On Sunday, Bill Crain will celebrate his 75th birthday. Ten days later – at 9 a.m. on Jan. 2 – he plans to show up at the Sussex County jail in Newton to begin serving a 20-day sentence.

His crime?

Crain walked across a road.

As Congress and the White House hash out details of legislation to dramatically reform the federal system of sentencing criminals to prison, it’s worth considering the question of why New Jersey is sending a 75-year-old man to jail for such a silly reason.

Crain teaches psychology at City College in Manhattan. He also writes books, mostly on child behavior. He lived nearly two decades in Teaneck, where he served on the township school board in the 1990s and was known as a man with a conscience and as an activist who was unafraid to speak up on controversial issues. He has since moved to a farm in Poughquag, New York, where he and his wife, Ellen, a physician, run a sanctuary for elderly and unwanted farm animals that would otherwise be slaughtered.

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What got Crain in trouble in Sussex County is partially linked to his sanctuary work with farm animals. He regularly shows up in Sussex County to protest bear hunts.

On Oct. 8 – Columbus Day – Crain drove to Fredon Township. It was the first day of New Jersey’s bear hunting season. For a week, hunters with bows and arrows could kill bears. Later in the fall, gun-toting hunters could take to the woods in search of bears.

Crain gathered with other protesters on one side of the Fredon-Springdale Road. Across the asphalt stood a cluster of New Jersey State Troopers and several officers from the state Division of Fish and Wildlife. Beyond them was a check station at the Whittingham Wildlife Management Area where hunters brought their freshly-killed bears to be weighed.

The protesters chanted slogans and held placards. The hunters tried to ignore them.

Then Crain walked into the Fredon-Springdale Road. This was a no-no.

The troopers and wildlife officers told the protesters to stay across the road. Even though the Fredon-Springdale Road is a public thoroughfare where ordinary pedestrians or joggers could presumably venture without any problems from police, the officers decided that any protester who stepped on the asphalt would be charged with “obstructing a government function” and “violating” Fish and Wildlife regulations.

Crain stood in the middle of the road. The officers told him to get back to the gaggle of protesters. Crain refused. The officers reached for their handcuffs.

It was the ninth time Crain has been arrested since 2005 for protesting bear hunts. Three other protesters -- Lauren Mallon, 28, of Lodi, along with Catherine McCartney, 50, and Danielle Varon, 51, both of Vernon -- were also arrested for refusing to get off the road.

But if you think the arrests were overkill, things definitely escalated at the hearing in Andover Municipal Court on Nov. 20 – the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and the 75th birthday of Bill Crain’s wife, Ellen.

As was his custom in previous arrests, Crain pleaded guilty. His strategy, he explained in an interview, is not to contest the charges but to claim that he deliberately violated the law – in this case crossing the road – as an act of non-violent, civil disobedience to draw attention to the plight of the bears. As you might expect, Crain admires the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandi. They also crossed a few roads in their time.

But this is where things escalated.

"You come here time and time again,"Judge James G. Devine announced, his voice laced with frustration as he accepted Crain's guilty plea. "As the state indicated, there has to be other ways to speak without violating the laws."

"We are trying to save the bears," Crain told the the judge. "And we are trying to do it in the most peaceful way possible. Peaceful protest is protected by the U.S. Constitution."

Because he had been arrested before – and had served short jail stints the last two years – Crain knew he was facing a maximum sentence of six months in the county jail. Officially, he was classified as a repeat offender.

Municipal Prosecutor Anthony M. Arbore was not in a merciful mood. He asked Judge Devine for a sentence close to the maximum of six months. Arbore cited Crain’s previous arrests as well as a need to deter future protesters -- and possible violence.

"When protests are conducted outside the perimeters of the law, it is, by definition, lawless conduct," Arbore said. "Lawless conduct in a civilized society that is perpetuated, year after year, by more and more participants, without question, results in chaos, and in certain degrees, levels of anarchy and potential catastrophe."

Now stop for a moment and consider this prosecutor's prediction. Chaos? Anarchy? A potential catastrophe? Keep in mind that Crain’s “crime” was that chaotic, anarchic and catastrophic act of walking across a road.

But Arbore was not through.

"It's a situation where it's moving closer to violence," Arbore told the judge. As evidence, Arbore cited the fact that one of the protesters arrested with Crain reportedly sat down on the road to block a hunter from leaving the check station.

In the end, Judge Devine, citing Crain's deliberate attempt to stage a peaceful protest, rejected the notion of a six-month jail term for Crain and gave him a 20-day stint.

"I'm hoping I'm wrong, but I will make a prediction that you will see this matter next year," Arbore concluded.

Oh my. Should we call out the National Guard?

This year’s bear hunt did not have to take place. Gov. Phil Murphy pledged to end the bear hunts – and he did, sort of. Murphy banned hunting only on state-owned land. Hunters were still free to roam across private property with permission from the owners and on federal land.

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Several environmentalists suggested that Murphy should simply pardon Crain and move on. Such a move would make sense. Putting a deliberately non-violent, 75-year-old college professor behind bars for 20 days seems like a waste of time and money. Crain may be a “repeat offender,” but his crime isn’t exactly aggravated assault, bank robbery or drunk driving. Crain is also a vegan. Jail menus don't always look kindly on vegans.

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Anyway, Crain said he would turn down a pardon from the governor. “I don’t want a pardon because going to jail is my way of demonstrating how seriously I take the killing of the bears,” he said.

So there it stands.

During his time in jail, Crain is hoping to read Henry David Thoreau’s journals about nature, Albert Einstein’s autobiography and other books by Jane Goodall, Charlotte Bronte and Rachel Carson – all in preparation for a book he is writing.

But jail, he says, is “hard.” Crain is forced to wear a gray jumpsuit. And jail cells in January tend to be cold and damp. Crain knows that well. Last January, he spent nearly two weeks in the Sussex County jail.

Nonetheless, Crain said he will try to bolster himself by remembering the plight of the bears. And as he spoke about his love of bears, Crain remembered his own up-close-and-personal encounter with a bear at his farm.

Crain happened to be walking from the farm’s main house to a small cottage and saw a bear trying to reach for a bird feeder. Crain thought that the bear seemed to be older. It had only three legs and what seemed to be many other wounds.

"A hunter shot off one of his legs," Crain later learned.

Crain walked up to the bear and said: "I think you should leave."

The bear turned and slowly shuffled into the woods.

Weeks later, Crain heard that a hunter killed the bear.

“Every bear, like one of us, is an individual and wants to live,” Crain said. "Mothers have seen their cubs killed. Cubs have seen their mothers killed. If you look at it the way I do, to me it’s a murder."

Sending a man like this to jail is a crime.

Email: kellym@northjersey.com