The harshness of the sentence caused complaints from around the world, according to the Dallas Morning News. The prosecutor protested that Payne stole the large size Snickers. That must have raised eyebrows because the District Attorney took over interviews with the press, and publicly scolded the prosecutor for flippancy. But he still would not admit anything was wrong. He reminded the world that Tyler sent another shoplifter who had swiped a slab of brisket to 50 years as I recall. Actually there was a third case, in Collin County I think where a man received 50 years for swiping a pound of bacon. But I might have the two latter cases confused. The DA (whose name I forget) said that crime is not tolerated in Tyler. In the bacon case, which may be the brisket case, I remember the jury foreman was quoted as saying "You do the crime, you do the time."
And I don't think the case prosecutor was flippant. I think she really meant it.
Anyhow, according to reporter Lee Hancock of the DMN the trial of Kenneth Payne has been ruled invalid on grounds that the jurors improperly discussed the case and considered factors not in evidence at trial. See DMN "Retrial ordered in candy theft" Lee Hancock, 4/26/00 pg 27A in the Texas and Southwest section.
One of the jurors happened to be a prison guard. Apparently, the jurors regarded him as an authority. The prison guard said that Payne needed to serve more than two years in prison to "learn his lesson." That transformed sentencing deliberations into fine humanitarian impulses to help Payne get an education. Another juror cited her own son's prison experience, which convinced her that Kenneth Payne needed at least 14 years in jail "to get into some educational programs" she was quoted as saying. So the jurors hit upon sixteen years as hopefully providing Payne enough education.
Who said rehabilitation was dead? Who said that our Texas jurors are not capable of humanitarian considerations in sentencing?
Lee Hancock just reports the bare facts. Whatever happened to voir dire in Smith County, Texas? She does not speculate on why a prison guard is allowed to sit, or why a woman whose son is an ex-convict (if that is what Lee Hancock meant -- her wording is ambiguous and it could be read as meaning that the son is also a prison guard) is allowed to sit. The uninstructed reader must conclude for himself that voir dire is easy in Smith County.
The Assistant DA, David Dobbs, means to prosecute the Snicker bar case again under the repeat offender provisions.
The very same day, there is a review of a movie in the NY Times, "Aiding an Indian Village With an Electric Chair" by Stephen Holden. This is a mordant satire where the electric chair is presented as a humanitarian means of allowing those who want to, to exit this life. In the movie, Krishnan, reduced to starvation, swipes coconuts from his employer's property. He is sentenced to prison like Kenneth Payne. But India goes Texas one better. There had been a political murder that needed clearing. So Krishnan is convicted of it and sentenced to death. He meekly accepts his fate.
Holden writes "the major issue in a local election isn't the injustice of his sentence of the corrupt legal system but the manner of Krishan's imminent execution. The villagers organize vigorous demonstrations supporting the more humane electrocution instead of hanging."
So in Texas it is concern for education, and in the film it is humanitarian impulses.
Egads. One should not read two papers in the same day. The irony is too much.
John K. Taber