Miss. Supreme Court upholds 12-year sentence of man convicted for having cellphone in jail
Are these the new "clean" judges being appointed to drain the swamp? This is a R appointed judge from 2017 who served this ridiculous sentence.
JACKSON, Miss. (WDAM) - The Mississippi Supreme Court affirmed the 12-year sentence of a man convicted for having a cellphone in jail on Thursday.
Willie Nash was originally booked in the Newton County Jail for a misdemeanor charge when he asked a jailer to charge his smartphone.
The jailer confiscated the phone and brought it to the sheriff’s deputy in charge.
According to court documents, Nash originally denied the phone was his. The deputy sheriff unlocked the phone using a code Nash provided and found pictures of Nash and text messages sent that day confirming his location as “in jail.”
A jury convicted Nash of possessing the cellphone in a correctional facility, a felony that carries three to 15 years in prison.
On Aug. 23, 2018, a judge sentenced Nash to 12 years in prison, telling Nash to “consider himself fortunate” for not being charged as a habitual offender based on his prior burglary convictions. Nash was also fined $5,000.
[more in full article]
King concluded his separate written opinion with the following:
“Cases like Nash’s are exactly why prosecutors and judges are given wide discretion. Nash served his time for his previous convictions and stayed out of trouble with the law for many years. He has a wife and three children who rely on him. His crime was victimless, and the facts of the case lend themselves to an interpretation that his crime was accidental and likely caused by a failure in booking procedures. Nash did not do anything nefarious with his phone, and he certainly did not hide his phone from law enforcement. While I do not think this Court can find under the law that the trial court abused its discretion in sentencing, it is a case in which, in my opinion, both the prosecutor and the trial court should have taken a more rehabilitative, rather than punitive, stance.”
https://www.wdam.com/2020/01/11/miss-supreme-court-upholds-year-sentence-man-convicted-having-cellphone-jail/