"Our Children and Grandchildren are not merely statistics towards which we can be indifferent" JFK

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Gregory Taylor, homeless man sentenced to 25 years for stealing food...ordered released from prison..

Keep in mind that not only has no Wall Street Banker done jail time, they have not even been criminally charged and simply continue to pay SEC fines...

RAQUEL MARIA DILLON
LOS ANGELES — After 13 years behind bars for trying to break in to a church kitchen to find something to eat, a man who became an example of the harsh sentences allowed by California's three-strikes law has been ordered released from prison.

A Superior Court judge amended Gregory Taylor's sentence to eight years already served and the 47-year-old, who was sentenced in 1997 to 25 years to life, will be a free man in a few days.

Tears streamed down Taylor's face and Judge Peter Espinoza asked a bailiff to get him a tissue.

"I thought I was going to cry too," said law student Reiko Rogozen, who started working on the case in January as part of Stanford Law School's Three-Strikes Project, which filed a writ of habeas corpus seeking freedom for Taylor. "He was scared up until the last minute that it wasn't actually going to happen."

The district attorney did not oppose the group's move.

Taylor quietly thanked the court and his lawyers for "giving me another chance ... and my family for sticking by me."

Taylor was arrested in July 1997 while trying to get into the kitchen of St. Joseph's Church in downtown Los Angeles. He told officers that he was hungry.

The church's pastor, the Rev. Alan McCoy, testified at the original sentencing that Taylor was often given food and allowed to sleep at the church. The priest described him as a peaceful man struggling with homelessness and crack addiction. Link to Huffington Post Article

Grandpa does not condone stealing however Wall Street stole from the entire planet and are we to believe it was in order to feed their family or maybe a crack addiction...?

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