It could have been a lot however, as originally, the District Attorney’s Office was arguing for conviction under the three strikes law.
Deputy District Attorney Clinton Parish argued that given Mr. Ferguson’s long history of being in prison for a total of 22 years, he has not learned from his mistakes.
In fact in 1994, he was also once convicted under the 3 strikes law, but was given leniency for the nonaggressive nature of his crimes. Prosecution wanted to keep at least one strike, and under that they would be able to choose under their discretion which strike was to remain.
Mr. Parish told the court, “The people gave him another shot, yet here we are again… Simply put this defendant is a career criminal.”
Both the probation officer and a doctor strongly recommended that the judge strike all three strikes against Mr. Ferguson.
Deputy Public Defender Monica Brushia argued on Monday that many of Ferguson’s prior burglary convictions occurred 30 years ago. She noted that the nature of the crimes were not violent in anyway. No weapons or injuries were used.
His only violent encounter was when he threw a coke bottle at his brother and received a misdemeanor assault conviction for it, this occurred a long time ago as well.
Psychological review had concluded that Mr. Ferguson was bipolar and had trouble controlling impulses to steal during manic phases.
Judge Warriner accepted the probation department recommendation to disregard the prior strikes and sentence Mr. Ferguson to the longest term for petty theft with priors.
As a result, he received 7 years and 8 month, but also got 825 days credit for his jail time awaiting trial. He will be required to serve half of his sentence in prison meaning that he will be eligible for parole in less than three years.
The Vanguard spoke with Monica Brushia, deputy public defender, on Tuesday. She said that while she is satisfied with the ultimate outcome, she does not believe that a crime like this deserved jail time at all.
“I would have wanted to see the District Attorneys not to pursue this as a life case,” she said. “People should realize that a minor case like this should be a misdemeanor, not a felony. The only reason this case is a felony is that he has a priors. The system should look at it isolated from other charges, that would help a lot.”
Ms. Brushia went on to point out that while there are many people in prison under the three strikes law who have committed bad crimes, there are also a lot of people just like Mr. Ferguson. These are people who have not committed violent crimes at all. Instead they end up spending the rest of their lives in prison or an exceedingly long amount of time for very minor crimes.
These policies, she said, cost the taxpayers a lot of money both in terms of incarceration and prosecution.
The Vanguard agrees. A case like this shows the absurdity of the inflexibility of the law. Given the fact that convictions like these and people serving them are being released from prison regularly now due to budget constraints, how does the District Attorney’s Office Justice justify such a prosecution?
Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig told the Davis Enterprise last week that the law requires his office to charge all of a criminal defendant’s known strikes.
Mr. Reisig is relying on PC §667 to justify his decision to first prosecute previous strikes and then apparently to dismiss strikes. PC §667(f)(1) states, “[t]he prosecuting attorney shall plead and prove each prior felony conviction except as provided in paragraph (2).”
PC §667(f)(2) states, “[t]he prosecuting attorney may move to dismiss or strike a prior felony conviction allegation in the furtherance of justice pursuant to Section 1385, or if there is insufficient evidence to prove the prior conviction.”
On the other hand, PC § 1192.7(a)(2) states, “[p]lea bargaining in any case in which the indictment or information charges any serious felony…is prohibited, unless there is insufficient evidence to prove the people’s case, or testimony of a material witness cannot be obtained, or a reduction or dismissal would not result in a substantial change in sentence.”
§667 says if a strike exists you have to charge it and then you can negotiate it away. §1192.7, on the other hand, does not require that a strike be charged, but says that if you do, you can only negotiate it away if there are proof problems (it says nothing about what would be in the interests of justice).
However, according to other sources, District Attorney’s in other counties routinely exercise discretion so as to not charge strikes in the first place.
The question I think reasonable people will ask is the same one that Ms. Brushia asks, why are the taxpayers paying for prison time for someone who has committed such minor crimes? The guy may not be the nicest guy in the world and he may routinely steal from people, but right now, we do not have the resources to put him away and clearly prison time is not a deterrent to his actions.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Vivian Nguyen contributed to this report
I saw Marcus Breton weighed in on it in the Sac Bee, I disagree with him, but you can read it ([url]http://www.sacbee.com/2010/03/03/2577905_marcos-breton-cheese-thief-should.html[/url]).
He concludes:
[quote]The truth is, there is a good chance Ferguson will victimize someone again. He has nearly 30 years’ experience as a career criminal.
What if he breaks into a home, stumbles in on a family and panics?
You wonder if the people screaming about his treatment now would be screaming then, too, asking how it is he ever got back on the street in the first place. [/quote]
The problem is that you do not punish people for what they might do, you punish them for what they do commit. I would also point out to Mr. Breton there is another alternative and that is that we put the money we are spending now to incarcerate him, $111,000, and use that to give him mental health treatment that he really needs.
I read the other day that ,in 1980, there was one person out of every thousand behind bars in California. But in 2010 we have one person out of every 200 locked up. In other words, we have a five times greater percentage of our citizens locked up in jails and prisons as we did 30 years ago. No wonder we can’t afford to educate or provide health care for our citizenry. Here in “the land of the free” we incarcerate more of our citizens than any other country on Earth. In my book that’s called a POLICE STATE !
The problem is that you do not punish people for what they might do, you punish them for what they do commit
If we are supposed to ignore his prior behavior and convictions and only focus on this absurdity of incarceration for this single cheese stealing event, then we miss the bigger picture of this guy’s problem. The quote: “Psychological review had concluded that Mr. Ferguson was bipolar and had trouble controlling impulses to steal during manic phases.” means what? Are we to forgive him and let him continue on to steal again because he is mentally unbalanced? I feel bad for this guy, but mental health excuses are a slippery slope of justification for criminal behavior.
I would be interested in what you our others maintaining a position against this outcome would recommend as the alternative remedy. What do we do with people owning uncontrollable impulses to break the law? For instance, should we adopt the punishment in Singapore and just lash him forty times. Or, should we adopt the approach used in Italy to not incarcerate for most theft? Note that you are advised to not carry much cash in many parts of Italy. However, Singapore has a very low crime rate.
However, Singapore has a very low crime rate.
Is Singapore’s spending on their criminal-justice system comparable to California spending?
I am very disapointed in the sentance- scum like this belong behind bars for life.
I’m curious how he spent more than two years in jail awaiting trial for the cheese and wallet thefts? For someone “presumed innocent,” it seems an odd way for justice to move along. So, he’s mentally ill AND poor. With no one to help keep him on his medication or to bail him out. Can’t we find a better way to deal with these people?
[i]Is Singapore’s spending on their criminal-justice system comparable to California spending?[/i]
By international standards, Singapore has a lot of prisoners: Half as many per capita as the United States. This is several times higher than the European Union, for instance.
Roger…..Police State? Really. Out of nearly 40 million people in the state having 200,000 locked up = a police state to you? Granted it is a system in need of change. Many out dated laws are in dire need of change, but this is no way a Police State.
Prestion is correct about .005 is not a huge number.