OPINION — Anyone who has spent time in criminal court knows this: One of the characteristics of lawbreakers is a poorly developed sense of cause and effect.
At the low end, the folly of the defendants is always on display. The young man who takes a gun with him on a night of drinking. He has increased his chances that he might use it and spend the rest of the useful years of his life in prison.
The shoplifter who keeps at it despite past convictions faces undetermined years behind bars. The burglar who robs a house and, while there, calls home on a cellphone, which will ping off the nearest cell tower, negating any alibi. The murderer who posts on social media.
