multiple felonies = life sentence?

by James
(Minneapolis, MN)

I had a very bad year in 1993. I lost my job, my pregnant girlfriend gave me the boot, and I was homeless and unemployed at the age of 18.

I made some bad choices and ended up with multiple felony charges and a boat load of misdemeanors. Being poor I obviously couldn't afford an attorney and got a court appointed attorney who advised me to take a terrible, terrible plea deal that left me with 4 felonies for theft and forgery.

Not understanding how adversely these felonies would affect me, I took the deal. Now 20 years later I am still being judged by those few moments of my life. I couldn't even get a job at a soybean processing plant because of it!

What was I going to do? Steal a rail car full of soybeans somehow? Yet most if not all of the hedge fund managers, corporate bankers and other con artists on Wall Street who caused the collapse of a nations economy are still working in these cushy high paying jobs making millions every year, but they don't want me to deliver the goods to the store for them to purchase because I was homeless, freezing and starving and made a couple of bad decisions to keep myself alive 20 years ago?

Funny how that works. All I ask for is a chance to make a living for a change instead of surviving.