I have a friend in federal prison in the US for posession of Meth.

There was no violence involved in his crime. No theft. No guns or weapons. Only posession.

Seems pretty extreme for someone who never hurt anyone else nor committed any violent acts.

It would seem that simple and trite, but he did steal from businesses and commit property damage. Victim-less, yes, no one was hurt.

Serves the fool right. I hope someone makes this idiot his biatch.

Green Discharge: It would seem that simple and trite, but he did steal from businesses and commit property damage. Victim-less, yes, no one was hurt.

Copper (Metal) thieves cause lots of problems. They have cut cables supplying electricity (if they are lucky to not die in the process). They have broken in and stolen the copper that wires telephones from office buildings. They will steal cabling providing internet connectivity. They even steal piping out of foreclosed houses.

My current job I have had to deal with the first three, and coming from a state with a high foreclosure rate, I've heard the stories in the news about the last one.

aybara: do you live in Texas? I think we have one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation here in D/FW.

Should he be punished? Yes, certainly.
25 years? That's extreme.

a year of cleaning up crap by the side of the roads should be enough to set them straight. 25 yrs is a little harsh.

Big deal. Shoot a copper, and you'll earn a death sentence.

z_gringo: I have a friend in federal prison in the US for posession of Meth.

There was no violence involved in his crime. No theft. No guns or weapons. Only posession.

Seems pretty extreme for someone who never hurt anyone else nor committed any violent acts.

Meth and stealing copper are two different types of crime. It is important to differentiate between the two.

Stealing copper is a victim crime. There is a victim who was wronged in some way and who will help the police apprehend the perpetrator.

Possessing meth is a consensual crime. There is no victim who is going to the police for help. The only reason it is a crime is because the government says so.

The former should be perused and punished. The latter should not be.

I had somebody break into my car and steal my loose change, several of which were pennies so I know how it feels.

No Cu later joke?

Shocking!

Hey, exactly 2.5 decades more than Bernie Madoff will ever see.

Sounds about right.

My dad found a guy who had attempted to steal copper wire at a substation. He was one crispy critter, but not dead. He later sued the power company.

posession of meth should be considered a minor crime at best, i mean in effect you have donated money to support a criminal cause so you should be charged as such, but i agree that there is no victim for mere posession, however posession of a drug would make you suspicious as drugs are closely related to other crimes, such as robbery etc, so searching them etc would be very resonable.

At least he didn't steal the never take me alive copper. That could have been fatal.

I went to high school with a guy that was recently found burnt to a crisp after trying to steal copper from something electrical. What makes it even sadder is that he was found fried along side his father.

Huh. Well, he's lucky to be alive, depending how he went about stealing it.

/family in power business
//leave power lines alone kthx

Just playing the devil's advocate here for a second: this crime was not "victimless" and the defendant DID plead guilty to 26 counts of criminal behavior.

Having said that, this type of sentence indicates to me that either the judge was in a particularly bad mood that day, or there is more than what was reported in the article going on. Either way, it makes me glad that in my state, any prison sentence of 20 years or more gets an appeal directly to the state Supreme Court by right.

It's rare, but they have overturned sentences that are arbitrarily long.

There has to be more to this story.

Nobody gets 25 years for stealing building materials.

I guess he was lead in the wrong direction as a child. Why else would someone steel copper? Was he not in zinc with the rest of us.
I'll spare you from more metal puns.

I came in here to make a pun about "throwing copper" and electric current being "live" or something and how the band should have deserved 25 years in prison for it, but honestly? I liked the album.

/Self-fail

serves him right.

stop stealing shiat.

i hope someone feeds him a lot of pipe in the clink.

I'm guessing that the sentence is due to this being a second or third strike.

Usually it's not their first time through the system. In Florida each new crime and prior crime is assigned a numerical value...it starts to add up after awhile...giving a lowest permissible sentence the judge can hand down. In other words they earned it. Property and drug crimes (except trafficking ) score low. We also have a designation of habitual felony offender and prison release re offender that I'm too sick to go into.

I have a friend in federal prison in the US for posession of Meth.

There was no violence involved in his crime. No theft. No guns or weapons. Only posession.

Seems pretty extreme for someone who never hurt anyone else nor committed any violent acts.

Yeah, but I'm sure the guy he bought it from probably hurt someone and has committed several violent acts.

I wish that bald guy was sentenced to 25 years for Throwing Copper

Well-read Baron: Just playing the devil's advocate here for a second: this crime was not "victimless" and the defendant DID plead guilty to 26 counts of criminal behavior.

Having said that, this type of sentence indicates to me that either the judge was in a particularly bad mood that day, or there is more than what was reported in the article going on. Either way, it makes me glad that in my state, any prison sentence of 20 years or more gets an appeal directly to the state Supreme Court by right.

It's rare, but they have overturned sentences that are arbitrarily long.


26 counts? That's less than a year for each count. That's really not that bad.

He had a lot of potential, and wanted to be a conductor.

Paris1127: I guess he was lead in the wrong direction as a child. Why else would someone steel copper? Was he not in zinc with the rest of us.
I'll spare you from more metal puns.

Thank you David Copperfield.

He should have stolen billions and shared it with a few select other members of his tribe. Then he and his wealthy tribe members could continue to live in luxury and never be held accountable

His incarceration will be a much greater cost to society than his theft of copper. In other words, the judge's wrath is of greater detriment than the criminal's greed.

Methamphetamine is a different situation entirely. The effects of missing plumbing are much cheaper to fix than the effects of meth, but you'd probably have to watch a meth addict eating his scabs to fully appreciate that.

