Happy holidays, and welcome to this week’s collection of weird arrests. Check them out in the slideshow below!

Good Hiding Spot

Image courtesy of Sergé via Flickr

Brett Gillispie-Comstock robbed a credit union in Oregon, and bought a number of things with the money, including a Christmas tree. When police tracked him down, he was attempting to hide behind the tree. They still found him.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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It’s been a long, hot week in many parts of the country, but that still hasn’t stopped criminals from doing stupid things. Check out the slideshow of the weirdest arrests below.

Always Be Realistic About Your Skills

Courtesy of Willem van de Kerkhof via Flickr

Alexander Katz, of Logan, Utah, was arrested after he stole a car this week. Unfortunately, the heist didn’t quite go as planned–the car Katz stole was a manual, and he didn’t know how to drive it. His girlfriend, who was underage, was also arrested after the couple ditched the car and ran to gas station to call a cab.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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This week’s weird arrests include a few high Canadian teenagers and a particularly devoted boyfriend. Check them out below in the slideshow.

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Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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With the long weekend coming up, you’ll have some extra time to laugh about the weird, stupid, and ill-advised things that people try to do that end with a trip to the police station. To get you started, check out the slideshow below of the five weirdest arrests this week:

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Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Socrate76 via Wikimedia]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Weird Arrests of the Week appeared first on Law Street.

A slew of recent crimes committed by minors has prompted debate over whether or not they should be tried as adults in court. Earlier this year in Wisconsin, two preteen girls brutally stabbed their classmate in the name of a mythical being known as Slenderman. Due to the severity and the premeditated nature of their heinous act, the girls have been charged as adults. In a case this month, three Albuquerque teenagers brutally attacked and killed homeless men. Two of the perpetrators, aged 15 and 16, will likely be charged as adults.

The process by which a minor’s case is transferred to adult criminal court is called a waiver, because the judge “waives” the typical protections provided by juvenile court. Many protections afforded to juveniles are the same as those offered to adults. As held by the Supreme Court, these protections include advance notice of the charges, the right to counsel, the right to confront and cross-examine adverse witnesses, and the right to remain silent. Perhaps the most significant difference between juvenile and adult courts is that minors in court do not have the right to trial by a jury. This is in order to provide a more intimate and diagnostic experience for juveniles.

When Can Minors be Tried as Adults?

A multitude of factors can lead a minor to be tried in adult court. Most states do not have any age limit for charging minors as adults if they have committed a particularly serious crime such as murder. However, to be handed the death penalty, a juvenile must be 16 years old in 18 states, 17 in 5 states, and 18 in 15 states. According to fairsentencingofyouth.org, the cost to keep one minor in prison for life could educate 169 children for a year.

According to a report by the U.S. Department of Justice, it is estimated that as many as 250,000 youth annually are prosecuted as adults. The United States is the only country in which minors can receive life in prison. Currently, there are 2,570 minors serving life sentences without parole. Twenty-two juveniles, all aged 17, have received the death penalty in the United States since 1973. In Iraq, 46 minors received the death penalty between 1990 and 2009; however, Iraq’s numbers are a vast outlier, as only 17 juveniles in total were sentenced to death in every country besides the United States and Iraq.

Due to the rising crime rate among youths and the recent violent crimes committed by children, many states are working to lower the age at which juveniles can be tried as adults. Generally, there are five factors that can cause a minor to be charged as an adult. If the perpetrator has committed a serious crime, has a lengthy prior record, is an older teenager, did not improve with prior attempts at rehabilitation, or if future rehab attempts seem unrealistic, he or she may be tried as an adult.

If a judge or prosecutor in a juvenile case wishes to try the offender as an adult, the first step is to hold a waiver hearing. In this situation, the prosecutor must argue his or her case as to why the juvenile should be tried as an adult by providing probable cause that the minor committed the crime. Afterwards, the judge considers if the minor has a good chance to succeed at rehabilitation.

Occasionally, minors who are tried as adults receive greater sympathy from juries in adult criminal courts, which may seem favorable. However, a trial in adult court can lead to far more severe sentences, and even the death penalty or life in prison. Juveniles charged as adults can also end up in prisons as opposed to juvenile detention centers.

The Debate

Does doling out adult sentences to juveniles make a difference, though? Some studies claim that there is no evidence to date that doing so reduces criminal activity among minors.

Those in favor of trying minors as adults argue that a crime is a crime, and just because a child commits it does not impact the victim’s suffering. There is also the claim that sentencing minors to less-severe punishments for their actions will not deter them from future criminal activity. Not treating minors who commit serious crimes as responsible for their actions will, arguably, turn them into irresponsible adults as well.

Those against minors being tried in adult court believe that they lack the ability to fully comprehend the nature of their crimes. Yet while many argue that children cannot mentally plan and execute a crime and understand its consequences, the case of the Wisconsin teens disproves this thought. The two preteens spent substantial time plotting the murder and how to hide the evidence of their crime.

