> Sometimes I don't know why I bother with stuff like this, but ...
>
> > To consider that a "robbery with a weapon" is to make that
> > phrase meaningless.
>
> It's already meaningless: robbery is ALWAYS VIOLENT. It's in the
> definition of robbery. Look it up! You got charged with it, you ought
> to at least know what it means. Adding a firearm to the mix is just an
> aggrivating circumstance. This has nothing to do with whether you had
> your gun with you; it has to do with why you were charged with robbery
> instead of something else. I'm sure one of the lawyers on the list
> will pop up, but this has got to be a law school level mistake: there's
> no robbery if there's no person.
>
> Are you sure you got charged with robbery?
I should have been charged with misdemeanor stealing since the top was valued at about $280. It was only a type 121 after all. Barring that, felony stealing. Since the upholstery was vinyl and had been rained on many times before it wasn't ruined. If it had been ruined and needed replacing then felony stealing would have been appropriate in a legal sense. It was robbery because the car was in his drive and he was home. The prosecutor likened it to stealing from his house while he was home, a robbery. An incorrect comparison but hey, it wasn't mine. The weapon should never have figured into the equation. You are being very charitable calling it a mistake. I prefer institutional racism as a better explanation. Maybe Andie would care to comment? The case is ancient history now. In the end the judge really wanted me to serve time but my lawyer convinced him that the state would lose on appeal and it would cost the taxpayers too much money over what amounted to nothing. I got a huge fucking fine and community service out the ass. The judge actually recommended to the community service board that they give me "physically demanding labor" and specifically recommended shoveling elephant shit. Unfortunately for his punk-ass I knew the woman working there assigning jobs and she gave me a cushie one sitting on my butt at the art museum as a guard. Which is of course the perfect job for someone with a recent felony robbery conviction, right? Password, keys, the works.
One of the boys I mentioned with the pickup sporting a rifle rack was charged with felony theft, nothing else. He stole that stupid fiberglass dinosaur from a Sinclair station. I don't know what he was planning to do with it. The point still being that if my crime is labeled violent, this surely is too. Neither is of course. I read your reply as agreeing the crime was violent not dumb. There are really very few non-dumb crimes however. He didn't know what he was going to do with it but it was still a prank.
> > There was absolutely nothing violent about my stupid college prank
>
> Ahem. A prank is when you give it back and everyone laughs. Or allow
> your 'victim' to come into your house and see it on display like the
> rest of your friends. And then you all laugh.
>
> It sounds like what you did wasn't a prank.
>
> /jordan
What else if not a prank? I didn't steal it to sell for money or to use myself. There was no "paycheck" in it for me. It was revenge for a slight. In time it would have been probably dumped back on his front lawn. It was spur of the moment and not thought through. I didn't say it was a friendly prank, just a prank. When I was about 10 I liberated a neighbors stone fruit basket from in front of their home. Damn that thing was heavy. My brother and I painted it to accurately represent the fruit and put it on their front porch on Xmas eve, roughly 6 months later. This was a prank as well. Your 'victim' doesn't have to think something is funny for it to be a prank only to be a friendly prank.
I'm guessing you were not a prankster when you were younger? It really isn't that hard to go too far once you've done several really good ones. You have to keep outdoing the previous one after all. This was a prank, pure and simple. The reality is if his father had not been a judge and I had not been a Native American I might not have been charged at all and if I had it would most likely have been for the misdemeanor stealing. It's instances like this that make me regret mentioning being NA. Not to anywhere near the same degree here as elsewhere, but if I was just another white frat boy named JT no one would think there might be more either more to the story or that I simply have a chip on my shoulder. At least that's my perception, since you can never truly know what's in another man's heart.
John Thornton P.S. I'm trying to use more apostrophes in my emails. I hope everyone enjoys them as much as I do. Sorry Doug, I think this makes 5 for me today.