Crosshair [TotalFark] Quote 2008-12-21 02:33:36 PM
z_gringo: I have a friend in federal prison in the US for posession of Meth.

There was no violence involved in his crime. No theft. No guns or weapons. Only posession.

Seems pretty extreme for someone who never hurt anyone else nor committed any violent acts.

Meth and stealing copper are two different types of crime. It is important to differentiate between the two.

Stealing copper is a victim crime. There is a victim who was wronged in some way and who will help the police apprehend the perpetrator.

Possessing meth is a consensual crime. There is no victim who is going to the police for help. The only reason it is a crime is because the government says so.

The former should be perused and punished. The latter should not be.

True, because we all know that tweakers and those who peddle the poison never leave victims in their wake. Tweakers never steal to feed their addictions and dealers never kill to protect their turf or their labs. Speaking of labs, nothing dangerous there either. I mean it's not like their cooking up a batch of poison or anything, and as far as explosions are concerned, HEY, life is full of risks right?

Yep, you're right, totally victimless crime and punishing people for it is just another example of the " man " getting up in other people's private business. We all know that most tweakers and gackers are fine, upstanding citizens and positive contributors to society. They also have great teeth and smooth supple skin.





/wondering how many copper thieves are doing it to support meth or crack habits?
//naaaah, there couldn't be a connection

Stealing metals, especially copper, is heavily linked to meth. At a guess this guy has a history doing both. And stealing copper can do massive amounts of property damage, way more then the copper was worth.

Of course right now metal prices are down, except for gold. If you want to stock up on rhodium and platinum right now is the time to do it.

poorjon: No Cu later joke?

When I did grand jury duty in Chicago, we had at least 5 cases of guys stealing copper (usually pipes) in a 1 month period. It's pretty common.

And while it sounds kinda silly, it's still burglary.

deevo: I wish that bald guy was sentenced to 25 years for Throwing Copper

Thank you! Saved me the trouble of finding and posting

Welstradamus: When I did grand jury duty in Chicago, we had at least 5 cases of guys stealing copper (usually pipes) in a 1 month period. It's pretty common.

And while it sounds kinda silly, it's still burglary.


If you factor in the cost to replace the plumbing, it's grand larceny.

Nocens:

26 counts? That's less than a year for each count. That's really not that bad.

Well, 11 of those offenses were misdemeanors, which would've been less than a year to begin with. The problem is that the judge slapped the sentences on him consecutively rather than concurrently. Granted that it is within the sentencing judge's discretion to do that, but it still seems unreasonable to me. The minimum sentence for intentional murder is 20 years in this jurisdiction, and this guy gets 25 years for a series of theft crimes?

Just from reading the article and my own experiences in the criminal justice system (as an attorney, not a defendant), I get the feeling this guy was the ringleader of the theft ring, and that's an aggravating factor at sentencing.

The guy stole copper coils. Those coils released refrigerant gases and possibly antifreeze into the environment.

I can give you good odds that the coils he stole were from air conditioning units since they are most easily accessible.

Aren't you lefty global warming drones interested in punishment for destroying the earth?

No sympathy from me. Damn copper thieves have stolen wiring from everywhere including streetlights AND tornado sirens.

Lately metal thieves have been cutting catalytic converters from cars.

Green Discharge: It would seem that simple and trite, but he did steal from businesses and commit property damage. Victim-less, yes, no one was hurt.

Victimless? Maybe you should reread what you just wrote.

This is a very unusual sentence in SC for this type of criminal activity. The guy must have an absolutely atrocious record. Even with a bad record, this is a very steep sentence.

unimpressed.

Not just theft of building materials- those guys cause some extensive damage. Sometimes people are busted with an entire pickup bed full of sawed-up bits of plumbing. Each piece gets like $0.50 in resale value but would cost like $100 to get a plumber over to try to replace. I talked to someone who had their entire outdoor central A/C compressor stolen and that cost thousands.

Plus, ripping off statues, graveyard plaques, etc...

I wonder if it's not a lost cause. I mean if gold were once much cheaper and we made easily stealable stuff out of gold, it's gonna get stolen, right? Basically inevitable and once the recycling value is there it is simply not viable to use this material in this application anymore.

If only we could just bus these methheads over to a copper mine and let them dig their way through it. I mean, they certainly go through a lot of effort to get what they do.

aybara: Green Discharge: It would seem that simple and trite, but he did steal from businesses and commit property damage. Victim-less, yes, no one was hurt.

Copper (Metal) thieves cause lots of problems. They have cut cables supplying electricity (if they are lucky to not die in the process). They have broken in and stolen the copper that wires telephones from office buildings. They will steal cabling providing internet connectivity. They even steal piping out of foreclosed houses.

My current job I have had to deal with the first three, and coming from a state with a high foreclosure rate, I've heard the stories in the news about the last one.

Foreclosed hell! They are taking it from rural farm houses while the people are working in the fields since most wives need a job in town to support the farm. Imagine getting in from the field to find your basement flooded and all your electrical wiring and plumbing torn out, among other things of value missing.

poorjon: No Cu later joke?

/groan

Meanwhile Illinois Gov. George Ryan got 6 1/2 years for his part in indirectly killing six children. Illinois Gov. Blagojevich will probably get about the same, or less, for trying to steal democracy from his constituents.

Money talks. Bullsh*t walks.

Often, a defendant's history will play a role in their sentencing.

TFA doesn't tell us anything about that.

It could be that he's been involved in criminal gangs in the past, has a long history of theft, has previous parole violations, etc. The judge may have seen that this guy doesn't "get it" when given light sentences, or doesn't respect them, or simply can't be trusted on the streets any time soon...

ChickenTits: father

Retroactive Darwin? Is that legal? Judges?