Thoughts on changing the definition of felon?

[Firethorn]

With the increases in the maximum allowed sentence in many offenses to beyond a year, as well as ever lower incidences of maximum sentences being handed out, much less served, has the term 'felon' been watered down to the point it's not a useful description?

This started when I was talking to my mother and she informed me she knew of a man who's a federal felon for <i>trespassing</i>. He followed other traffic after a game, when much of it was deadlocked, onto federal property(it was a firing range or something). The FBI was waiting over the hill and issuing tickets to everyone. He admits that what he did was wrong, but he never appeared in court, never spent a day in jail. He thought he was paying a (large) traffic ticket, along with the hundreds of others who went that way.

What I'm getting at, maybe it's a time for a change in the definition - to something like 'sentenced to more than 1 year of confinement without possiblity of parole'.

IE what the person did has to be bad enough to KEEP him or her in prison for a year.

 

[Pilgrim]

I suspect there is more to the story than your mother is privy to.

Pilgrim

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

You may have a point about redefining the term. Or maybe we should just kick out all the lib judges and actually hand down serious sentences that are actually carried out to their full extent. Child molesters can spend less than a year in prison. There's something wrong with that.

As for the man your mom knows, I agree with Pilgrim. It's pretty much an invariable rule of the universe, that when telling others about one's run-ins with the law, one will paint themselves in a much better light that the truth. No one ever says "Man, that cop pulled me over because I was totally breaking the law and it was really obvious to everyone". No, it's always "that cop must have been trying to fill his quota cause I was doing everything perfectly", or "I swear I wasn't really drunk, he was just being an ###hole". Firethorn, I am certain the man did not tell your mom the real story.

 

[crazed_ss]

Mandatory sentencing is part of the problem, IMO. IIRC, if you get caught with a relatively amount of crack cocaine, you get like a 5 year mandatory sentence.. so you get the prisons filled up with a bunch of low level punks and now there's no space for the people who really need to be there.

 

[Firethorn]

I too feel that there is likely more to the story, however, it was the 'last straw'.

Threads come up all the time about people who've been out of trouble for literally 20 years from their release from prison, who've turned their lives around, yet still suffer the stigma of 'felon'.

Then we have felons like Martha Stewart, and a number of people sentenced to less than a tenth of the possible sentence, because the offense was actually fairly minor in comparison to what the statute is meant to cover.

 

[nemoaz]

The FBI was waiting over the hill and issuing tickets to everyone.

Cough.... cough... bullshirt... cough.

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

Threads come up all the time about people who've been out of trouble for literally 20 years from their release from prison, who've turned their lives around, yet still suffer the stigma of 'felon'.

You're right about that. If a 18 year old high school senior has sex with his 17 and 11 month year old girlfriend, he can technically be labeled a sex-offender for the rest of his life.

There are a lot of stupid laws.

 

[DMF]

This started when I was talking to my mother and she informed me she knew of a man who's a federal felon for <i>trespassing</i>. He followed other traffic after a game, when much of it was deadlocked, onto federal property(it was a firing range or something). The FBI was waiting over the hill and issuing tickets to everyone. He admits that what he did was wrong, but he never appeared in court, never spent a day in jail. He thought he was paying a (large) traffic ticket, along with the hundreds of others who went that way.

Wow, and you and your mom bought this line of BS?

There is no way to get convicted of a "federal felony" by being issued a ticket on federal property. You would have to be charged, have an initial appearance before the judge, and detention hearing, then there would either need to be a plea agreement and sentencing hearing before a federal judge, or a trial, conviction, and sentencing hearing before a federal judge and jury.

However, if you feel I'm wrong please post the relevant federal statutes that would cover this claimed occurrence.

You can try looking here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/

BTW the FBI does not hang out on federal property writing traffic tickets.

Here is the reality of felonies. The vast majority of felony arrests are plead down to misdemeanors so that the prosecutors have time to actually spend time preparing for and taking to trial only the most serious crimes. Frankly they are too busy to take all the cases to trial, and are often forced to let defendants plead to misdemeanors just to get the case through the system. There are slam dunk cases on felony crimes where the defendant ends up with a misdemeanor simply because there aren't enough resources to prosecute the person for the felony.

It's unfortunate, but unless you want to pay a lot more in taxes to fund more prosecutors, public defenders, judges, courthouses, prisons, etc, that is the reality.

If anything is watered down about felonies, it's that things that might have resulted in felony charges and a felony conviction a few decades ago now result in the person only getting a misdemeanor conviction or having charges completely dismissed.

 

[DMF]

Mandatory sentencing is part of the problem, IMO. IIRC, if you get caught with a relatively amount of crack cocaine, you get like a 5 year mandatory sentence.. so you get the prisons filled up with a bunch of low level punks and now there's no space for the people who really need to be there.

Well that's not entirely correct. In the fed system there is a 5 year mandatory minimum for the manufacture, sale, distribution, or possession with the intent to distribute of more than 5 grams of cocaine base (aka crack). However, merely possessing that amount won't be enough to meet the statute and cause the 5 year mandatory min to kick in, the government must prove that is was manufacturing, sale, distibution, or possession with intent to distribute. In many cases it's easy to prove someone possesses 5g of crack, proving it was for distribution can sometimes be very difficult.

Regardless, very few people with 5g of crack will ever have their case go federal. If they do, there is much more to the case than just the 5g of crack, because fed prosecutors don't have the resources to go after every person with $100 - $150 of crack in their pocket, and nothing more. Further in state court many obvious distribution cases plead down to mere possession. See my post above about why that often happens.