Wednesday, December 4, 2002
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Wednesday, December 4, 2002 |
| Wrong place,
wrong time, wrong excuse? Man gets year in jail for expired tag charge
By JOHN MUNFORD
As moving violations go, driving with an expired tag is more likely to net you a fine from the court than jail time. But for Clinton Keyton of Riverdale, the infraction netted the maximum penalty: a 12-month jail sentence from Fayette County State Court Judge Fletcher Sams. And while Keyton's family has argued the sentence was too harsh, Sams' ruling was upheld by the Georgia Court of Appeals. "To receive such a sentence on the facts of this case would not be unusual," said State Court Solicitor Steve Harris, noting that driving with an expired tag is a relatively minor traffic offense. Keyton, 22, was originally pulled over by a Fayette County sheriff's deputy for the tag violation on Kenwood Road near Ga. Highway 314 at 1:45 a.m. Oct. 21 of last year. After the vehicle was impounded, deputies found Keyton had a wig in the vehicle with a ski mask and box cutter underneath the seat. He was also wearing a second layer of clothes under a dark jogging shirt and jogging pants, and his passenger Marcus Franklin was also wearing a second layer of clothes. Keyton claimed the wig was for Halloween, which wasn't for 10 days, and that the ski mask was issued to him during a job at a cold storage facility (the appeals court noted Keyton held that job for just three weeks approximately six months prior to the arrest). That evidence was taken into account by Sams during the sentencing phase even though the prowling charge had to be dropped against Keyton due to a technicality and he pled guilty to the expired tag charge. The appeals court noted that at the time of the arrest, Keyton was on probation for armed robbery and Franklin was awaiting trial on a similar charge. Keyton and Franklin originally told deputies that they were lost in the area while looking for the home of a girl they met over the Internet. While they didn't have written directions, they claimed they had memorized them. A deputy even drove the pair around in an effort to locate the girl's home to no avail, Harris said. Franklin's appeal of his conviction was also recently denied by the Georgia Court of Appeals. After the conviction, Judge Sams granted Keyton bond while the case was appealed, but Keyton was required to wear an electronic monitoring device until the appeal was resolved. During that bond hearing in February, Sams noted that the sentence "on its face would appear inappropriate" but he felt compelled "to look at all the mitigating and aggravating factors in the case." "The court believed at the time at the trial and believes now that Mr. Keyton and Mr. Franklin were actually both prowling at the time and, furthermore, believes that they were prowling with intent to commit a felony in the area," Sams said. "Therefore, I still think it is an appropriate sentence in the case." The appeals court agreed, saying the evidence from the prowling charge still applied to the expired tag charge on Keyton because the offenses were related by occurring at the same time. "The trial court clearly found aggravating circumstances sufficient to justify imposing the maximum sentence," wrote appeals court judge Frank M. Eldridge, who noted the sentence was "within statutorily permissible bounds."
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