Felon in Possession Charges Dropped

If you go looking, you'll find stories like this quite a bit.

A Vancouver man pleaded no contest today in the drug-related death of Shelby N. Howard, a 15-year-old high school student.

Stetzon W. Sharp, 20, did not admit giving the Vancouver teen the fatal dose of ecstasy in May. But he told Clark County Superior Court Judge Roger A. Bennett he thought a jury could find him guilty of controlled substance homicide if the case went to court.

In exchange for his plea, prosecutors dropped charges of second-degree assault-domestic violence and felon in possession of a firearm. Those charges stem from an assault a day earlier on Shelby's sister, who was Sharp's girlfriend.

His sentencing was set for Oct. 24. Sharp faces as long as 10 years in prison, but the standard sentencing range for the crime is 5½ to 8 1/3 years.

Again, a simple question: if the charges that were dropped weren't exactly related to the charge for which he pled guilty... then why drop those charges?

A couple more deals of the day... the first from Texas, where a violent purse-snatcher gets off with probation.

And in Wisconsin, the ringleader of a robbery gang will most likely do just 12 years behind bars for a string of robberies... despite the fact that prosecutors say he's a "is a very serious threat to the community". If he had been convicted of all charges at trial, he could have been put away for 320 years (if sentenced to the max and ordered to serve the terms consecutively). I'm not sure I understand how prosecutors can on one hand call someone a serious threat to the community, yet accept a plea bargan that means he'll do less than half the maximum term for just ONE of the eight counts he was facing.