According to the Department of Justice press release, Steven Roberts was a bad, bad man: three felony convictions for burglary and one for child abuse. “Roberts was arrested on Aug. 8, 2009, after a short foot chase by Kansas City police officers. When Roberts was searched, officers found [one round of 9mm] ammunition in his pants pocket. Officers also found a Makarov 9mm semi–automatic pistol, a small amount of methamphetamine and some marijuana when they canvassed the area through which Roberts ran.” A Makarov? Was it converted to .380? Anyway, under federal law, a convicted felon can’t possess a firearm or ammunition. The ATF stepped in and Roberts was sent down. Fair enough?
You had me at child abuse. Why can’t forever be a valid sentence?
You know child abusers get treated in many prisons? The sentence may not last forever, but there is a good chance of “till death do we part.”
“three felony convictions for burglary and a prior for abuse of a child.”
Seems fair enough to me. This guy doesn’t seem willing to live peacefully among his neighbors or able to leave other folk’s property alone. Clearly he seemed to have been, at the very least, flirting with the idea of arming himself. I don’t want guys like that armed. When someone does the sort of things he has done, he looses the benefit of the doubt.
He had his trial, lock him up!
Didn’t they get Al Capone on tax evasion? There’s more to the story, but headlining 15 years for one cartridge is more provocative.
Fifteen years for possessing one 9mm round? Think of what he sentence would have been if he was holding a single .45. Actually, this sounds like a “we screwed up before, let’s make up for it now” sentence. I approve of removing yet another predator from society.
My best guess would be that he plead to the ammunition because if he’d been tried and convicted on the ammo, pistol and drugs he would have gotten a lot more than 15 years. This was a plea deal to get the minimum under the sentencing guidelines.
RF It was 4 felony convictions. He had three felony convictions for burglary and one for child abuse.
My feeling about his sentence is that he got what he ask for when he put the cartridge and other possible items in his pocket. I just wish we still had HARD LABOR. The facts is this man and all prisoners live with at lest 2 hot’s and a cot and drain resources from the tax payer and we get almost nothing in return. I think its time to bring back chain gangs to do manual labor for the public good. Just by 3 cents (Dam inflation!).
PS Here is link to the cost of death penalty cases in California, as the saying goes YMMV in your state but they all cost. And to RF and others, the cost is not all the fault the labor unions.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2005871/California-death-penalty-cost-hundreds-MILLIONS-dollars-execution.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Nope, nothing wrong here.
No problem here.