She committed larceny in the first degree which is a Class B felony, punishable by 1-20 years in prison, and is subject to the judge's discretion.
It is way more likely than not that her actual jail time came from the distribution charges.
Homeless mother who sent son to better school in the wrong town jailed for five years
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She committed larceny in the first degree which is a Class B felony, punishable by 1-20 years in prison, and is subject to the judge's discretion.
It is way more likely than not that her actual jail time came from the distribution charges.
Mammoth Jones
Member
about a pint of tequila....
Manos: The Hans of Fate
Banned
One would have hoped most would realize that...sadly I don't think so.
Maybe you shouldn't have custody at that point. Besides robbing drug dealers would garner her more sympathy.
Also isn't that how one Pro-Wrestler (Ahhh whats his name) financed his attempt at a rap career before wrestling? R-Truth I think?
ReBurn
Gold Member
Where I grew up there were people giving custody of their kids to other people so that the kids could go to better schools. When they were caught the parents had to pay a fine and the kids went back to the school in our community.
All public schools certainly are not created equally.
All public schools certainly are not created equally.
evil solrac v3.0
Member
but we're just as complicit for buying all the crap, watching all the crap and arguing about the useless crap as well. we're as much to blame.
Syph Medwes
Member
Exactly, people need to read the OP not just the title.
Zoe
Member
Did they deal drugs too?
OJdaKiller
Member
Bum being a bum.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
The drug bit is sure to get the woman plenty of moral condemnation, though the stereotypical image of the "bum druggie" does not jive with the fact that she was desperate for her kid to go to a better school.
The wise thing would be to not sit in judgement of the woman unless one knew just why and when she was forced to move some drugs to get money.
For example, if it was directly due to her child, here's the secret for the moral brigade: when your kid is at stake, you'll do anything, including violate polite society's taboos and laws.
It all comes down to context.
Homeless and poor get screwed over and around by the system, or sometimes by assholes who work in the system, forcing them to do nearly anything to survive. True story: a number of years ago, a former employee at a state welfare office revealed that the supervisor, via the closed circuit security cameras in the lobby, played a game of picking random people waiting to file for assistance to have turned away.
Sound unbelievable? (As if anything is still unbelievable at this point.) They had a quota of people they were supposed to move through per week, to keep getting as much funding as they did. Overcrowding slowed the entire process down. They couldn't fully process and follow up on as many cases as the manager liked. Therefore, they decided they had to just get rid of a lot of people to thin the herd.
The woman who quit the place said that they drank coffee and laughed at people who looked especially homeless, and chatted happily while picking those to target. The supervisor would get on the phone to the case workers and tell them when to get rid of a person by making up an excuse such as it was the wrong day and date; their sort of case could only be filed on XX bullshit date. And they were told to come back in two weeks.
The wise thing would be to not sit in judgement of the woman unless one knew just why and when she was forced to move some drugs to get money.
For example, if it was directly due to her child, here's the secret for the moral brigade: when your kid is at stake, you'll do anything, including violate polite society's taboos and laws.
It all comes down to context.
Homeless and poor get screwed over and around by the system, or sometimes by assholes who work in the system, forcing them to do nearly anything to survive. True story: a number of years ago, a former employee at a state welfare office revealed that the supervisor, via the closed circuit security cameras in the lobby, played a game of picking random people waiting to file for assistance to have turned away.
Sound unbelievable? (As if anything is still unbelievable at this point.) They had a quota of people they were supposed to move through per week, to keep getting as much funding as they did. Overcrowding slowed the entire process down. They couldn't fully process and follow up on as many cases as the manager liked. Therefore, they decided they had to just get rid of a lot of people to thin the herd.
The woman who quit the place said that they drank coffee and laughed at people who looked especially homeless, and chatted happily while picking those to target. The supervisor would get on the phone to the case workers and tell them when to get rid of a person by making up an excuse such as it was the wrong day and date; their sort of case could only be filed on XX bullshit date. And they were told to come back in two weeks.
Jim E. Rossler
Banned
bootstraps entitled hard work bootstraps "I made it without selling drugs" socialism "dont do the crime if you blah blah" american dream something something "Obama's welfare is ruining peoples desire to suceed"
Strapboots
Yep.
This really is sad though. My stepmom (while not selling) went through a year of bullshit trying to keep her daughter from going to the school in the same county that I did.
SnakeswithLasers
Member
Oh fuck this.
Edit: Also leave it to GAF to believe all people who are charged with "dealing drugs" are Stringer Bell.
I understand the drug dealer side of it, but this here...
...makes me mad since that same type of view has been talked about in other stories of other mothers (who weren't drug dealers) wanting their sons/daughters to go to a school that was better than the one that was in their area. Having that view makes what they've done be seen as a crime.
...makes me mad since that same type of view has been talked about in other stories of other mothers (who weren't drug dealers) wanting their sons/daughters to go to a school that was better than the one that was in their area. Having that view makes what they've done be seen as a crime.
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
If she was homeless, what school was she supposed to send her son to? How does that work?
Being without your child is the only thing worse.
Choke on the Magic
Banned
I got what I came for.
Phoenician_Viking
Banned
WTF is this shit?
Manos: The Hans of Fate
Banned
Because it leads to overcrowding, misappropriated/distributed funding in the right district the student should be in and the wrong one, the person isn't paying the local school taxes they should be, and it's dishonest/theft.
Zoe
Member
You register under a homeless shelter or something similar.
