Missouri Man Never Sentenced: Now faces jail time.

[Rageaholic]

link

I can see both sides of this.

On one hand putting him in jail won't really accomplish much. He seems to have gotten his act together and even the person he robbed thinks he shouldn't face jail time.

On the other hand, he did get away with robbery. I like what the commentors suggested, a middle line where he does community service and gives back the community. Sounds like it would be a win/win for all.

[Jetfire]

Community service would be fair, or maybe just write it off as Time (not) served. The crime itself isn't particularly heinous (ie if it were for murder, he should go in).

He didn't 'get away' with robbery since he was convicted and it does show on his record (assumably).

I suspect lawyers could probably find some loopholes to keep him out or at least get it reduced to a much lesser sentence. And PR-wise, putting him back in jail isn't really going to look good to most people. The hard core "Do the crime, do the time!" folks won't be happy, but everyone else would look at it and be wondering what the big deal is now, for this particular situation at least.

[Greenday]

So he was arrested and convicted, he KNEW he was supposed to go to jail, then when something was clearly wrong and it was taking too long, instead of turning himself in he said, "Screw it!" and ignored it? I've got no sympathy for him. Don't want to go to jail? Don't rob people.

Over on CS, if someone knew they were supposed to receive a bill and never got it so they decided not to pay instead of checking on it, we'd all call him an idiot and say he deserves to pay. This is much more severe a crime yet people think it's okay?

[Hyena Dandy]

No, Greenday, he was never SENTENCED. He did not know he was supposed to go to jail because that's what the sentencing process is. They decide if they send you to jail and if so for how long. That's what the legal system is. I assume he figured they decided to let him off with time served. He probably didn't realize he would still need to be present at a hearing for them to decide that, because he didn't have much knowledge of the legal system. That's quite common in America. You don't know much about it either, since you seem to think he should have known to go to prison despite never actually being sentenced to prison. Should he show up at the local jailhouse with an overnight bag and just say "I dunno, however long's good with you"?

Furthermore, I'd say that one can at the very least make an argument that 13 years without an actually given reason can be said to violate the right to a speedy trial, even though he was properly tried in time.

From a philosophical standpoint, what the hell is the purpose of prison if we have someone who has committed no crimes over 13 years? Unless the person is GETTING a life sentence, the idea should be to make them someone who will be able to function in society WITHOUT criminal acts. I'd say that he has more than shown his ability to function without committing a crime.

[Andara Bledin]

At this point, the statute of limitations is out.

The max for Missouri is 3 years, tops, with a potential for another 3 year extension. After a decade, if they didn't have their shit together, then the guy should be in the clear.

Logically, anyway. Who knows what the judge will decide.

Correction, Yena, but he was actually sentenced. He knew he was and was waiting for the order to appear, which is how it works. Everybody involved other than him dropped the ball, including the courts and his lawyer.

It only came to light because he was due to be released and he wasn't there. How fucked up is our prison system that we can have someone listed in the computer as being incarcerated but nobody ever actually notices that the number of people in the computer and the number of people actually in prison don't match?!?

[Rageaholic]

So he was arrested and convicted, he KNEW he was supposed to go to jail, then when something was clearly wrong and it was taking too long, instead of turning himself in he said, "Screw it!" and ignored it? I've got no sympathy for him. Don't want to go to jail? Don't rob people.

Over on CS, if someone knew they were supposed to receive a bill and never got it so they decided not to pay instead of checking on it, we'd all call him an idiot and say he deserves to pay. This is much more severe a crime yet people think it's okay?

He can pay by community service then. It would be much more of a win/win than putting him in jail... which at this point, would accomplish what exactly?

Now that said, I am confused as to what the hell everyone was waiting for. I'd think armed robbery would be a serious enough crime that you would go straight to jail instead of waiting at home for a court date. Heck, did he even get a sentence in the first place?

[Greenday]

No, Greenday, he was never SENTENCED.

He was sentenced to 13 years in jail in 2000. It's the first sentence of the third paragraph in the OP's link.

At this point, the statute of limitations is out.

The statute of limitations only applies to charging someone with a crime.

[Titi]

Greenday, in this article it mentions that at this guys last appeal in 2004 COURT DOCUMENTS show that he was NOT INCARCERATED! http://nypost.com/2014/04/13/man-sen...-for-13-years/

In a final 2004 effort to secure his freedom, Anderson hired yet more lawyers to appeal his conviction. Court documents at that time make clear that Anderson was not in prison, but authorities didn’t seem to notice

.

