It was the headline on this Lexington Herald-Leader story that caught my eye!

Lexington man gets more prison time for gun possession than he did for reckless homicide

By Jeremy Chisenhall | March 17, 2021 10:38 AM | Updated March 17, 2021 03:20 PM

A Lexington man is set to spend more time in prison for gun possession than he did after pleading guilty to reckless homicide years ago.

Darryl W. Stewart Jr., 32, was sentenced Tuesday to nearly seven years in federal prison for possessing a gun as a convicted felon after admitting that he had one when detectives searched his car on Sept. 3, 2019. In contrast, he was sentenced to a three-year suspended prison sentence when he pleaded guilty to a previous Lexington killing.

Stewart was charged after detectives encountered him on Sept. 3, 2019, while trying to arrest Tavis Chenault, a relative of Stewart’s who had outstanding warrants, according to court records. Chenault was riding in the front passenger seat of a Lexus Stewart was driving, according to court records.

There’s more at the original.

Mr Stewart must ser5ve a minimum of 85% of his sentence before he is eligible for parole, and will have three years of probation following his incarceration. That’s typical enough. But what shouldn’t be typical, what shouldn’t have ever happened, was his lenient sentence, in Kentucky state courts, for the 2013 killing of Jered Taylor in what was described as a narcotics deal which went bad.

Taylor, 26, was shot four times in the upper body, according to police testimony.

Police also found duct tape on Taylor’s pants, his head and on one wrist — indications that he had been bound before he was shot, a detective testified at a hearing for Stewart.

Stewart was originally charged with murder, but the charge was amended down. He entered an Alford plea, meaning that he didn’t admit guilt but acknowledged there was enough evidence to convict him. He was facing a three-year prison sentence, but his prison time was suspended, and he was given five years of probation, according to court records.

The obvious question arises: if Mr Stewart “acknowledged there was enough evidence to convict him,” why did prosecutors let him off so lightly? Four shots to the torso isn’t reckless homicide; it’s murder, and the Lexington Police, prosecutors and judges allowed him to walk free.

A bad guy, one who carried guns, and one who dealt drugs, and he was let off with probation!

Who knows, perhaps the prosecution believed that the evidence was weak enough that Mr Stewart would have been acquitted had the case gone to trial, in which event he would have walked out a free man. But, with the acceptance of the plea agreement, he walked out a free man anyway!

Oh, there were some consequences, but not many:

Stewart’s probation order was modified in 2018, and he was ordered to serve 90 days in custody, minus 19 days credited to him for time served, according to court records.

In February 2019, his probation was completely revoked after he tested positive for cocaine and fentanyl, according to court records. He was ordered to serve his full three-year prison sentence at the state penitentiary, with credit for time served while his case was being heard.

Must’ve been a lot of time already served, I suppose:

Stewart was released from custody just months later on May 1, 2019, according to records from the state Department of Corrections.

Fortunately, Mr Stewart didn’t kill anyone, or at least we don’t know that he killed anyone, since he was let out of the hoosegow. But when he was arrested again, his relative, Tavis Chenault, a known narcotics dealer, and he were traveling with multiple weapons and cell phones, along with $1,642 in cash. A shyster might argue that such is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but we all know what was happening: Messrs Chenault and Stewart were involved in the same ‘business’ Mr Stewart was involved in when he murdered ‘recklessly homicided’ Mr Taylor.

How many crimes did Mr Stewart commit when he was out, when he should have been in prison for murder? We don’t know, but he at the very least bought cocaine and Fentanyl, or he wouldn’t have tested positive for their use. He obtained firearms he was, as a convicted felon, legally barred from having. All of this, because Fayette County prosecutors didn’t do their jobs when it came to the murder reckless homicide of Mr Taylor.

I note that Mr Stewart is going to prison for federal offenses related to gun possession, for crimes committed back when Donald Trump was still President. Perhaps President Biden’s appointment, Carlton S. Shier, IV, as Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky, isn’t quite as soft on crime as one would expect from the ‘Social Justice’ Department, or perhaps he’s just tough on people owning firearms, as the President would like. But at least the Feds in Lexington seem to be doing their jobs more diligently than then-Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Larson, who retired in 2016. The current Commonwealth’s Attorney, Lou Anna Red Corn, was Mr Larson’s first deputy at the time of Mr Stewart’s 2013 murder reckless homicide of Mr Taylor.

The Herald-Leader said, at the time of Mr Larson’s retirement:

In nearly 32 years as chief prosecutor, Larson said he has been guided by three principles: “Every person should be treated fairly and the same under the same facts; every person should be held responsible for their conduct; and every person should suffer consequences for violating our laws.”

At the same time, Larson said, he has tried to keep politics out of the office.

“No prosecutorial decision should ever be based on political motives,” Larson said in a statement. “The safety of the public is one of the primary responsibilities of any government, and we at the Fayette commonwealth’s attorney’s office have endeavored to do all that we could to carry out that responsibility and ensure better treatment of crime victims by our court system.”

That was obviously untrue when it came to Mr Stewart. If “the safety of the public” were truly one of his primary responsibilities, his office and he would never have agreed to a plea deal which let a cold-blooded murderer ‘reckless homicider’ walk out of court a free man. Probation does not keep a cold-blooded murderer ‘reckless homicider’ and drug dealer off the streets, does not keep him from continuing to commit crimes, and Mr Stewart is living proof of that.

Perhaps Mr Larson and Miss Red Corn would have lost in an actual criminal trial of Mr Stewart; no one can be certain how a jury will decide things. But what they got by agreeing to the plea agreement was little better than actually losing in court: Mr Stewart was still out on the streets, when he could have been serving a very long sentence, perhaps even life, in Eddyville.

A true concern for “the safety of the public” means taking every effort to get thugs like Mr Stewart off the streets, and into prison for as long as the law allows. It does not mean being soft on criminals, it does not mean taking the easier way out with plea bargains, and it does not mean letting killers walk out free men if there is any way to prevent it.