[fabsroman]

I have seen judges give light sentences and harsh sentences in cases. Luckily, none of my clients have been on the receiving end of a harsh sentence.

In calling for harsher sentences, I think we forget that harsher sentences affect more people than just the defendant. For instance, what if the person is a single father and the only one that works in the household (i.e., he has minor children). Would it really be just to take away his vehicle and/or firearms?

I truly believe that the punishment should fit the crime. If you kill somebody on purpose, you should be sentenced to life in prison at the minimum, if not execution. For killing a deer out of season, it would depend on what all the circumstances are, but I think $1,000 fine is pretty stiff. That is about the equivalent of taking away the guy's firearm, and might be the equivalent of taking away a person's vehicle. A little over 7 years ago I used to go hunting with a 1980 Ford Fairmont with 200,000+ miles on it. I don't think that car was worth $300 dollars. Back then I was hunting with a Browning BPS, which probably cost $400. So, if they took the car and the gun in lieu of the fine, that would suit me fine. Then again, there were some days where I was hunting doves with a Beretta 686, and it would have hurt if they took my gun then. Sad thing is that I had a couple of run ins with the game wardens 10 and 8 years ago. I was fined $225 for hunting doves over bait, irregardless of whether or not I knew the bait was there. I paid the fine like an idiot instead of going to court and asking for Probation Before Judgment ("PBJ"). That was my first week of law school.

I represented a client last week on a DWI. It was his second within 8 years, but he didn't have an attorney for the first and he didn't know that he should request a PBJ. Hence, he merely plead guilty and took it all. Is it really fair that he received a harsher punishment on his first offense than most people would? Probably not, so I brought it up at his current sentencing and while the Judge found him guilty and gave him 18 months of probation with a 6 month suspended sentence, she said she would be open to changing the sentence to a PBJ if I filed a Motion for Reconsideration near the end of the 90 day period (i.e., she wants to see how my client does with alcohol class and the rest of his life for three months).

Let's throw another wrench in this whole thing. Should the poor be fined the same amount as the rich. Would Donald Trump really care if he was fined $1,000 for shooting a deer out of season? Probably not, he could look at the harshest monetary penalty for shooting deer out of season and scoff at it. Of course, there is always the jail time portion that makes those people think twice.

Criminal sentencing is a very tough issue. What should a person get for his fourth DWI where he runs his F-150 through a red light at 70 mph in a 40 mph zone, T-Bones a Honda Civic, puts the woman driving it, a mother with a newborn, in a coma for 3 days and sends her to the ICU for a week and rehab for about a year. The paramedics at the scene didn't even think she was going to live.

Well, he ended up getting a 10 month jail sentence with 6 months of it on work release (i.e., home arrest). So, he only had to spend 4 month in jail for his crime and he almost killed a human being. If we compare that to the crime of killing a deer out of season, the $1,000 fine looks like a lot.

At the end of the day, I think the $1,000 fine is plenty for that guy. A friend of mine got caught shooting over the limit on ducks. I got him a PBJ and he had to pay $250.