You would be surprised at what can land you with a felony. Most crimes could fall into that category if you are found with drugs on you at time of arrest.
The problem is punishment vs rehabilitation. The real issue is that we don't consider the prison time served as sufficient penalty and we continue to dog an offender long beyond what is indicated for safety.
Most research shows that non-violent offenders are actually safer than the general public if they manage to stay out of trouble for 5 years past their offense. Those people should get their record cleared at that point.
probably a misdemeanor larceny, but because it was credit card fraud done over the internet, that's felony wire fraud which is a much more serious crime. if it was an interstate transaction it might have even been a federal charge.
This definitely needs much more elaboration. Felonies are reserved for very serious crimes. It should take much more than an unauthorized pizza purchase.
Not true in any real sense. I've seen a State of Texas employee charged with a felony for making a $0.25 personal call from a state telephone back in the early 90's.
The unreal magnitude of criminalization of "normal" behavior in the US is beyond anything most people can imagine.
This is true only in the tautological sense, in which designation of something as "felony" is held to designate it as a "very serious" crime.
Beyond that, no. In fact, this is expressly recognized many places in law, such as California's three-strikes law, where a "strike" is a "violent or serious" felony.
The problem is punishment vs rehabilitation. The real issue is that we don't consider the prison time served as sufficient penalty and we continue to dog an offender long beyond what is indicated for safety.
Most research shows that non-violent offenders are actually safer than the general public if they manage to stay out of trouble for 5 years past their offense. Those people should get their record cleared at that point.