There were many extenuating circumstances in that case. Prosecutors were convinced that Wilson had date-raped an unconscious girl but couldn’t prove it, so they stuck it to him as best they could. Technically, this was a miscarriage of justice, but I don’t have a lot of sympathy for Wilson. YMMV.
Knew a guy who got major jail time for pot plants growing on his land. Weren’t his plants, but that didn’t matter. Local prosecutor had run on an anti drug platform, and couldn’t find a real drug dealer to bust. Offered the guy a plea bargain if he would name some others, but the guy really didn’t know any drug dealers. He was a freakin farmer, and a blue grass musician. He didn’t even do drugs! He did almost four years.
Tris
Possession of an eagle feather can potentially get you up to a year in jail due to the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.
Yeah, that’s a good one. I wouldn’t necessarily say violating the ESA is all that mild because it has the potential to deprive future generations of entire species. But the Eagle Protection Act is basically like a flag-burning law now. It made some sense when the eagles were actually endangered or threatened or there was a shortage of eagle feathers for ceremonies, but none of those things is even remotely true any more. The only reason why the law persists is because Eagles are our national emblem.
That is one heckuva friend.
I’m more skeptical of taking a picture of your baby in a bathtub resulting in jail time. Child porn laws require the pictures to have some sort of sexual content, I’m pretty doubtful anyone has ever done jail time for simply having a nude pic of their own child in the tub.
I agree generally with mhendo, in terms of what I’d like the law to be. On the other hand, given that MJ is still illegal under Federal law, 100 mature plants is quite a lot! I thought the minimum penalty would be more than that.
Can’t you get six months or more for melting down pennies and nickels?
Probably the mildest “thing” you can get jail time for is failing to show up at a hearing for any charge, meaning that your bail is revoked and you have a warrant issued against you. It would depend on the jurisdiction as to how long that would be and if it would slip into the non-trivial time you’re talking about.
More specifically, in Virginia, for going over 80mph, you qualify for a misdemeanor charge of Reckless Driving, and theoretically, you could get up to 6 months jail time. In reality, jail times don’t kick in until higher speeds, but it is technically possibly, and to many people, I think jail time for going 95mph would seem excessive.
ex gf’s sister got like 6 months for grabbing a cell phone from someone and throwing it. Apparently it meets some kind of bare minimum for some flavor of robbery assault combo (depriving a person of property by force). This was basically just a heated argument that otherwise never went to any kind of physical altercation.
Someone grabs my cell phone and throws it, I’d be at the sentencing hearing bitching that 6 months was too lenient.
For example under the NFA, say you want a short barreled AR-15. So you legally purchase one, as well as the short barrel for it, and pay the apropriate tax stamp. But say you already had another AR-15 that that short barrel will fit on. You must pay an additional tax stamp on first one, even if you never plan so affix the short barrel to it. Otherwise you are now a “Criminal”
Then there is Section 922r of the GCA prevents the assembly of certain rifles that contain more than 10 imported parts. So say you have an otherwise legal Russian SKS, and want to replace the a part. Well if you go over that 10 imported parts, you are now a “Criminal”.
There are many many many many more examples like this, without even getting into the Brady Bill that has since expired, and the various arcane state laws.
Keeping a hummingbird as a pet.
Seriously - it would be a violation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and subject you to six months in prison.
Charlie was right. Bird law in this country is not based on reason.
You can get jail time for littering on the first offense.
What about a sea gull?
LOL. I can’t believe that quote came up in a GQ thread. Nice.
But I must ask, is that really true? For all species of hummingbirds, especially?
The Migratory Bird Act makes it illegal, and the statute makes the punishment “not more then six months in jail”. In reality, I doubt anyone has done time for keeping a single hummingbird as a pet. I’ve seen cases of violations of the MBA where people maliciously kill hundreds of birds and just get a fine and probation.
Which I think is a good general point for this thread. A lot of stuff is theoretically punishable with 6 months, but in reality that penalty is never applied. I think it would be more interesting to limit answers to cases where there’s at least one example of someone doing actual time in jail.
As the poster above notes, the odds of someone going to jail for having a hummingbird as a pet are basically zero, but it’s theoretically possible.
But, as far as I know, the Migratory Bird Act applies to all migratory birds native to North America. That would include all hummingbirds.
Same with crows. A pet crow gets you jail time, but it’s perfectly OK to kill as many as you wish.