[6/3/04]It was a Thanksgiving night Charles Redditt was grateful just to survive.

Now, 9 1/2 years after that night and 3 1/2 years after Timothy Caples was released from prison, Redditt is still upset about the punishment given to the man who shot him in the chest.

“It’s a problem within the system,” Redditt said. “This shows what is being done and what isn’t.”

Caples wounded four people on the evening of Nov. 24, 1994. He was arguing with John Parks III outside Scott’s Place on Sherman Avenue when tempers escalated and Caples went to his car and retrieved a gun. He fired at five people, hitting four. In addition to wounding Redditt, Caples shot Parks in the leg, Renita Johnson Blue in the shoulder and Gloria Kline in the foot.

On March 17, 1995, Caples was convicted of four counts of aggravated assault three were deemed to be with extreme indifference and sentenced to 15 years.

Caples was paroled Oct. 26, 2000, and lived in Yazoo City through July 5, 2001, about 6 1/2 years after his initial arrested.

Although he served the time required under state law at the time he was sentenced, had Caples been sentenced four months later, he would have had to serve more than 12 years before becoming eligible for earned release.

Under Mississippi law at the time he was convicted, Caples was required to serve 25 percent of his sentence before becoming eligible for parole. Once an inmate had served half of the sentence, he received flat time and was released.

In addition, prisoners could cut off six more months of their incarceration time automatically and could earn more time off with good behavior and doing extra work in the penitentiary.

The state law changed July 1, 1995, to require prisoners to serve 85 percent of their sentence before becoming eligible for earned release. The Mississippi Legislature passed a bill at the end of the 2004 session allowing non-violent inmates to work time off their sentences.

Redditt said Caples’ six years behind bars show what is wrong with sentence length.

“Compare the time to people who sold drugs,” Redditt said. “It shows the value of a person’s life. Someone can go to jail longer for having a kilo(gram) of cocaine than someone who tried to kill four people.”

Under current statues, if a person is convicted of possessing two to 10 grams of cocaine, the convict would be sentenced to four to 16 years in prison. The punishment for possessing more than 30 grams is 10 to 30 years.

Redditt, who said he still talks to Parks, said he was also worried about the possibility of retribution after Caples was released. He wanted to be notified when the day came. He wasn’t.

Tara Frazier, the director of victim services for the Mississippi Department of Corrections, said any victim of a crime, no matter the offense, can register with the Department of Corrections to receive notification 15 days before a prisoner’s release. Redditt said he did not know about the process and did not file the necessary paperwork.

Redditt said Caples lives in Yazoo City. But attempts to contact Caples were unsuccessful.

Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace was an investigator for the department when Caples was arrested.

He said law enforcement officers don’t have much influence after they gather facts for the district attorney to make a case.

“The time an inmate spends in prison is directly the result of the statue passed by the state Legislature,” Pace said. “It is unfortunate that at this period of time the percentage of time of sentences served was not as much as it is today.”

The Legislature has tinkered with sentencing laws several times since, making sentences more complex and creating loopholes for shorter periods of time spent inside prisons, Assistant District Attorney John Bullard said.

Redditt complained he was mislead about the length of sentence by the district attorney’s office, but Bullard, who prosecuted the case, said he couldn’t do much more.

He said Caples received a sentence of 15 years because he pleaded guilty to the charges as a first-time offender.

Bullard said part of the problem is the ever-changing policies set for the Department of Corrections by the Legislature.

“I don’t have any control over how much time they actually serve,” he said. “He got 15 years, but how much he actually serves is up to the Department of Corrections.”