Well, the first Capitol rioter was sentenced Monday after being charged with a felony for his role in the Jan. 6th insurrection, and people are not happy with how brief his prison term looks to be.
Paul Allard Hodgkins was the Florida native who breached the U.S. Senate chamber carrying a Trump flag earlier this year. While he wasn’t one of the main instigators of the MAGA assault, he is one of the hundreds of rioters who’ve been charged with lesser crimes related to that fateful day. Hodgkins cut a deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty to one count of obstructing an official proceeding — a crime that carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence — in exchange for a few lesser charges being dropped. Prosecutors asked that Hodgkins be sentenced to 18 months behind bars, but a judge ruled that while he played a role in the assault that would leave a “stain on the country for years to come,” that offense only warranted an eight-month prison sentence.
That’s right. A man who boarded a bus from Florida equipped with rope and latex gloves and took selfies with the QAnon Shaman after the mob he was part of vandalized a government building and began hunting down the lawmakers who worked there is only getting eight months behind bars.
Twitter is, in two words, not impressed.
An insurrectionist who attacked our US Capitol in an effort to overthrow the government was sentenced to 8 months in prison.
Texas woman Crystal Mason was sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting whilst unknowingly ineligible.
I KNOW YOU SEE IT.
— Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) July 19, 2021
Only 8 months………… pic.twitter.com/IdmHGv0v6h
— Harry Dunn (@libradunn) July 19, 2021
Call me crazy but it seems like you should get a little more than 8 months in jail for trying to overthrow the government.
A lot of people out there got more than that for smoking a joint.
— Catherynne M. Valente (@catvalente) July 19, 2021
https://twitter.com/mayhtx/status/1417158708438634498
(Via Associated Press)