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Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

reuters.com

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Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#161

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

wahern wrote: post #104
kube-system wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Towing, impound, booting of the vehicle? Revocation of license? Community service? Wage garnishment?

For the very poor, a short (few days) stint in jail would be far preferable to having your car impounded. That's the problem with these debates about penalties--for the very poor, any penalty might be life destroying. But then how do you incentivize certain kinds of behavior? And how do you determine when somebody is too poor to be subject to any kind of penalty? Any loopholes you create will always be abused by the…

If they're that poor, start by paying them to not be poor. Wait a while. Check back in. reevaluate.

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#162

Post by justinclift »

wahern wrote: post #104
kube-system wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Towing, impound, booting of the vehicle? Revocation of license? Community service? Wage garnishment?

For the very poor, a short (few days) stint in jail would be far preferable to having your car impounded. That's the problem with these debates about penalties--for the very poor, any penalty might be life destroying. But then how do you incentivize certain kinds of behavior? And how do you determine when somebody is too poor to be subject to any kind of penalty? Any loopholes you create will always be abused by the…

> For the very poor, a short (few days) stint in jail would be far preferable to having your car impounded.

Wouldn't it be done as "they go to jail, but still owe the money afterwards"?

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#163

Post by bzb3 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #126
Reedx wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, even if she failed to pay 10,000 traffic tickets, how does it do any good to put her behind bars at all? They really couldn't think of a better way to deal with non-violent offense??

>how does it do any good to put her behind bars at all The good it does is deterrence to the rest of the population. Or that's how authoritarians like to see these sorts of dis-proportionate punishments.

What exactly can we do about someone who clearly doesn't give a fuck about the law? What message does it send if you let someone pile up traffic tickets with no consequence for himself?

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#164

Post by datavirtue »

Tip of the ice Berg. Judge Shriver of Clermont County Ohio owned a string of dive bars which yielded a steady stream of DUI and drug charges that were brought before him. This guy would often be red in the face yelling in the court room and participated handily in a system that would lock people into a perpetual cycle of probation, arrest, and jailing of people for minor offenses. Once you were convicted or not you got probation which meant you were going to be a return customer. Most of this fuelled by cannabis charges. These judges had very little to do for society otherwise. Fucked up a lot of lives in the process. Don't get me started on the cops.

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#165

Post by zajio1am »

ksdale wrote: post #80
elbigbad wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Assuming we're talking pretty usual traffic tickets and not talking about driving in a grossly negligent way, no one should _ever_ go to jail for traffic tickets. Largely this logic should apply to any malum prohibitum crime. There are plenty of other ways to enforce these fines/tickets.

Asking non-rhetorically and in good faith, what are the plenty of other ways to enforce fines?

> Asking non-rhetorically and in good faith, what are the plenty of other ways to enforce fines?

Where i live, fines are enforced same ways like civil damages - bank account suspension, wage deductions, even forced sale of property. But no 'personal' punishment like jail or community service.

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#166

Post by yyyk »

Not surprising at all. The original case establishing Qualified Immunity wasn't about mere police officers - it was about a state judge, and only by extension local police since they followed the judge's order. The main decision was giving state judges all but unqualified immunity[0]. When you give a group of people power to do almost whatever, it's not a surprise the bad apples stay and multiply.

[0]

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray/Opinion_of_the...

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pierson_v._Ray/Dissent_Dougla...

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#167

Post by [deleted] »

bzb3 wrote: post #163
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>how does it do any good to put her behind bars at all The good it does is deterrence to the rest of the population. Or that's how authoritarians like to see these sorts of dis-proportionate punishments.

What exactly can we do about someone who clearly doesn't give a fuck about the law? What message does it send if you let someone pile up traffic tickets with no consequence for himself?

[deleted]

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#168

Post by fzeroracer »

Kednicma wrote: post #147
chrisseaton wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I got to choose a prosecutor who won't take police-union money You see this seems massively inappropriate in the first place. Take that money for what? A prosecutor shouldn't take any money from anyone, in any circumstance, apart from their salary. They shouldn't even be talking to a political organisation like a union. Both things seem like grounds for automatic dismissal for a prosecutor. Why are you having to ch…

The district attorney, being an elected prosecutorial position, can spend money during the election; I chose the candidate who did not have a political action committee funded by the police union. Yes, it's stressful being a vigilant voter. But what's the alternative? Not caring?

The alternative is actually having punishments for officials that are corrupt or breaking the law.

Instead we have a situation where, as the article points out, corruption is swept away where people get to walk away with a cozy retirement and say 'well gosh I regret my mistakes' as if that fixes the fact that they ruined someone's life over a failure to pay traffic fees.

That's the example of the revolving door and people who abuse it get away scott-free.

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#169

Post by ta1234567890 »

bzb3 wrote: post #163
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>how does it do any good to put her behind bars at all The good it does is deterrence to the rest of the population. Or that's how authoritarians like to see these sorts of dis-proportionate punishments.

What exactly can we do about someone who clearly doesn't give a fuck about the law? What message does it send if you let someone pile up traffic tickets with no consequence for himself?

Well in the case of traffic tickets, revoking their license or taking their car away would be much more effective solutions than jail time.

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#170

Post by jmoss20 »

logicchop wrote: post #47
jmoss20 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you notice those two points conflict? 1. The judge must understand that the (justice) system is flawed, it's his/her job to bring about justice anyway. 2. The judge must believe the (foster care) system is flawless, it's not his/her job to worry about that.

1. I don't think the judge has to believe the justice system is flawed. It might just be that the justice system has limits, and that sometimes those limits are not sufficient to bring about the best outcome. Again, consider prosecutorial discretion and how it is used. 2. I don't think the judge has to believe it is flawless. In fact, the judge might believe that it is not flawless, and again exercise in the opposite…

You still haven't resolved the inconsistency.
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