Is Criminal Justice Reform Working?
Twenty Two years of crime Before Real Prison Time
is Given to a Career Criminal
Another fine example of how criminals are going to respond to changing felony offenses to misdemeanors and shortening jail times is our next poster boy for criminal justice reform, Lewis Ernest Crystal, a.k.a.:
- Lewis Crystal,
- Lewis E. Crystal,
- Kool Aid,
- Anthony E. Liggins,
- Shanee E. Liggins,
- Lewis E. Liggons,
- Shawn Murphy,
- Dohlee E. Williams, and
- Hanee Williams.
Crystal's life of crime began in 1992 with an arrest for possession of drugs with intent to distribute and using a firearm in a felony. He was given a total of four years and sent to prison in January of 2013 and released in December of that same year. He was released with three years of probation which would have ended in 1997. Instead Crystal was arrested on Second Degree Rape in 1995, convicted in December of 1995, and sentenced to nine years of prison. While out awaiting trial and conviction Crystal committed other crimes in 1997 which led to a lengthy prosecution, he wasn't sent to prison until February 1999 and that nine year sentence got him released in September of 2002.
That 1997 crime was once again distributing drugs, possession with the intent to distribute which earned him a ten year sentence that got him released in May of 2003. Nineteen years of sentence was served concurrently from April of 1999 to May of 2003 or less than one fourth of the sentence. He was once again released on probation that lasted until 2009.
While on probation he was arrested in 2007 for possession of drugs and again in 2008 for DUI , earning our poster boy an additional 15 years of prison. The DUI term lasted until 2010 and the drug charges lasted till 2012. Not that he was in prison, he was out on parole.
By 2005 Crystal was arrested again on a felony charge of not registering as a sex offender. He plead guilty in March of 2005 and was to spend one year of weekends in jail but by June of that year he had violated his sentence and an arrest warrant was issued. By October of that same year he was back in court and sentenced to three months with time off for working.
By March of 2007 Crystal was arrested again for possession of cocaine base and he pleads not guilty. In May of 2008 he pleads guilty and is sentenced to 20 years in prison suspended except for the first ten years which he is to spend concurrently on another 2008 felony charge. Yes, while awaiting trial and out on bond he committed yet another felony. But by June of 2014 Crystal is back out on the streets and picked up for violating conditions of his suspended sentence. But by September he is back out on bond and arrested again for violating his conditions of release and ordered to spend three months in county jail. By the end of that same month Crystal has failed to appear to serve his jail sentence and another arrest warrant is issued. Crystal comes in, serves his three months with time off for labor and good behavior, and is back out on the streets until March of 2015 when he is arrested once again for failure to comply with his suspended sentence. Crystal is bonded out again and in March of 2016 after failing to appear another arrest warrant is issued.
By May he is released again on house arrest and put on an ankle GPS monitor. By June he has racked up violation reports and is picked up and again released on bond until February of 2017 when once again an arrest warrant is issued for failure to appear in court. By May of 2017 Crystal has been picked up by his bail bondsman and is back in court pleading not guilty to violating his suspended sentence. By February of 2018 Crystal pleads guilty and is sentenced to serve out the remainder of his ten year suspended sentence concurrently with three other felony convictions. This case lasted nearly ten years. Imagine the cost to society for all the arrests, public defender fees, and court costs that have never been paid.
During this ten year process Crystal is arrested in March of 2008 for DUI involving both alcohol and drugs, possession of cocaine in September of 2015, possession of cocaine again in March of 2016 along with DUI, open container, and driving with a suspended license, as well as three other arrests for probable cause during this same time frame, all of which were dismissed by the state as what point is it to prosecute the guy?
In all Crystal racked up fifteen felonies, most of which were committed while out on probation or suspended sentences. In addition to paternity suits brought by the state to recover child care costs Crytal has paid little of the thousands of dollars in fines from all the cases.
Crystal is expected to be out of state prison in about twelve months on a case that has stretched out for ten years or more. Once his first long sentence was given any subsequent crimes were at no cost to him really other than an occasional bail bond. By putting cases off for years Oklahoma County kept him out of jail and prison to keep costs down. Meanwhile the court is clogged with hearing after hearing and chance after chance and failure after failure. Drug courts are used to shuttle the cases out of the D.A.'s hands to make room for new cases by reducing trafficking charges to misdemeanor drug possession.
In the end, there is no truth in prosecution or truth in sentences. The system shuttles criminals back and forth while they continue their life of crime for ten, even twenty years before any real sentence is served.
