|
If you love a police state move to Arizona!!!!
Arizona has harsher crime penalties by Bob Ortega - Oct. 8, 2011 11:29 PM The Arizona Republic Over the past four decades, Arizona lawmakers have ratcheted up the penalties imposed for a variety of crimes. Kim MacEachern, staff attorney for the Arizona Prosecuting Attorneys' Advisory Council, cautions against focusing on individual sentences as too harsh, saying "there are so many variables; it's hard to pick out one case that's representative of the whole." But, argues Pima County Assistant Public Defender Howard Wine, such cases demonstrate how sentencing requirements can lead to punishments that outweigh the crime. According to court records: Shoplifting: Rebecca Smith of Sierra Vista was convicted in November 2008 of shoplifting nine DVDs from a Walmart. She received a mandatory 10-year sentence because she had two or more prior convictions. Her imprisonment will cost Arizona taxpayers roughly $200,000. Child abuse: Colette DePiano of Tempe, depressed and suicidal after her divorce, tried to kill herself and her two young sons in October 1991 by running her car with the garage door down. A neighbor heard the engine running and called police, who saved all three. Prosecutors opted not to charge her with attempted murder, which then carried a 10.5-year sentence; instead, they charged her with two counts of child abuse, which carried a mandatory minimum of 17 years each and required consecutive sentences, putting her in prison for 34 years with no possibility of parole. Noting that the most she would have faced in any other state would have been 10 years, the Arizona Supreme Court took the rare step of reducing her sentence, on appeal, to 24 years. "The entire picture," wrote Vice Chief Justice Thomas Zlaket, "is of a disturbed young woman who needs help, not 34 years in prison. Her children have been taken and her parental rights severed. There is no evidence that she poses a continuing threat to them or anyone else. How then can it be said that the punishment fits the crime?" The Maricopa County Attorney's Office, saying it was in the interests of justice, reopened the case; DePiano pleaded guilty to attempted child abuse and was sentenced to 10 years on one charge and lifetime probation on the other. She was released from prison in June 2000. Sale of dangerous drugs and conspiracy to sell dangerous drugs: Raymond Almendarez of Flagstaff received an 18-year sentence last November after being convicted of selling less than a gram of methamphetamine to a police informant. He'll have to serve 85 percent of his sentence, about 15 years and four months, before being eligible for parole. At trial in Coconino County Superior Court, his attorney argued for treatment and a shorter sentencing, saying that Almendarez, 43, has a mental illness and has been addicted to drugs for more than 20 years. But his prior drug-related felony convictions led to the 18-year sentence, along with a concurrent 15 years and nine months for conspiracy to sell methamphetamine. Transportation of dangerous drugs for sale: Angela Elaine Farmer of Bullhead City was arrested by police in January 2008 after she rode in a car with her boyfriend when he bought methamphetamine. She received a mandatory- minimum five-year sentence. She had no prior felonies. On Sept. 20, her conviction was overturned on appeal for lack of evidence. However, Farmer, 49, who has served 15 months, remains at the Perryville state prison while prosecutors decide whether to petition for review. A review could keep her behind bars up to six more months, even if the appellate court's decision to overturn her conviction is upheld. |