Roy Moore: Champion of Unjustly Charged Thieves?

     10 Commandments Monument Judge Roy Moore may have run out of religious oriented cause-célèbre cases to champion.

     He's taken up the cause of an Alabama man sentenced to life for a relatively minor crime...because he had already been convicted of theft three times. Here's the news release from Moore's "Foundation for Moral Law". 

Will he join hands with the liberal SPLC or EJI in fighting the sentencing?  

 

FOUNDATION FILES PETITION FOR HABEAS CORPUS FOR MAN SENTENCED TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT FOR STEALING NAIL GUN!

MONTGOMERY, AL:  Today, the Foundation for Moral Law, an Alabama-based nonprofit dedicated to defense of religious liberty and a strict interpretation of the Constitution as intended by its framers, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of Willie Lee Conner, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for stealing a nail gun.   

 

In 2012, Conner was caught stealing a nail gun from a Lowe’s hardware store in Foley, Alabama. The loss prevention managers confronted him in the parking lot and asked him to come back inside with them, and he complied. Once they were back inside, Conner, in a very unfortunate choice of words, said, “I have a gun,” referring to the nail gun. Believing he was referring to a firearm, the loss prevention managers subdued him, but they found no gun on him except the nail gun. Conner willingly signed a statement admitting to the theft, and he claimed that the gun to which he was referring was the nail gun. However, because he said, “I have a gun,” he was charged with first-degree robbery. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment because he had three prior convictions for theft.

 

Roy Moore, the Foundation’s President Emeritus, said, “Willie Conner has served nearly 8 years for shoplifting a roof nail gun from Lowe’s Home Improvement store in Foley, Alabama. In my opinion, his sentence and conviction for Robbery in the First Degree based upon the fact that he had a nail ‘gun’ was unjust and illegal. We are proud to help him regain his freedom and trust that the Court will agree.”    

 

Matt Clark, an attorney with the Foundation, added, “Because Conner’s sentence is grossly disproportional to the crime, we believe that his sentence violates the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment.”