21–30 of 41 posts
"Veterans of even 20 years in the federal prison system could not recall anyone being bailed in mid-sentence like this, and particularly not on the heels of unanimous Supreme and Circuit Appeals Court decisions." The justice system evidently works in mysterious ways for rich, connected neoconservatives. Conrad Black's fraud was blatant, he hid and destroyed evidence of it, and has shown no remorse. After siphoning mo…
A couple great quotes: "I had seen at close range the injustice of sentences one hundred times more severe for crack cocaine than for powder cocaine, a straight act of discrimination against African-Americans, that even the first black president and attorney general have only ameliorated with tepid support for a measure, still being debated, to reduce the disparity of sentence from 100 to one to 18 to one." I'm hones…
It's all banalities. Standard lefty talking points. And of course, it's a lie. "100 to 1"? http://politics.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2007/10/01... In 2006, crack cocaine sentences were 43.5 percent longer than powder cocaine sentences; the average length of imprisonment for powder cocaine offenders was 84.7 months, while crack cocaine-related imprisonments averaged 121.5 months.
There is a disease in American politics of attacking the position for potentially being consonant with a particular ideology. Call it the ad ideologicem fallacy.
Like, if this statement could be said by a left-winger, it must not be true, even if it's made by someone with actual experience or data.
Maybe his 100 to 1 statement is factually wrong, or perhaps that was just hyperbole. The main issue is that there's any disparity at all between drug sentences.
"Veterans of even 20 years in the federal prison system could not recall anyone being bailed in mid-sentence like this, and particularly not on the heels of unanimous Supreme and Circuit Appeals Court decisions." The justice system evidently works in mysterious ways for rich, connected neoconservatives. Conrad Black's fraud was blatant, he hid and destroyed evidence of it, and has shown no remorse. After siphoning mo…
Evidence, please?
"I have learned more of the fallibility of American justice, which does convict many people, who, like me, would never dream of committing a crime in a thousand years." It is amazing the number of people who commit white collar crime [1] make the claim that they would not dream of committing crime. White collar crime is as inexcusable as any other. [1] obstruction of justice and honest services fraud in this instance…
"Veterans of even 20 years in the federal prison system could not recall anyone being bailed in mid-sentence like this, and particularly not on the heels of unanimous Supreme and Circuit Appeals Court decisions." The justice system evidently works in mysterious ways for rich, connected neoconservatives. Conrad Black's fraud was blatant, he hid and destroyed evidence of it, and has shown no remorse. After siphoning mo…
A couple great quotes: "I had seen at close range the injustice of sentences one hundred times more severe for crack cocaine than for powder cocaine, a straight act of discrimination against African-Americans, that even the first black president and attorney general have only ameliorated with tepid support for a measure, still being debated, to reduce the disparity of sentence from 100 to one to 18 to one." I'm hones…
It's all banalities. Standard lefty talking points. And of course, it's a lie. "100 to 1"? http://politics.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2007/10/01... In 2006, crack cocaine sentences were 43.5 percent longer than powder cocaine sentences; the average length of imprisonment for powder cocaine offenders was 84.7 months, while crack cocaine-related imprisonments averaged 121.5 months.
See http://www.drugpolicy.org/drugwar/mandatorymin/crackpowder.c... for more.
I've followed this case over the years and it's completely in character to see that he has no remorse whatsoever. He had been draining funds from his company, Hollinger International, into his own pockets for years. Shareholder pressure forced an investigation by the board, upon which he resigned, and was subsequently convicted for securities fraud. And of course he now describes himself as one of the "people, who, l…
Somewhere in his mind he sincerely believes that by speaking on the behalf of these people he is making a form of penance.
I feel sad for him.
A couple great quotes: "I had seen at close range the injustice of sentences one hundred times more severe for crack cocaine than for powder cocaine, a straight act of discrimination against African-Americans, that even the first black president and attorney general have only ameliorated with tepid support for a measure, still being debated, to reduce the disparity of sentence from 100 to one to 18 to one." I'm hones…
It's all banalities. Standard lefty talking points. And of course, it's a lie. "100 to 1"? http://politics.usnews.com/news/national/articles/2007/10/01... In 2006, crack cocaine sentences were 43.5 percent longer than powder cocaine sentences; the average length of imprisonment for powder cocaine offenders was 84.7 months, while crack cocaine-related imprisonments averaged 121.5 months.
Seriously, Black is a super-right wing nut job. Please, check your own facts before making outright ludicrous claims as calling him a lefty. Seriously, I hope Canada doesn't take him back because we've already got enough right-wing fraudsters running our country, we don't need another one to come back and help bolster their ranks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed, as the above mentioned, he founded the Post. Followers of the story (largely, Canada and UK) have seen quite a drama over the last few years. It's helpful to understand he is, in fact, a British Lord - after renouncing Canadian citizenship under a Prime Minister blocking the appointment due to a personal vendetta - and was convicted of defrauding shareholders under a law recently deemed by SCOTUS as open-ende…
It's worth pointing out that Black sued the Government of the day over blocking his peerage (Black v. Chretien) and lost. So while he may say that it was a personal vendetta that caused him to renounce his citizenship, it's not like he didn't have a recourse to due process. As for his conviction, it was both for honest-services fraud (which SCOTUS is in the process of unravelling), as well as for obstruction of justi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Prosecutors win over 99% (99.2% in 2007 [1]) cases in Russia. [1]: http://www.forbesrussia.ru/forbes/issue/2008-11/7199-nevinov...
It's not much of an argument in favor of the status quo to say it could have been worse. The North Korean regime has a worse censorship record than China, but that doesn't make the situation in China any less troubling.
In a perfect world, a prosecutor only brings a case if they have enough evidence to have a reasonable expectation of winning. I honestly don't know if 90% is a problem, but the natural knee-jerk "fair" outcome of 50% would actually mean that half the time, a prosecutor is bringing a case that they shouldn't have. That sounds like an awfully high rate of false charges to me.
90% doesn't sound so wrong to me, and I don't think that's where the problem lies. The problem is the breadth and variety of ways in which the prosecutor can bring a successful case against you.
(This is important because if we're going to push for reform, we want to push for the right things, not just kneejerk that everything is wrong every time we see a statistic.)