A young man stood before Circuit Judge Tony Mozingo Friday for sentencing inside the Marion County Courthouse. At just 21, it was already his second felony.
“You are like a lot of other young men who think being an outlaw is a really cool thing, you know, and people like that and it’s accepted in our society today. At 21 years old now, do you know what the third time means?” Mozingo asked
“Habitual offender,” the youthful felon replied.
“Habitual offender. Well, at least you’ve learned something. That means day for day a long, long time in your adult life. You’ve just barely started living,” Mozingo said.
That was part of my introduction to being in Mozingo’s courtroom. It was my first time in court while he was presiding, and it’s an interesting experience. Mozingo is clearly in charge and does not take much guff from those standing before him.
But I liked where he was coming from, which seemed to be that the high levels of criminal activity we routinely see in this community and state should not be accepted as normal. We’ve got to do better as a society, and I think tougher sentences play a part in that. All the people I’ve known personally who were involved in drugs and crime committed a vast number of offenses against the law before being caught and even more before ever getting jail time.
“It’s been my experience that the only thing that will help a person see the light of day is time to spend in a cell with a mirror and a book. They go back over how they’ve thrown their life away and where they’re going from there,” Mozingo told the young man in court Friday. “I’m becoming more and more convinced at your age probation and these kind of things just really don’t get people’s attention at a young age.”
I tend to agree with the judge about that, yet our culture seems to be moving in the opposite direction. The high cost of incarceration and the dominance of gangs inside Mississippi’s prisons seem to be driving people toward a more lenient approach to crime. Criminal justice reform has begun to get play even from Republicans like President Trump and Gov. Phil Bryant, many of whom have been of the “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” approach in years past.
That seems to be driven from the public who more and more frequently have relatives locked up, something half of Americans experience today. That seemed to be a factor in a race for the Mississippi Court of Appeals last year. Another tough circuit judge, Jeff Weill of Hinds County, appeared to be the favorite in a conservative, 15-county district that includes Marion County and ran on a platform that included touting in ads “scores of stiff sentences for violent crimes.” He also had financial backing of the state’s Republican establishment, while his opponent, up-and-coming Jackson attorney David McCarty, had support from Democrats in the state plaintiffs’ bar.
Yet Weill got absolutely trounced in the race, with McCarty receiving 66 percent of the vote in a runoff. What happened?
One possibility is public backlash against a tough-on-crime approach. Whatever it was, clearly we’re moving toward more things like probation and house arrest and decriminalization of drug offenses. Perhaps that pendulum swing is needed.
But I think there will be unintended consequences. Promoting drug use in our society, which like it or not removing the criminal penalties does, will not be a net positive. It will lead to further lawlessness and deterioration of the home. And sometimes, as Mozingo says, the only way to get someone’s attention to truly reform them is to give them time behind bars. Not doing so often causes headaches for those of us who don’t routinely break the law.
Charlie Smith is editor and publisher of The Columbian-Progress. Reach him at (601) 736-2611 or csmith@columbianprogress.com.