Of course, children are capable of committing very serious and violent offenses that can cause tremendous suffering,” she continued. “But children are also uniquely capable of growth and change, and a sentence that gives them no opportunity to show their capacity to change is a sentence that denies the differences between children and adults.

-Alison Parker, the U.S. director for the advocacy group Human Rights Watch

It is difficult to know how to properly punish underage criminals for their sometimes heinous crimes. At the moment, the trend leans in the direction of ensuring that they take responsibility for their actions by trying juveniles as adults.

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Marisa Mostek (@MarisaJ44) loves globetrotting and writing, so she is living the dream by writing while living abroad in Japan and working as an English teacher. Marisa received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a certificate in journalism from UCLA. Contact Marisa at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured Image Courtesy of [Rawle C. Jackman via Flickr]

Marisa Mostek

Marisa Mostek loves globetrotting and writing, so she is living the dream by writing while living abroad in Japan and working as an English teacher. Marisa received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a certificate in journalism from UCLA. Contact Marisa at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The amount of prison time doled out by courts to perpetrators of non-violent, drug crimes are often excessively severe, sometimes more than 100 years in prison. In one particular case, a man was sentenced to a lifetime behind bars for possessing a bag with traces of cocaine. In another case, a man with no prior record is now serving a 25-year prison term for selling his pain pills to an undercover informant. These two individuals are just a few of the many serving years in prison due to harsh mandatory sentencing laws.

Keeping non violent criminals incarcerated for decades leads to overcrowded conditions and billions of taxpayer dollars. The mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses have led to prisons vastly exceeding their maximum capacity. The United States has seen a 500 percent increase in the number of inmates in federal custody over the last 30 years.

The goal of these harsh laws is to deter would-be criminals from committing crimes when they realize that they could spend for the rest of their lives behind bars. This plan sounds good in theory, but has failed in practice. Hosting them is not cheap; it costs around $50,000 to keep one person in prison for one year in California alone. Although America has only five percent of the world’s population, it hosts 25 percent of the world’s prison inmates.

The issue of overcrowded prisons is alarmingly prominent in the United States, as other countries have adopted more effective means of dealing with individuals who commit minor offenses. For example, in 2001, Portugal became the first European country to abolish all criminal penalties for personal drug possession, and since then many countries around the world have followed suit. Drug users in Portugal are also provided with therapy rather than prison sentences. Research commissioned by the Cato Institute found that in the five years after the start of decriminalization, illegal drug use by teenagers declined, the rate of HIV infections transmitted via drug use dropped, deaths related to hard drugs were cut by more than half, and the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction doubled.

Finally, the United States has realized the gravity of the situation and decided to take action. Recently, Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin and Senator Mike Lee introduced the Smarter Sentencing Act to reduce the number of harsh drug sentencing policies in the United States. Essentially, the goal of the Smarter Sentencing Act is to reserve the use of federal resources for the offenders of the most serious crimes. Lawmakers supporting this bill hope that it will cause judges to use less harsh punishments such as community service or drug therapy. Making these changes could save taxpayers billions in the first years of enactment alone.

Specifically, the Smarter Sentencing Act would amend the federal criminal code so that defendants without prior record who did not commit a violent crime receive a less severe sentence. The bill also aims to reduce the chance that prisons reach their maximum capacities and lower prison housing costs.

How would the Smarter Sentencing Act impact current laws?

Under current guidelines, a first-time drug offense involving at least 10 but not more than 20 grams of methamphetamine has a recommended sentence range of 27-33 months. Under the new guidelines, the same quantity of methamphetamine would have a sentence range for a first-time offense of 21-27 months.

Attorney General Eric Holder is urging lawmakers to fast track a solution to this problem, stating that “this over-reliance on incarceration is not just financially unsustainable. It comes with human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate.”

Because Democrats and Republicans agree that the extreme sentencing problem is a serious one, prospects are good that this bill has a chance for success. Both parties more or less concede that there is a problem when looking at the prison system in the United States. Former Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan is one of the prominent conservatives expressing his support for reform of current mandatory minimum sentencing laws.

I think we had a trend in America for a long time on mandatory minimums where we took away discretion from judges. I think there’s an appreciation that that approach has some collateral damage—that that approach is missing in many ways…I think there is a new appreciation that we need to give judges more discretion in these areas.

-Paul Ryan

The push to pass the Smarter Sentencing Act is gaining momentum, as almost a year has passed since its introduction in the House in October 2013. Hopefully, with continued support for this legislation, it will soon become law and alleviate the growing problems associated with extreme mandatory minimum drug sentences.

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Marisa Mostek (@MarisaJ44) loves globetrotting and writing, so she is living the dream by writing while living abroad in Japan and working as an English teacher. Marisa received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a certificate in journalism from UCLA. Contact Marisa at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured Image Courtesy of [Barnellbe via Wikimedia]

Marisa Mostek

Marisa Mostek loves globetrotting and writing, so she is living the dream by writing while living abroad in Japan and working as an English teacher. Marisa received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder and a certificate in journalism from UCLA. Contact Marisa at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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