park vehicles under The door was unlocked But Bryant did not have permission to enter Charles Ray the homeowner saw Bryant in the carport He called the Shreveport Police Department He said the thief fled in a van Officer Joseph Dews was about six blocks away He saw a van that matched the description Ray gave Dews stopped the vehicle Bryant was driving it Dews searched the vehicle He found a pair of hedge clippers Bryant explained that he had run out of gas He admitted to entering Ray’s storeroom But he said he did not take the clippers Bryant’s cousin later told authorities that they belonged to him But Ray said the garden tool was his Six months later a jury convicted Bryant of attempted simple burglary Bryant had previously served ten years of hard labor for armed robbery It was his only violent crime But because of his past he received a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison for stealing the hedge clippers Bryant filed 6
an appeal He said that the sentence was excessive But the judge upheld the verdict More than 20 years later Bryant was still in prison for the crime In August 2020 the case reached the Louisiana Supreme Court But the court denied Bryant’s request to review the case The state had a habitual increases penalties the more crimes someone PERSPECTIVES THE COST OF LONG SENTENCES Excessive punishments do not only affect the person convicted They are also expensive for the community Chief Justice Bernette J Johnson of the Louisiana Supreme Court pointed out how much money the state of Louisiana could spend to keep Bryant in prison for life By 2020 he had already spent almost 23 years in prison If he lives another 20 years she wrote Louisiana taxpayers will have paid almost one million dollars to punish Mr Bryant for his failed effort to steal a set of offender law This law hedge clippers commits Repeat offenders can receive life sentences even for petty crimes Petty crimes are minor crimes 7
They include stealing things of little value The majority of the Louisiana Supreme Court justices saw no reason to take another look at Bryant’s case OFFENDERS TREATED DIFFERENTLY Bernette J Johnson was the first Black justice on the Louisiana Supreme Court She was also the only justice who supported a review of Bryant’s case She wrote her THE BLACK MAJORITY Habitual offender laws affect Black defendants more than those of any other race Almost 80 percent of the people serving habitual offender sentences in Louisiana are Black But Black people make up just 32 8 percent of the state’s population The law is much more likely to affect Black people opinion about Bryant’s situation She said the laws that led to Bryant’s punishment were linked to slavery and racism The Civil War 1861 1865 ended slavery in the United States In the years that followed many The Louisiana Supreme Court building is in New Orleans 8
