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A man who was found not guilty of armed robbery will still serve up to seven years behind bars after a judge ruled he had breached the rules of his probation sentence for another crime.
Ramad Chatman handed himself in to police when he found out he was a suspect for an armed robbery at a convenience store in his hometown of Georgia in July 2014.
The 24-year-old was already was serving a five year probation term (a court order served outside prison through fines and community service) for his first ever offence, breaking and entering an apartment to steal a television worth $120 in 2012.
The following February, a judge decided it was likely he did commit the robbery and as a result Chatman was re-sentenced for the original crime of stealing a TV and ordered to serve 10-years behind bars, back dated to the day of the crime.
Court documents nonetheless showed he did everything asked of him during his probation, including checking in, paying restitution and finishing his community service. He was also holding down a job.
But when the armed robbery trial came to court in August, he was found not guilty.
It later emerged that ahead of the trial Chapman[sic] tried to enter an Alford plea on the charge of aggravated assault in exchange for the armed robbery charges being dropped.
An Alford plea means the defendant enters a guilty plea, but maintains his innocence. It is often used when a defendant feels like despite his innocence, he will lose at trial.
The judge refused to accept the deal, so the case was heard before a jury - who ruled he was innocent of the crime.
Presiding Judge John Niedrach, disagreed with their verdict however.
So despite the fact police never recovered the weapon, stolen money, or any other evidence connecting him to the robbery, he declined to release Mr Chatman, who remains in prison for violating the terms of his first probation order.
Original Submission[Edit: [sic]'ed the Independent's typo - FP]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by theluggage on Thursday May 25 2017, @01:25PM (3 children)
In the opinion of the judge ruling on the probation issue, more likely than not, he got involved in an armed robbery. That's going to break the terms of any probation.
Convicting him separately of that armed robbery would require proof "beyond reasonable doubt" - and the jury wasn't convinced.
However, deciding that he had broken probation for a crime of which he had been convicted - and hadn't finished serving the sentence for (hence probation) - didn't require that standard of proof.
Now, whether the accusation of armed robbery was justified or not or if he was just picked up because his face fit - more data needed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday May 25 2017, @06:01PM
Yes, this is a clear explanation -- the standards of proof are different. The rationale for those different standards usually makes some sense.
Remember that "parole" is supposed to be a grant of leniency, i.e., you could have been sentenced to 10 years in jail, but instead we'll sentence you to parole because it's your first offense or we'll let you out a few years early -- but the expectation is that you continue "good behavior." Recall that our justice system nominally is about "rehabilitation," not pure punitive action. (We can argue about whether it actually achieves such goals, but that's the nominal justification.) "Parole" is essentially a grant of a privilege (i.e., you don't have to spend the time you should spend in jail), because we believe you're already "rehabilitated." BUT, we'll monitor just in case, and if you show you haven't been rehabilitated, we'll revoke that privilege... and you'll go back to jail for the remainder of your term. If the violation is egregious enough, the term might be extended beyond the original term of release, since you spent time on the streets where you weren't being "rehabilitated" even though you claimed to be so.
Since "parole" is effectively a privilege, not an official fact-finding by a court, it can be revoked at will, so there's no requirement of "beyond reasonable doubt" in determining a parole violation. Just like prison guards don't have to find that you attacked another inmate "beyond reasonable doubt" to revoke your privilege to have exercise outside or whatever. That's sort of how the justice system views parole.
This particular case seems to have brought out a trifecta of badness, though. Not only did the judge summarily revoke parole, he also did so in opposition to a jury verdict AND extended the original sentencing term to seemingly compensate for the lack of a guilty verdict. Looks very bad all-around.
I'm not the judge and I haven't seen enough details of the evidence here. But it certainly sounds like a miscarriage of justice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @09:34PM (1 child)
This argument cannot be correct, as shown by both of these disconnected arguments.
1) He either did or did not do the crime. The trial-by-jury says that he did not do the crime. How could the legal system be punishing him for a crime that he didn't do.
2) Imagine there was an airtight alibi for the man (e.g. he was on TV doing a live interview when the robbery occurred). However, the judge had a personal vendetta against this man and charges him for violating parole. How is that any different than this?
This is quite literally the exact situation (unaccountable lords on high passing judgement against the common man) that had caused the Founding Fathers to include the idea of trial by jury in the Constitution.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Friday May 26 2017, @12:45PM
No, the trial by jury found that there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that he did the crime. I.e. (if they were doing their job) that there was a plausible alternative explanation that hadn't been disproven.
However, he had already been convicted of a previous crime, jailed and released on probation. Revoking that probation and imposing a penalty for breaking it doesn't need "proof beyond any reasonable doubt" or a jury trial - IANAL but "probably cause" or "more likely than not" is probably legally sufficient... and I have a suspicion that, in reality, "no smoke without fire" would do it.
If so, then (barring conspiracy theories) the armed robbery case would probably never have got to court, or would have been laughed out of court before it got to the jury, and even if it had got that far, the judge would have a harder time defending his decision on probation.
No, because its actually about how and when you release people for prison after they have been convicted of a crime, beyond reasonable doubt, by a jury. If this guy hadn't been on probation for a previous conviction, he'd have walked free. Now, maybe this needs fixing: perhaps the probation system is ripe for abuse and, if you're sent to jail for 5 years, you should stay in jail for 5 years - no more, no less - and then walk free unless you were convicted of further crimes by a jury... but that's not the way it works.