Prison Sentence Lotto

One man runs over and kills a pedestrian while driving drunk in the middle of the night. Another man steals three bikes.

One of these men receives a three year prison sentence. The other, a 30 day jail term.

Children's placemats in restaurants often include simple games in which the child is to match items in one column with something related in a second column. Imagine, if you will, the placemat a particularly demented restaurant could produce in which the crimes listed in one column are matched with the sentences in the other. At our hypothetical CPK (California Penal Kitchen), little Johnny would confidently lay a crayon line between the bike thief and the 30 day stay in the pokey, and from the drunk driver to the three year trip to the Big House.

Little Johnny would be wrong.

The drunk driver, who happens to be a star NFL player (and who also agreed to a financial settlement with the dead man's family), is serving his 30 day sentence now. He has, however, been suspended indefinitely by the NFL.

The bicycle thief, who stole three bikes during this year's Tour of California from Lance Armstrong's team, including one of Lance Armstrong's $10,000 bikes, will soon be sentenced to three years in prison.