I am a criminal defense attorney. I have been watching this show since season 1, and can’t tear myself away from this train wreck. Some random thoughts and no particular order:
Don’t blame Michael’s mother. I get it that she raised him, but how he behaves as an adult is not her fault. I can’t tell you how many times I have sat in the hallway in the courthouse, trying to console sobbing parents who can’t understand what happened, and can’t understand where they went wrong. This is one of the worst aspects of my job, the grieving parents, wife, children, etc., both the offender and the victims. As far as I am concerned, they are all victims. I can think of only one case where it was truly a parent’s fault: and that is a case where dad decided to bring his 16-year-old son along to commit a murder. And now they are both serving life without parole. (The son’s sentence is unconstitutional because he was a juvenile offender, but he hasn’t been resentenced yet).
As far as The Goddess and her potential Sentence, a 20 year sentence is not a murderer’s sentence. In every state where I have looked up the law, first-degree murder is life without parole. In my state, the typical sentence for a second-degree murder is 30 years if there are no priors, and 48-96 years if there are priors. I had a case many years ago, where the offender was sentenced to 350+ Years for the type of check fraud offenses that My Goddess committed. Each bad check can be separately charged as a third class felony, with the presumptive sentence of 4-12 years, and since each check is a separate offense, the judge can run all the sentences consecutively. And then on top of that, since that particular client was an habitual offender, the presumptive sentence was quadrupled. So it adds up quickly. In my state, there are many Offenders serving an effective lifetime sentence who did not commit a violent offense. If she was picked up in a stolen car and was in possession of crystal math, and has priors, she could easily end up with a sentence of 20 years. As far as My Goddess‘s Status upon release, It is correct that parole has been abolished for the federal system, but most federal sentences include a period of time called “supervised release” after the FBOP portion of the sentence — which is for all practical purposes, the same as parole or probation in the state system. Frankly, I am surprised that she was not released to a halfway house, towards the end of her sentence.
Regarding Michael, I have never had a client released on parole who was allowed to drive right away. And every single one of them who got caught driving were revoked. So no surprise there, and a 120 day turnaround is pretty lenient. In my state, Parole is either 1 to 5 years or for the rest of the offender’s life, depending on the level of offense (and the lifetime on parole is for SexOffenders not murderers). What Sarah said about “consensus“ makes sense to me: the parole officer, the parole officer’s supervisor, and maybe even the head of adult parole in that office would have conferenced together regarding what to do with stupid Michael. The fact that he was filming a reality TV show, and probably getting paid in someway to do so, probably did not help his case.
I would be astonished if Michael’s parole officer knew about the TV show. There is just no way that would have been approved. (And WTF did Michael think was going to happen once his parole officer saw the show? Although, it is fairly typical for an offender to not be able plan his life even two weeks into the future. Case in point: Matt)
My Queen seems to live on the Internet so I don’t understand why she doesn’t educate herself about basic facts about parole: Such as the fact that if Michael told her he was allowed to drive, then that was a lie, and he wouldn’t have received an interstate compact agreement to perform his parole out of state unless he was paroling to a family member’s house in that state. At a minimum, she should have asked him, what family member are you going to be living with in New York? Duh.
I agree that Caitlin is a broken young woman who deserves better than Matt. Last season, the Crip from Compton struck me as a frightening person that the incredibly naive Mormon woman should be afraid of. (And for the life of me, I cannot understand why her children’s fathers, or CPS, has not come and taken those children away from her now that she is stuck living in Compton, trapped with no way to get home, in a very dangerous neighborhood where she listens to drive-by shootings every day ). This season, Brittany, Michael, Lizzie and My Goddess are all cons, and I would keep my wallet locked up around them, but do not have a fear that one of them would shoot me in the head. Matt is a different story. Someday, maybe sooner than later, he is going to kill somebody, and he’s going to justify it with he was entitled at the time because he was being disrespected and what was he supposed to do— especially if he has been drinking or smoking crystal meth. Caitlin is seriously at risk of being that person, and I am afraid for her. I will shed no tears for Scott if Lizzie bankrupts him and he ends up living in a shelter for the rest of his life, but I would shed tears for Caitlin. There is no fool like an old fool, and Scott is an old fool. Hopefully he is eligible for Social Security
