Ypsilanti brothers sent to jail in theft of judge's snow blower
Two brothers from Ypsilanti will serve jail time after pleading no contest to stealing a snow blower from the home of a Garden City judge, the Observer & Eccentric reports.
Austin and Justin Burton, ages 21 and 19, were sentenced to the maximum 93 days and 60 days, respectively, by District Court Judge Mark McConnell in Westland. Each was given credit for 21 days already served.
District Judge Richard Hammer Jr., the victim, recused himself from the case due to a conflict of interest.
Despite listing Ypsilanti as their home, the brothers reportedly had been sleeping in their vehicle because they couldn't find a place to stay when the theft occurred.
Austin Burton told the judge he had two outstanding felony warrants in Ypsilanti.
For more, read the O&E story.
Comments
Lake Trout
Mon, Apr 8, 2013 : 2:37 p.m.
@clownfish - Do you think this may be because we do not have serious enough reprecussions for the lack of responsibility for their actions? In other countries, physical punishment like caning and jails/prisons that are not like the Hilton with 3 hots and a cot, medial care, education, etc... It means something when you do wrong and get caught at it - even your life unlike here in the USA.
nickcarraweigh
Mon, Apr 8, 2013 : 2:04 p.m.
Steal local is the moral, I guess.
Brad
Mon, Apr 8, 2013 : 11:49 a.m.
Never steal from a judge named Dick Hammer. That's just asking for it.
Matt Lang
Mon, Apr 8, 2013 : 10:55 a.m.
they probably tried to sell it back to him
Tom Joad
Mon, Apr 8, 2013 : 7:11 a.m.
If it weren't a judge's snow blower it's extremely doubtful they would have been given the maximum--this is what is known as professional courtesy to a fellow judge.
Macabre Sunset
Sun, Apr 7, 2013 : 11:48 p.m.
Now we know what it takes to get a local judge to sentence anyone to actual jail time for anything less than a murder. Turns out they don't like it when you steal from other judges.
clownfish
Mon, Apr 8, 2013 : 1:11 p.m.
Above figures from 2008. 2010- Michigan has an incarceration rate of around 450/100k. This rate puts MI in the top half of the country. Should we work harder to be #1?
clownfish
Mon, Apr 8, 2013 : 1 p.m.
The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners. The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, according to data maintained by the International Center for Prison Studies at King's College London. China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison. (That number excludes hundreds of thousands of people held in administrative detention, most of them in China's extrajudicial system of re-education through labor, which often singles out political activists who have not committed crimes.) It has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population. (If you count only adults, one in 100 Americans is locked up.) The only other major industrialized nation that even comes close is Russia, with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. The others have much lower rates. England's rate is 151; Germany's is 88; and Japan's is 63. If you want more people in jail, you will have to pay more to keep them there. More prisoners = higher taxes.
tdw
Mon, Apr 8, 2013 : 1 p.m.
Actually Russia is close
WalkingJoe
Mon, Apr 8, 2013 : 12:29 p.m.
Paul, Really? What about North Korea, or Iran where they lock people up just for dressing wrong?
Paul
Mon, Apr 8, 2013 : 1:42 a.m.
What are U talking about ? The jails are jammed pack, the USA has the highest % of their people locked up. No other counties come close.
DonBee
Sun, Apr 7, 2013 : 10:50 p.m.
Jeff Daniels - Here is a piece of a future script....lol
J. A. Pieper
Sun, Apr 7, 2013 : 10:46 p.m.
One would think the weather this winter would have offered the brothers a little more common sense.
An Arborigine
Sun, Apr 7, 2013 : 9:37 p.m.
Choose wisely grasshoppers.