Yes, I was referring to 3 strikes sentences. In Nevada, for example, 1 in 6 prisoners - over 2,500 people - are serving life sentences. A significant portion of these are sentenced under a wild "habitual offender" statute that enables life sentences for even non-violent repeat offenders. The Nevada version of the three strikes law makes its more famous cousin in California look tame and completely rational by comparison.

And there is also stuff like this, which was not a habitual case... http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7d0_1272286354 . That video is a pretty chilling look at how quickly and non-chalantly courts in the US are willing to take away a person's life for relatively minor offenses. Call me crazy, but I don't think that the statement "She is getting a greater penalty for having a boy touch her breast than if she killed him" should ever have to be uttered by an attorney in a court in the "land of the free".

I read 'frequently' as meaning 'much more than it should'. I'm guessing he was referring to three strikes violations leading to jail time for pizza-stealing.

I googled 'stealing pizza jail' and came up with one example, which of course was from California. Doesn't seem like it happens often, but there are enough stories of long jail time for comparably petty offences.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Stealing-one-slice-of-piz...

I also found this odd story from spain, which is a more serious incident of pizza thievery, with a knife:

http://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2011/04/25/pizza-thef...

I find the characterization of that California crime as "stealing one slice of pizza" to be wildly misleading. It conjures the image of someone sneaking up and nicking a piece while everybody's attention is diverted, or similar. The punishment isn't so much for the actual theft as for the threat of violence that was used to carry it out.

I'm not sure that threat deserves life in prison, but it's much more serious than the headline makes it sound, and I don't think it deserves to be called "petty".

According to the article he was convicted of "felony petty theft."

  > Williams, who testified in his own defense during his trial,
  > testified that some of the children nodded their heads "yes"
  > when he asked them for a slice of pizza and that he thanked
  > them for it.

  > But a 13-year-old boy in the group testified: "I was scared."

Sounds like implicit intimidation. I think that if there were claims that he threatened violence, it would have been quoted in the article.

  > While petty theft is typically a misdemeanor charge, Williams'
  > earlier convictions allowed prosecutors to upgrade it to a
  > felony.

They used his earlier convictions to upgrade a misdemeanor to a felony, then claim "3 felony convictions" == "life sentence".

> Sounds like implicit intimidation. I think that if there were claims that he threatened violence, it would have been quoted in the article.

This confuses me a bit. I would personally put "implicit intimidation" under the category of "threatened violence", and it seems that the state agreed.

If you look (by your nature) intimidating and give someone a grim look, they could be intimidated (especially a 13 year old). Does that mean that you should treat this the same as if he had said aloud, "I'll break your bones if you don't give me that piece of pizza?"

[This is all speculation anyways since we don't really have the full story.]

There are really two separate questions here which are getting tangled up.

The first question is what crime he was convicted of. The answer to that seems pretty clear: theft with assault or intimidation.

The second question is what he actually did. The answer to that is much less clear.

But the second question doesn't really matter to this specific discussion, although it's obviously highly important in the grand scheme of things. He was sentenced based on the crime he was convicted of, so it was theft with assault or intimidation which got him a life sentence, and characterizing it as "stealing a slice of pizza" is tremendously misleading.

Whether he did something that deserves to be considered that crime is another question, but a completely different discussion. If I get life in prison for a murder I didn't commit, I still got life "for murder", and it would be wrong to characterize it as e.g. harsh sentencing for a lesser crime.

  > The answer to that seems pretty clear: theft with
  > assault or intimidation.

I don't see any references to 'assault or intimidation' being part of the charge in that article. There's also the part where the prosecutor got the charge 'upgraded' to a felony instead of a misdemeanor, which was based on his prior record rather than the facts of this particular case (at least according to the article).

Well, a felony implies a serious crime. For a theft to be felony-level, it either needs to be theft of extremely valuable goods, or the act of stealing needs to be be aggravated. The pizza was presumably not value, so process of elimination leaves us with the second.

So again, maybe he didn't actually do what he was convicted of, but that's a separate question altogether.

You're speculating though. The only 'hard information' that we're going on here is the article that says this:

  > While petty theft is typically a misdemeanor charge,
  > Williams' earlier convictions allowed prosecutors to
  > upgrade it to a felony.

Sounds more like a "pattern of law breaking" argument was used to upgrade it rather than the facts of this particular matter, but again this is just speculation because we're not reading a blow-by-blow account of the trial.

Again, doesn't matter. He was convicted of felony theft, a serious crime, and sentenced accordingly. To say he was sentenced for stealing a slice of pizza is entirely wrong. Whether the additional factors were threats at the time of the theft or previous crimes or whatever, that's what he was sentenced for.

Is it so hard to believe that a prosecutor used the 'stole a slice of pizza' incident as a foot in the door, and pushed hard to upgrade it to a felony just to get a feather in his hat (i.e. as a political power-play)? Would you be singing the same tune if a prosecutor had tried to get him convicted of 'felony jay-walking' and then sent him away for 25 to life? If 2 felony convictions + 1 minor infraction are enough to get you to do hard time, can we really claim that it's a '3 strikes policy?' Though, not a resident of California, I was under the impression that 3 strikes laws were sold to the public under the guise of hard criminals that are repeat offenders. This guy doesn't sound like a hard criminal, so I would venture that this situation is one that violates the intent of the law (or at least the advertised intent that the public was sold on).

This got out of hand, so let me try to present another viewpoint.

1) No one deserves to go to jail for 6 years (the term he served) or life imprison, even for intimidation of kids.

2) He wasn't a guy who just took a piece of pizza, he threatened kids and he did so after he committed multiple felonies.

3) The three strikes laws were designed to stop people from continuously committing crimes and getting of easily. The mid 1990s were a tough period for American politicians due to rising crime rates and they tried new stuff. (Basically they did the lean startup movement on criminal prosecution.)

4) If you ask me, the case and situation were misapplied.

5) My original point that this rarely if ever happens in the US still stands. This (pizza lifer) was an obvious injustice and it was fixed. It doesn't happen often, if ever and should not be viewed the way it is.

6) We should never let someone go to jail for 6 years, or even 2 years for stealing a piece of pizza from some kids. IMO the US should seriously look at reducing sentences for many crimes and we should take a hard look at reducing our imprisoned population.

7) Most importantly, The US has not deteriorated to the point of a police state, or anywhere close to it. Part of the reason it hasn't is that American's and international citizens have stood up to the government and demanded that they not violate the constitution. HN/Reddit/others have defeated SOPA, and will defeat other measures like it.

Great discussion.

This is disgusting. So if you're insecure, suddenly other people need to go to jail?