Update: The Tom Mistrot Case
November, 1975
In July, we reported the case of Thomas Francis Mistrot, a 28-year-old inmate of the Texas State Penitentiary who has now served seven years of a mandatory life sentence as a habitual criminal. Mistrot's crimes were hardly spectacular--two vending-machine burglaries and a marijuana offense--but they were felonies at the time they were committed. Since then, Texas has revised its criminal code and today two (possibly all three) of Mistrot's crimes would be classed as misdemeanors; but these refor...
