Sunday, January 3, 2016

Oops

In light of the current flooding in Missouri, I looked up the 1993 flood on wikipedia, and found this interesting story:
An Illinois man, James Scott, 23 at the time, was officially convicted for "intentionally causing a catastrophe" and sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in causing some of the flooding across the river from Quincy, Illinois. In an attempt to strand his wife on the other side of the river so he could continue partying, Scott removed several sandbags from a levee holding back the water. The breach flooded 14,000 acres (57 km²) of farmland, destroyed buildings, and closed a bridge.
We'll file that under bad ideas.  However, a life sentence (actually 20 years to life) would seem a little extreme, at least in isolation from his previous criminal history

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