By Rachel Myers
Snatching a purse off the arm of an elderly woman is one of the nastier offenses I can think of – the kind of thing that might make you shake your head and say to yourself “I hope whoever did that gets what’s coming to him.” And then you think for a second about just what he ought to have coming to him: community service, maybe – or even a night in jail. Stealing from an old lady is pretty mean, after all, and you’d want whoever did it to learn a lesson.
I guess that’s what the state of Texas was thinking when it sentenced Willie James Sauls last week for that very crime. Except in this case, apparently the lesson Texas wants us all to learn is “we don’t believe in rehabilitation” – for the crime of stealing a purse, Sauls was sentenced to 45 years in prison. The prosecutors in the case justified the long sentence by pointing out that Sauls has prior convictions and that he “already had chances to address the issues with his behavior.” And with that, they decided this purse snatcher should be locked in prison until he’s 82.
Also in Texas, in 2010, Larry Dayries stole a tuna sandwich from Whole Foods while wielding a knife. He had prior convictions for burglary and theft, so the sandwich incident landed him a 70-year sentence. Larry will be 111 at the end of his sentence.
Down the road in Mississippi, Anthony Crutcher is serving a 60-year sentence for selling $40 worth of cocaine. Anthony was sentenced under Mississippi’s habitual offender laws; his two prior convictions were also nonviolent, minor drug crimes. Anthony is due out of prison a month after his 101st birthday.
Sauls, Dayries and Crutcher are not anomalies – in fact, they are more like the rule. Since 1990, the average length of prison sentences in the U.S. has increased by 36 percent. Long sentences for non-violent first offenses, coupled with laws mandating increased penalties for repeat offenders, mean our prisons are more crowded than ever – even as crime rates have fallen.
Some might argue that these extreme sentencing policies would be justified by their effectiveness at dissuading would-be criminals. But that’s not the case. A 2003 review of the research on sentence severity and crime rates concluded that “sentencing severity has no effect on the level of crime in society.” And in 2005, researchers at California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office concluded that the state’s notoriously punitive three strikes law, which will send a third-time felony offender to prison for 25 years to life even for a nonviolent offense, has no clear effect on crime rates in the state.
As the U.S. has doubled down on tough sentencing, we’ve diverged sharply from much of the developed world. In Canada, the Supreme Court declared a mandatory minimum sentence of seven years for importing narcotics to be cruel and unusual punishment; in the U.S., selling a couple ounces of methamphetamine carries at least a ten-year sentence. In France, Italy and Germany, all prisoners serving life sentences have a right to be reviewed for potential release; in the U.S., there are 41,000 people serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. And the U.S. is one of only 33 countries with mandatory increased penalties for offenders with prior convictions – alone with Japan in representing the developed world.
The U.S. incarcerates more people – in absolute numbers and per capita – than any other nation in the world, including the far more populous China and Russia. And, it seems, we incarcerate them for far longer. The dramatic, unprecedented rise in incarceration rates and lengths should be a source of great concern to all Americans: this lock-down mentality costs us dearly in freedom and tax dollars, but it doesn’t make us safer.
While bipartisan lawmakers have been willing to reform some parole and probation laws recently, there has been less political will to engage in meaningful sentencing reform. And yet we know that sentencing reform is essential to bringing down the number of people in our prisons and the associated costs. States like New York that have passed real sentencing reform have seen prison populations and crime rates go down significantly and stay down.
It is time for the U.S. to commit to real sentencing reform. We should stop jailing people for low-level offenses and reduce the number of people who needlessly enter prison in the first place; shrink the existing prison population by offering opportunities for ready prisoners to re-enter society; and in the meantime seek out more effective alternatives to incarceration like drug courts and work programs that are more effective at rehabilitation and reducing recidivism than lengthy sentences.
Extreme Sentencing was original posted on the ACLU Blog
I stopped reading this article after investigating the first case on the internet. More of the story on Willie James Sauls:
[quote]The justification for the sentence, via the Austin American-Statesman:
Prosecutors Geoffrey Puryear and Amy Meredith said Sauls has previous convictions for retaliation and robbery and is a street gang member.
In arguing for a long sentence, Puryear said he noted that Sauls has been to prison and “already had chances to address the issues with his behavior.”
From http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/09/texas-man-gets-45-years-for-purse-snatching/
Sauls was found guilty on Tuesday of aggravated robbery, a crime that injured left an 84-year-old woman handicapped last September after he gravbbed her purse and knocked her to the ground while pretending to hold a door open, then dashed to an SUV waiting nearby. Sauls took a credit card from his victim’s purse and used it to buy $99 worth of goods from a nearby convenience store.
The woman, Anna Warren, was bruised down one side of her body and sustained a shoulder injury that limited her arm’s mobility. The attack was caught on the store’s security cameras.[/quote]
45 years seems excessive even under the conditions you described.
