Many Contra Costa crooks won't be prosecuted

[billyoc]

Source: San Fransisco Chronicle

(04-21) 16:41 PDT MARTINEZ -- Misdemeanors such as assaults, thefts and burglaries will no longer be prosecuted in Contra Costa County because of budget cuts, the county's top prosecutor said Tuesday.

District Attorney Robert Kochly also said that beginning May 4, his office will no longer prosecute felony drug cases involving smaller amounts of narcotics. That means anyone caught with less than a gram of methamphetamine or cocaine, less than 0.5 grams of heroin and fewer than five pills of ecstasy, OxyContin or Vicodin won't be charged.

People who are suspected of misdemeanor drug crimes, break minor traffic laws, shoplift, trespass or commit misdemeanor vandalism will also be in the clear. Those crimes won't be prosecuted, either.

"We had to make very, very difficult choices, and we had to try to prioritize things. There are no good choices to be made here," said Kochly, a 35-year veteran prosecutor. "It's trying to choose the lesser of certain evils in deciding what we can and cannot do."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/21/BAK9176EGO.DTL

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Assault, theft and burgulary not to be prosecuted?! :rofl:

[valerief]

1. I guess rich people don't live there. nt

[Jackpine Radical]

3. I think if you dare to rip off a rich pig, it's automatically a felony.

They probly don't own anything cheap enough for it to qualify as a misdemeanor if you steal it

[Gormy Cuss]

6. Wrong guess.

Other than a few towns and the city of Richmond it's mostly middle-class to wealthy areas.

It is a county that perpetually cries poor mouth in spite of excessive development of expensive housing and luxury shopping areas.

[rpannier]

9. It's one of the wealthier communities in the state

Black Hawk Development near Alamo is the 2nd wealthiest zip code in the state behind Bel Aire

[damntexdem]

11. They do now, but they won't.

They may have to rename Richmond: Poormond.

[valerief]

12. LOL! nt

[Jackpine Radical]

2. MISDEMEANOR Assault, theft and burglary.

Misdemeanors by definition are petty crime. Not that you're likely to think it's petty if it's your stuff that gets ripped off.

And with any luck, they'll figure out that they can get along perfectly well without all those penny-ante drug busts.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

4. This is a good thing ...........

Maybe this is how it starts on the road to decriminalization of those idiotic drug laws.

I like it. Good .......................

[Gormy Cuss]

10. I agree on the felony drug possession cases.

It's absurd that such small amounts are felonies in the first place.

The misdemeanors like shoplifting are going to get more backlash here because retail drives the county sales tax which funds county services.

[XemaSab]

5. They caught a burglar two doors down from me

She was originally busted for shoplifting, but it turned out she had been burglarizing peoples' homes for years.

If they had originally not investigated the misdemeanor shoplifting, they would not have found out about the residential burglaries.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Yeah, and the cops have missed catching a lot of real criminals

because they were busy hassling some hippie-lookin' guy about a joint.

[CubicleGuy]

8. It's now going to be the Wild West there

If certain crimes aren't going to be prosecuted, then you can darn well bet that people will start to take the law into their own hands.

When a couple of shoplifters get shot attempting to flee the store with their loot, it will be discovered that shoplifting has now potentially become a death penalty type of crime.

They might yet discover the meaning of the phrase, "an armed society is a polite society".