TX: Man sentenced to 99 years for being present on school property
A person required to register as a sex offender got 99 years in Prison for failing to comply with his sex offender registration requirements. He was unlawfully present at a Catholic School, where he approached the father of a student for money to buy food and then refused to leave.
When police were called and he was asked for ID, he showed his sex offender registration card.
Granted he had an extensive arrest history and was clearly not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but 99 years for violation of a proximity ordinance is clearly a stiffer sentence than he got for all his crimes cumulatively, since he’s only 65 years old!
It’s hard to argue the registry is not punitive, when you can get more prison time for a registration violation than the underlying offense that got you put onto the registry.
Well, in all reality, he may actually have done that because he was hungry and unable to find a path to being self sufficient due to the draconian restrictions of being a SO in FL. My guess was he chose that path so he could get a place to sleep and a meal to eat on a regular basis.
Brian
Drastic times (Situations) call for drastic measures. Sometimes you got to do what you got to do.
I love freedom, however if I had no job (I don’t have one) no place to live (I do) and no family (I do) or at least any that would have anything to do with me, and no food, I might opt for being taken care of as well.
I would have added no health care, but from experience, prison health care is worse than none at all.
And someone who raped and killed someone might get 25 years. (I have seen even lesser)
Like you stated, he should have known better but COME on. I have been at the wrong place and the wrong time myself (Vehicle breaking down in front of a day care) when a cop stopped to check on me.
Guess I got lucky, the trooper offered to use his patrol car to push me out of traffic and pushed me RIGHT into the parking lot of the day care. He then asked if I had road side assistance. I said yes and I thanked him and told him to be safe. He drove away without even running my tags while I sat in the parking lot of the daycare LOL
I walked inside and told them what happened so they wouldn’t call the cops on me and the manager said no problem “Ill let the staff know you are broke down”.
F.A.C
AND to that fact, I am sure in the Ex post facto case the lawyers have brought up that fact? That we can go to prison for a non criminal offense for life because we are on the registry? But it is not punitive?
I want some of what those judges are smoking
My original sentence was house arrest. You know what a violation will get you now days. So yea. I Been there beofre. But its not punishment. Right?
Feels like punishment.
Smells like punishment.
Costs like punishment.
But it’s not.
1,000 % sarcasm implied here.
99 years? He’ll why not give him a thousand years and show folks there not messing around. That will fix it. Seeing how if he was 5 years old and sentenced to 99 years he still would not get out alive.
People are fn insane.. I guess everything is bigger in Texas.
Except common sense, compassion, and these Texan Law makers I.Q..
Ever think his plan was intentional? Several of the men I was doing in-patient treatment with in Illinois (Big Muddy River CC) got so tired of the draconian restrictions placed on us – the constant harassments by the police, the constant rejections for housing, for jobs, for any attempt to have a life, they simply gave up. They intentionally violated the laws just so they would be sent back to jail. This man is 65 and begging for money. Obviously he had no job and who only knows what his housing situation was. By being on school property, a place he knew he wasnt supposed to be, and by refusing to leave, he knew the police would be called. And what does he show them? A SO registration card! Of course they were going to arrest him. Yes, the 99 years is mind boggling harsh, but this man probably has some stability in his life now. Sad to think that a person has to intentionally go to prison to have stability.
We know of a lot of people who intentionally max out their time rather than having probation reinstated. Since the requirements are so hard to comply with, they would rather kick back and wait it out than fight a losing battle every day. It’s not uncommon at all for people to intentionally violate just to get meals and a roof over their head.
And this is something that needs to be brought up to the legislature or the courts so they can stop pushing the false information that registrants are violating their “requirements” simply because they cannot be “cured”.
Civil commitment has its place.
That’s what I’m convinced of after having read through the source article.
An apparent out-of-control recidivist, he gives registrants a bad name. But I assume he has untreated mental illness(es). And he likely won’t get treatment for those in a Texas state prison.
At least in civil commitment, there’s a CHANCE he’ll get treatment for his mental issues. Sure, they may not let him out, but that’s what they’re doing to him here anyway.
Jacob
But still, other than tresspassing after being asked to leave would not warrant any other person maybe a fine or maybe a few days in jail.
I personally followed a case of a guy I helped put behind bars. At the time he was about 29 and had already been in prison 3 times. For what I stopped him from doing, he got 7 years and did 3 of it. Since that incident he was sent to prison 3 more times for robbery. He is now about 39 and out of all those repeat offenses, the most he ever did, even usin a gun as a felon, did 4 years, followed by probation.
99 years is what you give an ax murderer, not a trespasser. So yeah, it is not about the law, it is about the stigma of being on the registry, NOT on your past record. No one got sentences like these before the registries for simple violations.
Heck I have seen guys with lifetime probation only do a few months in jail for a violation for possession of a controled substance as a felon. There is the punishment aspect right there. The fact that there are different rules and sentencing guidelines for sexual offenses.
