That'll Teach Him

[Mike Handley]

He didn’t kill anybody, though some cops with spit-shined sunglasses and starched underwear claimed the 30-year-old bank robber meant to. He’d thrown a ninja star at a policeman, for crissakes, hit the officer in the neck and drew blood, right before dashing into a Florida swamp to elude his would-be captors.

They reluctantly dropped the attempted murder charge, and only because some fancy-smancy doctors said the man, whose upward gaze was always fastened on the invisible planes and helicopters spying on him, was incompetent to stand trial. Still, a judge hell-bent on exacting justice, sent him to a facility in North Carolina where they found the right medicinal cocktail to -- by god -- make him competent to sit through the robbery trial.

Ten years and a month for stealing $6,829, he got, plus five years of supervised probation and a no-expiration-date bill for the $737 he spent before authorities cornered him. They don’t cotton to or coddle ninjas in Alabama, even ones with no prior criminal record.

[Jamie Hogan]

I find it hard to believe that we have such a difficult time discerning the truly irredeemable people from the sick. But apparently we do. You have this thing you do with a kind of sensitive snark...I wish I could do it.

[Robert Crisman]

Maybe if we told those cocksuckers that filling the jails drives up the taxes--nah, then they'd just want to stick 'em in ovens and be done. We're a society that has always really hated its people, except, of course, for the one-tenth of one percent that owns all the banks...

I like Richard Pryor's definition of American justice: "Just us..." Us meaning black folks. 

[Angela]

Seems we have a justice system that resists being just (which includes being merciful).  I wonder where on earth they come up with these sentences, too.  Ten years and a month.  That month is going to make all the difference in the success of his rehabilitation, I am sure.  Good six.

[Teresa]

My blood pressure is up now.

[Sandra Davies]

Sad, despite a smile at Gita's comment.   No room for initiative these days, or common-sense compassion.

[Gita]

Yeppers, we here in Bama know a baddun when we see 'im. Yer prob'ly one a them namby-pamby liberals who thinks we oughta go easier on the crazies.  You probably paint pictures of birds and trees.