And again Davis calls for a softer sentence for someone who cares so much about other people he would violently rob an old lady and leaver her handicapped. I can’t see how more people don’t agree with you.
Obvious: Your point “I can’t see how more people don’t agree with you” is both unproven and irrelevant. However, I notice you ignore the point on the research for propensity for crime dropping with age.
Here is a report from the (evil) ACLU from June: link ([url]http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/elderlyprisonreport_20120613_1.pdf[/url])
This is from written page 12, pdf page 21:
[quote]Crime Declines Precipitously With Age for All Crimes
This section explains aging prisoners’ lower propensity to commit crimes and pose threats to public safety.
Research has conclusively shown that long before age 50, most people have outlived the years in which they are most likely to commit crimes.31 Even when examining data on arrests that may not lead to conviction or indicate guilt, this holds true. For example, Figure 17
below shows the percentage of individuals arrested nationally by age in 2004. Less than 6% of individuals ages 30-34 were arrested, whereas a little over 2% of individuals ages 50-54 were arrested and almost 0% of those age 65 and older were arrested. This trend of
decreasing crime rates from adulthood to old age has held constant over time, as shown by the 1979 arrest curve in Figure 17.[/quote]
[img]images/stories/arrest-by-age.png[/img]
From this chart, it shows the risk goes way down with age. So unless you have a motivation for incarcerating him that doesn’t relate to public safety, holding him for more than 13 years makes little in the way of sense from a public safety standpoint.
You do the crime you take your chances with the court system. Some good advice might be don’t do the crime in the first place. It would be nice to see a story sometime on crimes where the criminal gets off too easy and the victims never get satisfaction that their perpetrators were doing fair time.
“You do the crime you take your chances with the court system. Some good advice might be don’t do the crime in the first place.”
Both of those are true.
“It would be nice to see a story sometime on crimes where the criminal gets off too easy and the victims never get satisfaction that their perpetrators were doing fair time. “
Here’s one: Samantha Dietrich ([url]http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20120720/NEWS01/307200106/?gcheck=1&nclick_check=1[/url])
What was your point?
David G, the chart you displayed is very interesting. After reading this headline, I figured out the comments that would be written by very privileged people leading very privileged lives. They live without an ounce of compassion for people who have experienced very different upbringings. And they tend to feel entitled to their blessings, instead of feeling gratitude. Yeah, right-45 years in prison is fair? Give me a break…
P.S. I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the very rich people reading and/or commenting on this article have probably been on the receiving end of a $60 coke deal, back in the day…
Please forgive me, I meant to say a $40 coke deal…We can all remember the 80’s.
[quote]45 years seems excessive even under the conditions you described. Even if you believe a long sentence is in order, consider the body of research that shows threat levels dropping considerably with time. If he’s 37, then 13 years gets him to 50, 23 years gets him to 60. Getting him to 82 seems to get long past the point where he would reasonably be a threat.[/quote]
He can get out in half that for good behavior…
[quote]After reading this headline, I figured out the comments that would be written by very privileged people leading very privileged lives. [/quote]
With all due respect, you have no idea what financial situation commenters are in…
“He can get out in half that for good behavior…”
I know nothing about sentencing law in Texas, I know that is not the case in California. In California you have to serve at least 85% of your sentence, and in some cases longer.
Hey Lydia, I’m a privileged person and have lived a privileged life and have never beat an 84 yr. old women to the point where she was handicapped.
[quote]I know nothing about sentencing law in Texas, I know that is not the case in California. In California you have to serve at least 85% of your sentence, and in some cases longer.[/quote]
From [url]http://www.texasdefenselaw.com/texas-criminal-law-guide/how-much-time-do-prisoners-serve/[/url]
[quote]For capital murder: as of September 1, 2005, Texas will have a life without the possibility of parole option for capital murder. The capital murder defendant sentenced to life in prison before September 1, 2005, is parole eligible after serving forty years. The release is not automatic–a full vote from the Board of Parole is required.
For the next group of legislatively designated serious offenses like murder, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault, and aggravated robbery, the defendant must generally serve at least half of the actual sentence to be parole eligible. Once again, eligibility does not mean release. Most prisoners are not released when parole eligible.
For other first, second and third degree felonies, the prisoner is parole eligible when calendar time plus good conduct time equals one-fourth of the sentence. Good conduct time is earned by participating in work and self-improvement programs. Good conduct time can be subtracted for disciplinary violations.[/quote]
What this means is that this defendant could get out in 22.5 years, and this elderly woman has to spend whatever remaining days she has left permanently handicapped.
There are actually at least four distinct points that I think are worthy of discussion.
1) What is “fair” or the right punishment for the individual ? I don’t have much sympathy for the individual who
is capable of knocking down and injurying an elderly woman . However,
I think there would be a wide range of variability in what we would consider “fair”. This basically comes
down to how much one believes that “punishment” is of value.
