I vehemently grate against people saying that a released prisoner has “paid his debt to society”. No one ever “pays a debt” by serving prison time. Confinement pays nothing back to the victim. Good conduct is EXPECTED of all citizens in general and convicts in particular.

The bottom line is that a convict’s debt to society is NEVER repaid. They owe a lifetime of honest living until the day they die.

That said, in the rare event that a person does turn their life around, it would be difficult for a convicted felon to ever convince an employer to trust them. Indeed, given the choice between a reformed felon and an equally qualified person who has never committed a crime, no employer should ever hire the felon. Why punish the honest person?

I have no answer to this dilemma.

Let it be noted that Guiseppe Zangara, the man who attempted to assassinate FDR and killed the mayor of Chicago, was executed only 33 days after his crime. Now that is swift justice!

- jb

Yup. I was on the jury for a case of 5th degree felony trespass. A guy went into an unlocked girl’s room at college and wouldn’t leave for 10 minutes after she told him to. (They knew each other.) We hung – the majority would not convict and stick a 19-year-old with a felony for a would-be booty call gone awry, and he’d already been expelled. Now I took seriously my oath to convict if the case was proven, and it clearly was, so I was 1 of 3 who voted to convict. But it pissed me off, and I called the DA the next day to say the case never should have been brought as a felony.

While I support the death penalty, IMO it should be banned in Texas so other states don’t have to put up with the delays, and expense, required in our own states so the federal courts can keep Texas from executing innocent people.

I appreciate your non-confrontational response–that rarely happens online . . .

My point was–perhaps I could have stated it better . . .

More and more infractions of the law are becoming felonies, and because of that, those “convicted” are now felons, and as such, they lose their constitutional rights. And when it happens in a contrived setting, the only “felon” is the DA, not the accused.

Further clarification–I did not take issue with “true” felons being deprived of certain rights.

If, as you said, “it’s just about felons” . . . then we must examine what constitutes “felony” according to the law, and not the local DA or judges.

All the best–jb

Sure, but that is a different subject. The question wasn’t “Is it still okay to deny convicted felons their 2nd Amendment rights since there is an ever increasing amount of less serious crimes now being lumped into that category?” It is just about felons, period.

And, whatever your ideas about the expanding definition of a felony, those murderers, rapists, and people who have a yen for felonious assault and serious theft are still felons. Restoring the ability of convicted felons to legally acquire and own guns will include them as well. That wouldn’t be a good idea.

The criminal justice system gets to decide what is a felony, and what is not. Understand that whatever–that decision is an opinion.

Murder, rape, assault, ect.,–those go without saying. But a felony is, anymore, what ever a DA decides it should be.

And the line in-between can get pretty murky–especially if the felony is perpetrated against the “police” . . .

In Texas–cases after cases are being over-turned. Anyone who thinks Lady Justice can’t see through her blindfold, is fooling themselves.

What our criminal justice system does to the innocent in the name of getting convictions and expanding resumes is just as bad. And unless a DA screws up totally (as did Nifong in the Duke lacrosse case), they are never reprimanded or punished for false or faulty convictions.

In general I agree with your point–but, in specific cases (which all are), the criminal justice system is often more criminal than the “criminal(s)” they are prosecuting.