From Rocky Mountain News:
A man who set firebombs in seven large SUVs last March pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 12 years in prison Wednesday.
Grant Barnes, 24, pleaded guilty to one count of using an incendiary device and one count of second-degree arson.
Barnes, suspected of using the methods of the eco-terrorist group Earth Liberation Front, was arrested March 22 for allegedly setting off or trying to ignite firebombs under the SUVs over four days from March 18 to March 21. The targeted cars were parked in the Cherry Creek and Lowry neighborhoods.
When Barnes was arrested, police found a box of seven of the devices in the back of his car.
Police said they are replicas of bombs shown on ELF’s Web site. Someone wrote the letters ELF on a Hummer H2 hours after one of the firebombs went off.
Setting aside the interesting note about “using the methods of the eco-terrorist group,” what struck me here is how clearly arbitrary sentencing can be.
- Barnes gets 12 years for 7 SUVs.
- Free Luers gets 22 years for 3 SUVs.
- Operation Backfire defendants like Stan Meyerhoff and Kevin Tubbs get about 13 years, including the “terrorism enhancement,” for planning and carrying out more destructive arsons.
And that’s only looking at a small sample of similar crimes, not including the SHAC 7, serving 1-6 years, for running a controversial website. And not including how Scooter Libby’s 30-month sentence was commuted by President Bush.
Scooter didn’t bomb any SUVs, but he lied to the feds, and a grand jury, in the investigation of who leaked the name of a CIA agent whose husband happened to be an outspoken critic of the campaign to wage a war on Iraq (putting her in serious risk). To most people, that’s a true national security concern, and more serious that destroying an SUV. If you’ve got friends in high places, though, it’s not a crime at all.