A 32-year-old man with a long rap-sheet and clear problems with authority, and following the law, got a reprieve from a liberal Superior Court judge who could have given him a 40-year "three strikes" sentence under state law. As Matier & Ross tell us, noting that the judge in the case, Gerardo Sandoval, is a former public defender who "once made national news by advocating that the U.S. disband its military," convicted felon Ronnie Lee Moody will only be getting 11 years and 8 months for a February spree in which he fled from police in a stolen Mercedes-Benz, smashed into four cars in SoMa in the course of a wild chase including one in which Assemblyman Tom Ammiano was traveling, resulting in some whiplash and bruises. Additionally, when police finally wrestled Moody out of the car, he "grabbed the grip of the cop’s gun and tried to yank it out of the holster."
Seeing as he didn't succeed in killing the arresting officer, even though the cop testified at sentencing that he believed Moody absolutely would have, Judge Sandoval essentially agreed with the public defender's office, which recommended 10 to 16 years, the idea being that "being a jerk 'doesn’t get you life in prison.'”
But this guy sounds like kind of a maniac! And that's pretty much what M&R are arguing, since rehabilitation, which Ammiano says the guy deserved, has worked the three other times he's been in prison once in 2002 for stalking, once in 2005 for assault on two police officers, and yet again in 2012 for a domestic violence incident.
Oh and also he called a different judge a "fat piece of shit," to his face in court, and when that officer testified that he thought Moody would have killed him, Moody shouted, "I wish I would have blew your motherfuckin brains out."
So yeah, he's a charmer. Assuming there's no good behavior, we'll see how he turns out in 12 years.
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