If she had been upfront with the district, they probably would have worked with her, but she put down an address under false pretenses.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
I think the drug-selling conviction kind of changes the sensationalism of the story/title.
dinazimmerman
Incurious Bastard
5 years? Fuck that. Even 1 year is ridiculous.
Leeroy3101
Banned
Yet our current system leads to a separate but equal education. American schools are more segregated today than they were before Brown v. Board of Education. Although this time it's on two fronts. We're separated in the schools not only by social class but also by race.
Isn't this theft by the government to not provide a high quality education for all American children?
A fine? Lol, do you live in a world where it's legal to sell drugs now?
She would get more than a fine selling concert tickets.
Angry Fork
Member
If she sold drugs for her kid why are people ignoring that? 5 years is way too much for that. It's obvious motive should matter when dealing the sentence but the conservative hammer likes to shit on the poor while they're already down so what else is new.
Some parts of the world do sell drugs legally with better results so you're not going to get far with this argument. Some laws are fucked up/wrong which is why people are complaining at this sentence.
Some parts of the world do sell drugs legally with better results so you're not going to get far with this argument. Some laws are fucked up/wrong which is why people are complaining at this sentence.
Angry Fork
Member
I did and my opinion doesn't change. The article says she was living in a fucking van and homeless shelters. It's obvious why she was selling drugs. You don't sentence someone like that to TWELVE YEARS. That shit is fucking insanity. It got reduced to 5 and that's still way too much. I don't understand this country. If people want to be doped up let them, it's obvious she isn't some evil person trying to poison others she was selling to survive.
There seems to be this idea among conservatives that people WANT to sell drugs, that poor people WANT to live that life and therefore should be punished for it. None of it makes sense.
You're right. She should have gotten a license to sell her crack cocaine and marijuana during her kid's birthday party.
Vicetrailia
Banned
Poor woman.
Angry Fork
Member
6 year old's don't know what cocaine is you're not going to get away with 'OH THINK OF THE CHILDREN' argument. Even if he did they experience much "worse" visual imagery in TV/movies every day.
Poor people with no hope, education or job prospects resort to illegal means of making money. This isn't rocket science. If you don't recognize this you have no perspective.
The argument isn't that the kid is necessarily going to be scarred by the memory of his mother selling crack and pot during his party, but rather that she has her 6 year old child around her while she's dealing drugs and is exposing him to people who are addicted to crack. If she's reached that low of a point in her life where she cannot take care of her child without dealing drugs, especially in his presence, then she should have the responsibility to care for her child removed from her shoulders until she can get her life sorted out.
Angry Fork
Member
I don't personally believe that's a huge danger to the kid, but if that's really the case then put the kid in foster care for a bit, have the mother do community service, parole, something like that and try to get her on the right track to get a job/community college. Visitation rights for the kid and when she's got a proper job/apartment they can be reunited.
But no that's much too liberal for this HARD NOSED DRUG KING PIN. She must be punished five years in prison for the HORRIBLE DISASTROUS effect she's had on society. The society that chose to buy what she provided. Ridiculous.
Overstate your oppositions case, much? Good lord.
The fact of the matter is, she's going to jail for the distribution of, among other things, crack cocaine, not for sending her kid to a different school system. The distribution of crack (and other narcotics) carries with it a mandatory jail sentence, which she will serve. There are millions of poor people who scrape by with government and community assistance without resorting to committing crimes, so I have little sympathy for her plight, simply because she has a child.
I don't really care about law when they are shit laws. I stated what i thought was proper, not what the law says, was that not obvious?
5 years is really obscene, unless it turns out she was peddling kilos of heroin on the schoolyards or running a meth lab with slave labour. I'm guessing she was not (she was homeless after all).
edit: and i just found out that the actual sentence was 12 years. Holy shit.
Fallout-NL
Member
Wouldn't you if you hit rock bottom but needed to take care of your kids anyway?
Vicetrailia
Banned
Drugs pay more than McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Red Lobster, etc. I really do feel sorry for this woman, especially if she wasn't a user while she was selling drugs.
Manos: The Hans of Fate
Banned
Manos: The Hans of Fate
Banned
No, they don't. There is a TED talk about this, McDonalds was far better than dealing crack.
Dude Abides
Banned
Thank God this monster is off the streets.
Manos: The Hans of Fate
Banned
Yes, it's good that someone dealing crack is going to jail.
Unless you would like to offer your home for her to life and "help get her life straight." I'm sure you would want to do that.
5 years for trying to trick the system so that your children can have a better education and a chance at a better life?
Yep, sounds about right. If societies don't take care so that people don't dare attempt to move out of their designated castes who knows what this world will come to. Message sent and received.
EDIT: I thought it was 5 years for enrolling her children in the wrong school, and 7 for selling drugs. If it's 12 all mixed up then disregard my comment above. I could understand it for selling drugs, if the amount of time allocated to the school thing was some community service upgraded to jail time for being a drug dealer. Misleading title etc.
Yep, sounds about right. If societies don't take care so that people don't dare attempt to move out of their designated castes who knows what this world will come to. Message sent and received.
EDIT: I thought it was 5 years for enrolling her children in the wrong school, and 7 for selling drugs. If it's 12 all mixed up then disregard my comment above. I could understand it for selling drugs, if the amount of time allocated to the school thing was some community service upgraded to jail time for being a drug dealer. Misleading title etc.
Manos: The Hans of Fate
Banned
I think you missed something.
Yeah, I did. I read through the OP too fast, having the wrong impression due to the thread title and I somehow thought it was 5 for the school thing alone, and 12 including the drugs thing. My bad.
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