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   From: nigger-lovers@disney.com   
      
   A Louisiana man will continue to spend his life in prison for   
   stealing a pair of hedge clippers, after the state's Supreme   
   Court denied his request to review a lower court's sentence.   
      
   Fair Wayne Bryant was convicted in 1997 of stealing the hedge   
   clippers. Prosecutors pursued and won a life sentence in the   
   case, a penalty permissible under the state's habitual offender   
   law. Bryant appealed the life sentence as too severe.   
      
   Chief Justice Bernette Johnson was the sole dissenter in the   
   court's decision last week, writing that Bryant's sentence is   
   "excessive and disproportionate to the offense" — and that it   
   was costing the state a lot of money to keep him imprisoned.   
      
   "Since his conviction in 1997, Mr. Bryant's incarceration has   
   cost Louisiana taxpayers approximately $518,667," she wrote.   
   "Arrested at 38, Mr. Bryant has already spent nearly 23 years in   
   prison and is now over 60 years old. If he lives another 20   
   years, Louisiana taxpayers will have paid almost one million   
   dollars to punish Mr. Bryant for his failed effort to steal a   
   set of hedge clippers."   
      
   Bryant, who is Black, had four prior convictions. Only the first   
   was violent: an attempted armed robbery in 1979, for which he   
   was sentenced to 10 years hard labor. His subsequent convictions   
   were for possession of stolen property in 1987, attempted   
   forgery of a $150 check in 1989 and burglary of a house in 1992.   
      
   "Each of these crimes was an effort to steal something. Such   
   petty theft is frequently driven by the ravages of poverty or   
   addiction, and often both," Johnson wrote in her dissent. "It is   
   cruel and unusual to impose a sentence of life in prison at hard   
   labor for the criminal behavior which is most often caused by   
   poverty or addiction."   
      
   Johnson is the court's second female African American justice   
   and its first African American chief justice. The court's other   
   justices are all white men. None offered written rulings   
   explaining their decisions.   
      
   The court's decision was first reported by The Lens, a nonprofit   
   news site in New Orleans. The Lens' Nicholas Chrastil reports:   
   "Louisiana's habitual offender laws ... have long been   
   criticized for sanctioning excessively punitive sentences and   
   driving mass incarceration in the state. Nearly 80 percent of   
   people incarcerated in Louisiana prisons under the habitual   
   offender laws ... are Black."   
      
   In her dissent, Johnson connected Bryant's sentence to the "Pig   
   Laws" and Black Codes in the years after Reconstruction, which   
   enacted harsh penalties for theft and other petty crimes.   
      
   "Pig Laws were largely designed to re-enslave African   
   Americans," she wrote. Bryant's case, the chief justice said,   
   demonstrates a "modern manifestation" of Pig Laws: "This man's   
   life sentence for a failed attempt to steal a set of hedge   
   clippers is grossly out of proportion to the crime and serves no   
   legitimate penal purpose."   
      
   https://www.npr.org/2020/08/05/899525589/louisiana-supreme-court-   
   wont-review-life-sentence-for-man-who-stole-hedge-clippe   
       
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)