Last I checked, 104 days is less than one-third of a year. He will be in jail for nearly 3 years, and personally that is not even CLOSE to long enough. He should at the very least be in a mental hospital for the rest of his days.
People saying YIKES to 3 years for this don't understand how much those trees are considered hallowed ground at Auburn. They are more than just trees, they represent pride and tradition in the entire athletic program.
Harvey Updyke deserves even longer, easily.
And I hope that he serves every day of his sentence, minus the "time served".
You really think that dbag will only serve 3 months? Riiight. He should be in jail and then institutionalized for the rest of his days....AT LEAST.
My wife's sister and her husband both are AU alumni. Ironically two of their children are UA alumni. Two are stereotype conservative Republicans, one a Liberterian, and one a stereotype "screaming" liberal Democrat. (She can't hold a political conversation without hands on hips and stomping one foot before breaking into tears.)
All four found the poisoning heinous yet all four realize that Alabama has a severe prison overcrowding problem. Alabama DOC facilities are at 190% of capacity. County jails (local government) house prisoners that are supposed to be in state facilities because there is no room in the prison system.
You glibly mention putting Updyke in a mental institution but there's no room there either. And that's an area of more concern to those four people than The Trees. They, we, have a family member that is a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. He can't get in a state facility despite a court order because there is no room there either.
A century ago, he simply would have been hung. Sixty years ago Updyke would have been sent to a work camp (road gang ala Cool Hand Luke) but they don't exist today. We can debate Alabama's penal code, prison system, mental health care system, the taxation system, and economy but regardless, within the term of Updyke's sentence increasing capacity to accommodate him would't be built. Public hearings, legislative action, a bond issue, design and construction would take all of those five years.
Recently California with a lot more tax base than Alabama was ordered by SCOTUS to reduce their prison overcrowding and released some 30,000 felons to comply.
Updyke might not get released at the earliest date but he won't be do three years at Atmore. There are too many more serious threats with priority over him.
