That is really terrifying. I apologize for all of the personal questions, but what were you facing if you went to trial? I am fascinated by this. Honestly, it sounds like you were the victim of one-size-fits-all justice...
I'm not a shy person about personal details. They were threatening to give me 99 years in prison for Aggravated Robbery, which is a Class 1 felony, merely because of my inadvertent involvement in the crime. That's on the same level as murder and all of those frightening things. The Jurisdiction was Williamson county, a neighboring county of Austin, TX. They are well-known for their no leniency attitudes.
I have, but I'm the kind of developer who thinks up the big ideas and can build to 95% but I'm not great at grinding away at that last 5% of bugs. We're valuable, but by no means a rare breed. The rarer breeds are the work-horses that you can throw the results of a QA check to and they work on everything to completion. In startups, it's the founders that typically have the rights to do the planning and core developme…
So you want to do all the fun work, and pass off the grindy boring shit to someone else, most of which probably results from your "core" coding? I think I would hate working with you and you're bringing this on yourself. You might have an inflated idea of how good you are at this shit. If you are really good, you won't have much grindy boring work to do. If you're not taking a major part in the final tasks of a proje…
Sometimes people really do enjoy the "boring" work. We're all different.
> I no longer have to legally disclose it I could be wrong, but my understanding is that this is not a "luxury" that we enjoy in the U.S. Once you have a conviction, it is there forever. So much for doing your time and paying your debt to society. I really hope I am wrong about this, but I fear that I am not.
Even in the US, convictions can be expunged or sealed. The requirements vary by jurisdiction. (I think it's especially common for young offenders.)
Doing a little research, it appears that you may be right, but, as you say, the requirements vary by jurisdiction. Some jurisdictions will allow you to expunge misdemeanor convictions but not felony convictions.
That's a bit of an extreme example. Think about this in the context of an office environment. Often times it is better to work out issues with someone directly. It commands a lot more respect and often times helps to cut through red tape. A lot of the time if you go to your boss over a problem with someone that you work with, they view you as a "tattle-tale" or somebody that is too weak to stand up for yourself.
I hardly think that office disagreements are the sort of thing the advice is meant to deal with. Also, be careful with taking your own advice on this one. If you keep working with someone personally instead of formally, you're giving him/her the chance to manipulate a situation against you.
>I hardly think that office disagreements are the sort of thing the advice is meant to deal with.
Actually I think that's exactly the sort of thing the advice is meant to deal with.
No one has ever gone to prison for BS reasons, or been falsely accused. How can you ever trust anyone who ever did anything wrong in their life? If you've done something wrong you're obviously a bad person forever. Edit: As an aside, it is very likely you have committed a crime punishable by jail time and not been caught/prosecuted, at least once in your life (with or without you knowing it).
Exactly. I know someone who received a ticket for a broken tail light. He forgot to pay it and ended up going to jail for 8 months! 8 months! For a broken tail light! I would have expected an additional penalty or at most a week in jail, which even then I would consider that extreme.
> I no longer have to legally disclose it I could be wrong, but my understanding is that this is not a "luxury" that we enjoy in the U.S. Once you have a conviction, it is there forever. So much for doing your time and paying your debt to society. I really hope I am wrong about this, but I fear that I am not.
Even in the US, convictions can be expunged or sealed. The requirements vary by jurisdiction. (I think it's especially common for young offenders.)
When something is expunged or sealed, is it required that that non-government entities purge the records also?
For instance, it's common for local news companies to report arrests & mugshots on their websites. I'm assuming there are similar aggregators for arrests and convictions that span larger areas than a single news company, and these are the same people that service background checks.
What obligation(if any) do they have to respect the fact that a conviction has been expunged or sealed by the courts?
I have, but I'm the kind of developer who thinks up the big ideas and can build to 95% but I'm not great at grinding away at that last 5% of bugs. We're valuable, but by no means a rare breed. The rarer breeds are the work-horses that you can throw the results of a QA check to and they work on everything to completion. In startups, it's the founders that typically have the rights to do the planning and core developme…
So you want to do all the fun work, and pass off the grindy boring shit to someone else, most of which probably results from your "core" coding? I think I would hate working with you and you're bringing this on yourself. You might have an inflated idea of how good you are at this shit. If you are really good, you won't have much grindy boring work to do. If you're not taking a major part in the final tasks of a proje…
> You might have an inflated idea of how good you are at this shit. If you are really good, you won't have much grindy boring work to do.
Anyone who has worked on any sort of sufficiently large and complex application knows that this isn't true. Programmers come and go, people have different styles, requirements change, deadlines are imposed, etc. There will always be grunt work, no matter how good a programmer is.
I'm not a shy person about personal details. They were threatening to give me 99 years in prison for Aggravated Robbery, which is a Class 1 felony, merely because of my inadvertent involvement in the crime. That's on the same level as murder and all of those frightening things. The Jurisdiction was Williamson county, a neighboring county of Austin, TX. They are well-known for their no leniency attitudes.
It is truly amazing how fucked up our system is. If they actually believed you "deserved" 99 years, then bargaining down to 6 months suggests that all they really care about is artificially inflating and maintaining their "conviction" rate and not actually, you know, justice or something. Thank you for sharing your experiences, I rarely get the opportunity to discuss things like this. Best of luck to you going forwar…
That's the maximum possible sentence that can be applied in any circumstance, but it would not have been possible for him to get it. There is a table for each class of crime that cross references the severity of the crime, the number of crimes committed by the person before, and a very small plus or minus factor for how much the judge likes or dislikes you. As a first-time offender, he would have only been eligible for the minimum category, and unless he was a complete dickhead in the courtroom, the judge almost certainly wouldn't have given the minimum of the category. A few months, at the most. This "99 years" bullshit is just gungho DAs trying to scare the shit out of the populace and assert their badassery.
A comment response by the top poster [1] deserves a full read as well, for observations of behavior, motivations, and recidivism by others in the system. On the latter note, there is also this sobering paragraph: ...Here in Colorado we have what is called "mandatory parole" - which is probably not what you think it is. It does not mean that it is mandatory to release you early, it means that even if you are released…
Then why not better train, screen, and pay the parole officers? These people seem to be a key part of the system which would be overseeing people who have a high chance to commit a crime. The parole officers should definitely try to fairly assess the parolee's life circumstances and try to best assist them in finding a job and crime-free life in normal society. I've heard stories of parole officers being hard on paro…
It depends on how you define better: In the context of the owners of a for-profit prison system, better training would result in more parole violations.
That is really terrifying. I apologize for all of the personal questions, but what were you facing if you went to trial? I am fascinated by this. Honestly, it sounds like you were the victim of one-size-fits-all justice...
I'm not a shy person about personal details. They were threatening to give me 99 years in prison for Aggravated Robbery, which is a Class 1 felony, merely because of my inadvertent involvement in the crime. That's on the same level as murder and all of those frightening things. The Jurisdiction was Williamson county, a neighboring county of Austin, TX. They are well-known for their no leniency attitudes.
Do you remember what made it "aggravated" robbery? Robbery meant there was someone at the target house, right?