the impression” that only a felony conviction could prevent him from being hired as a firefighter. “I took it out of convenience,” he said in the Portsmouth court.
In 2009 Mutrie subsequently pleaded guilty to a reduced violation-level charge of disorderly conduct which said he breached the peace by making excessive noise. Portsmouth Police Capt. Corey MacDonald said at the time that the charge was reduced due to the unavailability of witnesses.
Mutrie was court-ordered to perform 30 hours of community service and to stay away from the Gas Light for two years.
He was also ordered to complete an anger management program and to adhere to any recommended follow-up treatment.
Is a "felony" a felony if the government has no legit power to make that law in the first place?
It stems back to this... What is a crime? Is it simply breaking the law? Or does a real crime have a perpetrator, a victim, and actual damage done?
The founding Fathers of this Country advocated the latter. Or as Thomas Jefferson put it...
"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add “within the limits of the law,” because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual. "
What would have been the outcome had he not been accused of the steroid allegations? Some muscle-headed firefighter putting out fires? Ooohhh... the horror! Maybe they should have just dropped a JDAM on his house from the outset...