Ever had a defendant who wanted a special number?

LARRY BIRD INSPIRES MAN'S LONGER JAIL TERM
A man got a prison term longer than prosecutors and defense attorneys had agreed to -- all because of Celtics great Larry Bird.

The lawyers reached a plea agreement Tuesday for a 30-year term for a man accused of shooting with an intent to kill and robbery. But Eric James Torpy wanted his prison term to match Bird's jersey number 33.

"He said if he was going to go down, he was going to go down in Larry Bird's jersey," Oklahoma County District Judge Ray Elliott said Wednesday. "We accommodated his request and he was just as happy as he could be.

"I've never seen anything like this in 26 years in the courthouse. But, I know the DA is happy about it."

Read the article.

It could always be worse--he could have been a Wayne Gretzky fan.

I've had several defendants take bigger sentences to avoid the dreaded odd number prison sentence, which somehow results in more time served prior to parole than an even number. I think they get their advice from the same brilliant jailhouse lawyer who tell them to reject the nearly time served offer and go to trial, where they inevitably get WAY more time than they would have otherwise. I also had a guy take 14 years rather than 13, which is of course very unlucky. I guess this is the mindset that results in you having "hereinafter referred to as Defendant" tagged onto your name.

I'll take Robert Parish's # (wasn't he 00?) Or was it Kevin McHale?

It was Parrish, aka the chief.

Always good to know when you get something right.

Cherokee County is always on target. After all, you are the home of Proposition 4, the victim's friend.

Years ago, one of the first felony habitual cases I tried was a cousin who stabbed his cousin at a New Year's Eve party argument over an extremely unattractive female whom the ex-con thought his cousin was flirting with. It wasn't a bad stabbing, more of a slashing, with a few stitches but no internal injuries, and the defendant's history was for two felony theft and some petty drug type offenses. He wouldn't accept any offer involving pen time so I enhanced him to habitual.

The jury gave him 34 years. When I asked them after the trial how they arrived at that number, they said that since the defendant was 34 years old, they wanted to give him a reminder to act his age.

Reminds me of a misdemeanor case I negociated. My offer was 270 days in jail, suspended for 2 years probation. The def. atty. asked me why I picked 270 days.

I actually put down 270 days because I wanted to suspend 9 mos. of jail time. But I told him it was the caliber of my deer rifle. He didn't know me very well, so he nodded his head as if my answer explained everything, and said something like, "oh, I see."

Greg -
I'm confused - Was he slashing his cousin b/c the cousin picked an ugly or was he slashing the cousing b/c the cousin flirted with the ugly HE was interested in? (Big difference).

Puts GUE in a whole new light.