As a former Prosecutor I know one thing: there is no substitute for common sense in the application of the criminal law.
Common sense appears to be in short supply in Texas:
Forty-three-year-old Willie Smith Ward was convicted and sentenced on robbery charges Wednesday. The Waco Tribune-Herald (http://bit.ly/... ) reports that Ward's theft of the $35 rack of pork ribs turned into a robbery after he threatened a grocery store employee who tried to stop him in 2011.
The employee testified that Ward told him he had a knife.
The jury recommended Ward be sentenced as a habitual criminal...
It costs
$21,390 a year to house an inmate in the Texas Prison System. The total cost of the sentence is $1,069,500
It costs $9,790 for in-state tuition at the excellent University of Texas. So you could send 27 people to the University of Texas for the same cost as incarcerating this one person for stealing ribs.
Common sense anyone?