2) What is beneficial to the victim? I would say that there is essentially nothing in having him imprisoned that
is of substantial benefit to the victim since this appears to have been a random, opportunistic crime as
opposed to a domestic violence crime in which case the individual might feel safer if the known perpetrator
remained incarcerated. In this case I would say some kind of restorative process would be of more benefit
to the victim.
3) What is the benefit to the society? If one’s major goal is deterrence, one could argue that maintaining the
individual in prison until whatever age is decided upon as the likely tipping point beyond which further
crime is unlikely would be sufficient to prevent this individual from committing another crime. As far as
deterring others from committing such crimes, unless you widely publicize the penalty in a massive
community education campaign and make it virtually certain that this will occur ( so no plea bargain) no
wheeling and dealing for a better deal of any kind, I think deterrence is extremely unlikely.
4) What is the cost of incarceration as weighed against the benefit? Keeping an individual in prison is extremely expensive in terms of tax dollars. So to borrow from Elaine, what I believe is needed is an exhaustive risk/cost/benefit analysis instead of ( at the risk of sounding like Jeff ),emotive pleas to empathize with either the perpetrator because of the deficiencies of his background or with the victim when deciding the appropriate penalty.
Since this is rdcanning’s area of expertise, perhaps he would like to comment ?
Elaine: Actually it seems like he could be eligible for parole much sooner than that. But that’s like saying someone in California sentenced to 25 to life will be out in 25 years or slightly less. The reality is that they are eligible for parole in 25 years, but usually someone is only paroled under very extreme circumstances.
[quote]In this case I would say some kind of restorative process would be of more benefit to the victim. [/quote]
With all due respect, and I mean that in the most respectful way, do you understand what “restorative justice” means? It means the victim sits down with the perpetrator, and they work out a compromise in a way that the perp compensates the victim for the damage done. How does a perp compensate this woman for being permanently handicapped? This case is not an appropriate one for restorative justice.
Secondly, you have a serial offender here, who is a member of a gang. He clearly has not been deterred from his criminal activities, so the only logical next step seems to be to lock him up for a long time to protect society. In this case, if he behaves himself, he can get out 22 years from now or perhaps less, and by that time hopefully he would be too old and infirm to bop old ladies, leaving them permanently handicapped, and steal their purses.
[quote]Elaine: Actually it seems like he could be eligible for parole much sooner than that. But that’s like saying someone in California sentenced to 25 to life will be out in 25 years or slightly less. The reality is that they are eligible for parole in 25 years, but usually someone is only paroled under very extreme circumstances. [/quote]
I have no idea what point you are trying to make here (perhaps I’m just dense today). My point is that the 45 year sentence isn’t really a 45 year sentence. It is only a 45 year sentence if this guy doesn’t behave himself in prison. If he minds his P’s and Q’s, he can be out in half that, or perhaps even less. What would you have given this repeat offender, who can’t seem to stop committing crime, who left an elderly lady permanently handicapped for the rest of her natural life?
Elaine,
That’s not how the restorative process works as I understand it.
Elaine, my point is that you don’t actually know if a 45 year sentence is or is not.
Elaine
[quote]With all due respect, and I mean that in the most respectful way, do you understand what “restorative justice” means? It means the victim sits down with the perpetrator, and they work out a compromise in a way that the perp compensates the victim for the damage done. How does a perp compensate this woman for being permanently handicapped? This case is not an appropriate one for restorative justice. [/quote]
I fully admit to not knowing the exact legal definitions of the legal terms I use because I do not know any other way of expressing myself within the realm of legal jargon. I think that I probably have a broader sense of the possible value of “restoration”. So, can the perpetrator make it so that the victim is not permanently disabled….of course not. Could some agreement be reached whereby he has to perform some duty or work such that she directly receives benefits or services that would make her life easier ? I don’t see why not.
And, I think that might be of much more direct value to her than having him potentially incarcerated well beyond her likely life span.
Elaine
[quote]so the only logical next step seems to be to lock him up for a long time to protect society[/quote]
Here we are in agreement.
However, then why not just ascertain, statistically speaking, the number of years until he reaches the point where he is realistically not a societal threat, and make that his release date ?
In my admittedly legally naive world view, this would seem much more efficient than having parole boards whose job ( and whose salaries we are paying) decide based on evaluations of his in prison behavior.
Could not a cost savings alternative be to fix the release date, and then only alter it by extension for additional crimes committed while in prison ?
Restorative justice is not about compensation at all, it’s actually quite complex and I have two interesting interviews from the spring that I never had time to publish but maybe this gives me the impetus to do so.
David
I would be very interested in reading more on this topic. Since becoming a lawyer was “the path not taken ” by my, I have remained interested in the workings, and failings of our judicial system almost as much as in our provision of medical care. Publish away !