Even El Chapo is more loved than we are.
Civil commitment has NO place. It is beyond comprehension that its legal. You are held because they think you MIGHT commit a similar crime at SOME point in the UNDETERMINED future. I cant speak for how its ran on other states but in Illinois, you are held until they feel you are longer a “threat to public safety” (ambiguous much?) by a trio of psychiatrists (all paid for by the state). You are kept in a “secure mental care clinic”. But there arent enough of those so you’re sent back to prison. You’re technically a “patient” but you’re housed in a 9×6 cell with another person, made to wear inmate clothes, given an inmate number, an inmate badge, and made to follow inmate rules. You’re an inmate. But with no release date. You’re given the option to attend therapy but anything and everything you say in therapy is open to the state for possible prosecution. You can refuse therapy but if you do, you have literally no chance on your “yearly” evals with the aforementioned psychiatrists. And even if you do somehow convince the psychists, you still have go before a judge who, if they are in a bad mood, can nix the whole thing and you start over again. No sir, Civil Commitment is not a “chance” for anyone.
Sir,
If you think civil commitment has ANY PLACE in treatment, the people in charge have once again managed to fool others into believing they are doing a service for the state of Texas. I worked there. I saw the injustice. I saw the suicides bc the men know there’s no other way out.
I recommend you go to http://www.littlefieldtccc.com and find out what exactly is going on in the civil commitment facility. And, you’re correct, they are not releasing anyone. THE PROGRAM IS A FAILURE. So after serving their entire sentences-DECADES, these men are being locked back up in cells and lied to. They are told if they finish the program they can go home. However, the program and the TCCO employees make it impossible to finish.
What’s more, approximately 180 of these men were in an outpatient program and TCCO lied to the men, their families, and their counselors about how long they would be in the facility. They are still lying to families. I have been looking into this facility for over a year. There is not one area that is not corrupt. So please know that civil commitment is worse than prison in NUMEROUS ways! There is NO RELEASE DATE.
Go find it what it’s really about.
So when is a court of any importance going to take up the issue of it being punishment. Many individual states have ruled it punishment like Missouri but it doesn’t seem to matter yet.
David
Punishment is, according to some, the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon a group or individual, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a response and deterrent to a particular action or behavior that is deemed undesirable or unacceptable.
the infliction or imposition of a penalty as retribution for an offense.
*the penalty inflicted.
*rough treatment or handling inflicted on or suffered by a person or thing.
The registration is clearly an additional punishment. A few years ago I was sentenced to one year in prison for failure to change my address on my Drivers license. The address that I has recently moved to was updated on my SO registration with the local sheriff’s office. I just forgot to update the info with the DMV. Some of this registration BS is very redundant. I mean seriously. There is no way that the SO requirements is not punishment. The system is being set up to have as many possibilities of us to forget something somewhere. I you do forget their is no leniency whatsoever even if you have underlying conditions to prove memory loss ie head trauma, PTSD, medications and age. Sometimes it’s very difficult to not toss in the towel and eat a bullet. Which I refuse mostly because I feel it’s just what the politicians/lawmakers want most of us to do. Is make life so difficult that we just give up.
Oh I forgot to mention that my sentence for my original offense that landed me on the registration was 4yrs probation. But failure to update my address on my license got me 1 yr in prison. Oh and prison is definitely not a place you want to be as a SO. Inmates find out what your current and past charges are that got you in prison and either exploit you, you get beat down, stabbed, raped and in some cases murdered.
You mentioned “rape” as one of the types of assaults on sex offenders in prison. Think about that for a moment. The other inmates hate “sex offenders” so much that they’re willing to commit a SEX OFFENSE against us. The irony!
Maestro
Many of those in there, pointing fingers at others might be defecting the spotlight off of their own sex offense. AND, even if they are not in there for that, many of them probably at one time got with someone underage, they just didn’t get caught.
And if one of them had someone, say a 16 year old charged as an adult, thrown into their cell, some I am sure would go after them for sex. The word hypocrite I guess doesn’t apply to their mentality.
AND, a large majority of the time, it is the guards telling the inmates who the sex offenders are.
many of them probably at one time got with someone underage, they just didn’t get caught.
Yeah, it’s called “house parties” that happen in the hood every weekend.
They know damn well the young girls cake on the makeup and try to appear and act older and they don’t care. They only care about the ones who were caught and sentenced for the same things they got away with.
Heck I would rather takes my chances running from the law than simply give up and give them the opportunity to arrest me ASAP. Freedom is everything, and I will be damned if I am going to bend over and let them have at me so easily, they are going to have to earn it the hard way. Just my 2 pennies.
https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2021/03/11/sex-offender-registries-can-cause-families-and-partners-to-become-collateral-damage/?slreturn=20210212170237
No one has yet to outlive a Texas 99 year sentence. His projected release date is 2120 so if he lives to be 146, he has a good shot at being released.
I hope that teaches him not to panhandle in a public school.