That is on them, add in the fact that he has obviously done NOTHING against the law since then (his name is not common and he opened a business, got married and paid his taxes under his name), that is on them.
Where did they think he was going to court from? Who were they driving to his appeals under his name? They fucked up and want to punish AN ENTIRE FAMILY now!

[Anthony K. S.]

I am not going to offer any opinion as to what would be a fair resolution to this case. I would just like to note one small point :

Megaro said some kind of clerical error resulted in his client staying free all these years. Anderson, he said, assumed state officials had changed their mind about his prison sentence.

This guy was sentenced to 13 years for armed robbery in 2000, spent the next four years appealing his conviction to no avail, and then, when nobody showed up to take him to prison, he thought ... What, exactly?

That the court just shrugged and said, "Eh, we change our minds, we're not going to send him to prison after all," and never even bothered to notify him?

Okay, not for nothing, but that is one lame story.

Not that it couldn't be true, but I find it much more likely that Anderson knew that was something wrong and simply decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

My guess is that for a while after his last appeal, Anderson was waiting for the authorities to come for him, and wondering, "Where are they? What is taking them so long?"

Eventually, he realized that nobody was coming, and he decided that the most advantageous thing for him to do was to keep his mouth shut and fingers crossed, hoping that whatever screwup was responsible for this would hold out.

He didn't change his name or move away, just continued his normal life in plain sight, so that if somebody did come for him, he could play innocent and say, "Hey, I was right here the whole time, waiting for you!"

It also occurs to me that the fact that he hasn't committed any crime since then might have been more because he was already on the hook for an armed robbery and he was afraid of the consequences of committing another crime, rather than any genuine desire to stay clean.

I can't really condone taking advantage of a mistake to evade a prison sentence for a crime he was genuinely guilty of. Still, I have to admit that I am a lot more appalled by the major ****-up that the authorities committed in this case.

[Hyena Dandy]

It also occurs to me that the fact that he hasn't committed any crime since then might have been more because he was already on the hook for an armed robbery and he was afraid of the consequences of committing another crime, rather than any genuine desire to stay clean.

So we should be making decisions based on "Maybe this guy does still like being a criminal"? I don't think we should be making decisions based on maybe. He has lived a clean life for 13 years. That to me shows he's capable of it. I don't think if we call it time served he'll start committing crimes again, and if he does, of course incarcerate him. But I don't think one day of bad behavior should outweight 13 years of good behavior.

[Greenday]

He has lived a clean life for 13 years.

How do you know that? Because he says so? How do we know he didn't commit crimes in the mean time and just never got caught?

[siead_lietrathua]

rather than toss him in prison now, belatedly, why not just stick an extensive probation on him, as well as a few fines for his role in the matter, like a "failure to appear" or something. i agree, there's no way he can think they just dropped it without getting even a call from his attorney about it.

[Anthony K. S.]

So we should be making decisions based on "Maybe this guy does still like being a criminal"? I don't think we should be making decisions based on maybe.

Actually, all I had in mind when I wrote that was that we, the laymen jurists observing this case, should be careful about concluding that he must have sincerely reformed after being convicted of the armed robbery. Because that isn't the only possibility.

My entire post was just speculation, not an opinion on what the actual court ruling should be.

[s_stabeler]

How do you know that? Because he says so? How do we know he didn't commit crimes in the mean time and just never got caught?

how do we know you haven't committed any crimes? Yes, the guy has been convicted of armed robbery. That does NOT mean that he inherently has committed further offenses, and the assumption that he has, and simply hasn't got caught, means I hope you either have never, or never will be, been called for Jury duty, as it is a perversion of one of the basic principles of law: the Presumption of Innocence.

my personal opinion: he should not be sent to prison. There should be some punishment, but the public good is best served by keeping him out of prison. Why? simple-
1) prison tends to make the people incarcerated worse criminals- so, sending someone who is apparently reformed to prison may well make him a criminal. good job, genius.

I will admit that it depends on what you believe the purpose of a prison sentence is. I believe it is supposed to rehabilitate offenders ( granted it usually fails epically at that, but still) while somebody who believes it is purely punishment would probably see it as him needing to go to jail.

[Rageaholic]

how do we know you haven't committed any crimes? Yes, the guy has been convicted of armed robbery. That does NOT mean that he inherently has committed further offenses, and the assumption that he has, and simply hasn't got caught, means I hope you either have never, or never will be, been called for Jury duty, as it is a perversion of one of the basic principles of law: the Presumption of Innocence.

Exactly what I was going to say. By that same logic, any average Joe could be a criminal.