Man released from prison after being given life without parole for $50 robbery | Hacker News Reader

Man released from prison after being given life without parole for $50 robbery

alabamaappleseed.org

28 pointsapsec11214 comments

Link is hugged to death but I’m pretty sure this is the same story: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/29/alvin-kennar...

For more context, it’s not as simple as just a life sentence for just a $50 robbery. It was a life sentence for a repeat offender following multiple strikes.

With a knife, but still an embarrassement and a tradgedy IMO

> "...for a repeat offender following multiple strikes."

from tfa:

> "Because of three minor non-violent convictions stemming from the same arrest at age 18, he was labeled a habitual offender."

that's like calling 3 strikes on the same pitch. in an exhibition game, so that you end up banned from real games for life. it's a gross perversion of justice.

in no circumstance should robbery without harm be more than a few days/weeks of jail. and he could have worked off the $50 in restitution if need be.

The $50 amount isn't really germane to a robbery. Robbery is considered a person crime. It's a crime of threatening violence to a person. I don't know the particulars of this case and I'm not a lawyer, but the reason robbery carries heavy criminal penalties is that you're terrifying another person.

PRO TIP: If you're shoplifting, absolutely do not in any way threaten violence or suggest that you have a weapon on your way out of the store! It's a great way to turn a misdemeanor into a serious felony.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200827220714/https://www.alaba...

Note the headline is completely different to the heavily editorialised link title here (he was sentenced under the three strikes law).

A New Job. A Christmas Party. His First-Ever Week of Paid Leave. Alvin Kennard, Once Sentenced to Die in Prison, Marks His First Year of Freedom.

Not better, unless the point you're trying to make is that three-atrikes laws are evil and destroy lives and communities. In which case, yes, absolutely.

The point I'm trying to make is editorialising is against HN guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Cropping is inevitable with the original here, but the poster should not be pushing a point of view when doing so.

It seems like society has a number of folks who aren't hardened criminals but also aren't quite suited for a free society. I often wonder if we need something between jail and freedom("halfway house"?) that lets folks live a somewhat free life where they are prevented from harming others and their property.

On the one hand it is creepy and somewhat Orwellian to suggest something like that. Once it exists, it would surely be used to house more and more classes of society. On the other hand, there are a number of problems caused by folks who chose to reject societies rules but not so severely that they are jailed(or the threshold for jailing them has changed due to overcrowding?).

Certainly the economic divide does not help, along with an economy that has less and less use for people of lesser skills. A UBI would be one way of addressing this I guess.

Seems to be struggling with the load.

Archive.org link: https://web.archive.org/web/20200827220714/https://www.alaba...

Page won't load for me but based on the title and URL it's about Alvin Kennard, who was released last year (see e.g. [1])

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/08/29/alvin-kenna...

We think of cultures that punish such crimes with torture or maiming as barbaric. But those are humane compared to 36 years in prison.

That's an excellent point.

$50 is was just the yield from the robbery, because that's all the victim had.

If the victim happened to be carrying a suitcase with $150K in it, then it would have been a $150K robbery

You're right, since the intent was the same, the effect is irrelevant. After all, most bakeries tend to stock up half a million in their cash registers. And that's not even in the nice neighbourhoods. $150k is about a lifetime of earnings in some parts of the world. This is equivalent to robbing someone of their life's earnings.

Yeah, given the chance. I think very few people would choose 36 years of prison over public caning.

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