Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation • Hacker News Board

Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation

#151

Post by abiox » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 12:35 AM UTC

bobthechef wrote: post #83

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also 'fairness' in law - so you have to serve a sentence similar to others guilty of the same offense. And yes in this strawman case your sentence should perhaps not be a long one. Except the sociopath angle - a person who commits crime for fun is quite likely to find another fun crime to commit.

Retribution is inherent to punishment and by extension justice. It simply makes no sense to claim otherwise. Mercy makes no sense unless we accept that. A judge cannot show leniency or mercy unless it is, first, acknowledged that the criminal deserves something commensurate with the crime, and second, there is a real, deserved possibility (at least in principle, even if never realized) of receiving one's just deserts…

in your description, what is the actual distinction between "retribution" and "deterrence"?

Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation

#152

Post by SilasX » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 12:50 AM UTC

abiox wrote: post #150

SilasX wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I can understand arguments for "you shouldn't lose the vote in that case", but that's a separate issue from "given that her vote wasn't valid, she was disenfranchising someone". And "no franchise" does not imply "not human", unless you're saying that every country should allow foreigners to vote in their election or else they're deeming them non-human.

this seems to be devolving to word games. your use of the word "hurt" appears to be quite distinct from how "hurt" seemed to be used by the op.

It's not a word game; it's progressed into forcing the OP into clarifying why disenfranchisement can be such an atrocity but not "hurting" in any relevant sense, or (if I understand you) why all non-physical crimes should have some really low cap on punishment. Seems like progress to me, and unlike a word game.

Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation

#153

Post by mnm1 » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 1:47 AM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #61

ifdefdebug wrote: post #31

How does such an attorney and judge feel after such a trial? Do they feel satisfied, fulfilled? Taking away 5 years of someone's life over a little mistake that didn't hurt anyone? I don't get it: why does a free people like the Americans allow for that kind of sinister figures to be their prosecutors and judges?

>How does such an attorney and judge feel after such a trial? They feel ecstatic. They won. The good guys won again, yay! You have a 10oz pot brownie (with a very small amount of mj in it), that's distribution amounts, 30 years in jail for you. Yay! The good guys won again. * I see I have downvoters... Maybe you don't believe me? I've been working around both the prosecution and defense for around 20 years now, have…

For me, it's impossible to respect these professions (prosecutor, police, and to a major extent, judges) or any of the people in it. They throw around words like "justice" and "fair" without having a single clue as to what they mean. Maybe one day, they'll be the ones on the other side of the bars for the cruelty and harm they've caused to society. This kind of simple minded "good vs. bad" thinking or "I'm just doing my job" thinking has no place in any legal system and certainly not in any justice system. [Insert comparison to Nazis "just doing their job" here because after all, we have a few million people locked up, most of them for no reason.]

Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation

#154

Post by daveFNbuck » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 2:03 AM UTC

pulisse wrote: post #106

daveFNbuck wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that what this woman did shouldn't be voter fraud, community service isn't sufficient deterrent for actual voter fraud. People put in lots of volunteer hours to help get their preferred candidate elected, so they'd probably be willing to risk community service too. Voter fraud is very dangerous to society, as society depends on our trust in institutions.

In-person voter fraud is vanishingly rare (0.0003 percent to 0.0025 percent, according to a recent meta-analysis[1]). A severe penalty in this sort of case serves no meaningful deterrent function. [1] https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter-fraud...

Are you saying that the rarity of voter fraud is evidence that current deterrent measures don't work?

Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation

#155

Post by manicdee » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 2:44 AM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #61

ifdefdebug wrote: post #31

How does such an attorney and judge feel after such a trial? Do they feel satisfied, fulfilled? Taking away 5 years of someone's life over a little mistake that didn't hurt anyone? I don't get it: why does a free people like the Americans allow for that kind of sinister figures to be their prosecutors and judges?

>How does such an attorney and judge feel after such a trial? They feel ecstatic. They won. The good guys won again, yay! You have a 10oz pot brownie (with a very small amount of mj in it), that's distribution amounts, 30 years in jail for you. Yay! The good guys won again. * I see I have downvoters... Maybe you don't believe me? I've been working around both the prosecution and defense for around 20 years now, have…

In the meantime a (white) woman in a different district was given a stern talking to for deliberately voting on behalf of her dead mother.

She was contrite and acknowledged the severity of her crime, we got her sentence reduced! Good guy wins again!

Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation

#156

Post by pulisse » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 12:49 PM UTC

daveFNbuck wrote: post #154

pulisse wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In-person voter fraud is vanishingly rare (0.0003 percent to 0.0025 percent, according to a recent meta-analysis[1]). A severe penalty in this sort of case serves no meaningful deterrent function. [1] https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/debunking-voter-fraud...

Are you saying that the rarity of voter fraud is evidence that current deterrent measures don't work?

I'm saying that rarity of voter fraud means deterrent measures like this are unnecessary. It's a solution in search of a problem.

Re: Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation

#157

Post by daveFNbuck » Sat, Mar 31, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

pulisse wrote: post #156

daveFNbuck wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that the rarity of voter fraud is evidence that current deterrent measures don't work?

I'm saying that rarity of voter fraud means deterrent measures like this are unnecessary. It's a solution in search of a problem.

I agree that we don't need any new measures against voter fraud, but I don't see how it follows that existing voter fraud laws need to be removed or not enforced. Do you have any evidence of what the effect would be if the punishment for voter fraud were community service?