Provided below is information from the State Attorney’s Office of the Second Judicial Circuit related to a recent burglary trial involving evidence from a ring camera.
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On January 23, 2023, the victim (C.A.) was at work when he received a notification from his RING security camera app around 11:00 in the morning. Upon opening the app, C.A. was able to watch the recorded footage, which showed a man—later identified as Dalton Jett—running into his garage, grabbing power tools, a pressure washer, and a lawn mower, and putting them into the back of a silver Chevy Silverado pickup truck before fleeing the scene with the stolen items.
Through investigative means, detectives with the Leon County Sheriff’s Office were able to identify the owner of the truck as Jodie Atkins, the mother of Jett’s child. Further investigation revealed Jett had visited a Dollar General in Havana just over an hour after the burglary. Detective Chet Wilson responded to the Dollar General and collected the surveillance footage which showed Jett wearing clothing which matched the clothing worn by the suspect in the RING video footage of the burglary.
Following his arrest, Jett’s phone was seized, and a search warrant was applied for and granted, allowing detectives to extract images, messages, and other information from the phone. The extraction revealed numerous items of evidentiary value; most notable among them were photos of the stolen items which had been captured by the phone’s camera less than an hour after the burglary.
Jett was charged with Burglary of a Dwelling and Grand Theft. Due to the fact he had been released from prison less than a month prior to the burglary, Jett qualified as a Prison Releasee Reoffender on the charge of Burglary of a Dwelling, a second-degree felony.
Prior to trial, the State filed its notice of intent to seek Prison Releasee Reoffender sentencing, and Jett was tried on August 25. Given the overwhelming evidence against him, Jett and his defense team conceded that he was the person depicted in the videos but asked the jury to find him guilty of the lesser-included offense of Burglary of an Unoccupied Structure—a third-degree felony which is not subject to the Prison Releasee Reoffender statute.
After a brief deliberation, the jury returned a verdict finding Jett guilty as charged. Sentencing is set for October 11, at which time the State will present evidence of Jett’s Department of Corrections records and seek a sentence in conformity with the Prison Releasee Reoffender statute.
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As a Prison Release Reoffender, his conviction in a qualifying offense second degree felony case, and Burglary of a Dwelling is a qualifying offense, will result in a mandaory fifteen year sentence. The Judge will not have discretion (in most cases).
Sentence him to California.
I’m all for slapping the maximum charges and penalty on someone that’s out of jail a month and does something like this.
But this is property crime. Nobody was physically hurt or attacked. How about charging similarly for all the misfits that actually hurt someone?
With our local State Attorney’s full push for implementation of the full and total penalty level of justice we can only logically assume this fellow, Jett, to be a man of the cacusiasin pursuasion.
Had Jett been of darker complexion the full extent of our State Attorney’s punishment range would not have been even been put on the table by our State Attorney.
And that Tallahassee/Leon is your State Attorney’s version of being tough on crime.
Now admitangly I might be wrong about this, so if I am feel free to correct me, and I will gladly accept any and all spankings for my wrongness.
Give him 10 to 15 in Prison.