Come Back When You Can Act More Mature

The young man who joined a team of Puerto Rican nationalists to hijack a plane to Cuba in 1968 never got arrested before that, never got arrested since that, voluntarily returned to the United States and turned himself in, and is now an old man who is going to jail probably for the rest of his life.

Am I soft on crime if I have an issue with that?

Luis Armando Pena Soltren said he did what he did when he was 25 because of “lack of experience, lack of patience and lack of maturity." He's 67 now, and headed to the pokey for 15 years, meaning until he's 82. Hopefully, the federal judge who sentenced him must think, he'll be more mature in his 80s.

Soltren had not asked to get off without prison time for his crime, only that he serve no more than four years because of his age, his voluntary surrender and clean record. 

This situation shouts out for a presidential pardon, but only a conservative Republican president could politically manage such a pardon.  But if I'm counsel to Mr. Soltren, or a family member, I'd reach out to columnists all over the nation to press a conversation about whether a 67-year-old should get 15 years in jail for something he did when he was 25 in which no one was injured.  I'm surprised this one hasn't percolated into opinion pieces, but it's only a two-day-old story.