871–880 of 1001 posts
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Are you sure you want to use a fictional story as an example？
There is plenty IRL examples eg BTK https://abcnews.go.com/US/btk-serial-killers-daughter-living...
30 years for tax evasion? No wonder he preferred to die. I mean, you’ll get jail time for severe cases of tax evasion in Germany, too, but it’s a couple of years at max and most of the time it’s on probation. How do you justify your draconic punishments in the US which is supposed to be a free country?
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> Nope, we don’t add up prison time in Germany for repeating the same or related crimes over and over. On top, the 10/15 years are the maximum and barely reached. The USA is similar, sentences are often served concurrently meaning the headline numbers don’t get added up. Headlines reflect the absolute maximum penalties but there’s something called the Sentencing Guidelines that is used to set the actual length of the…
> but there’s something called the Sentencing Guideline But which are, as the name suggests, “more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules.” Still, a better measure of likely sentence than naively adding up statutory maxima for individual counts.
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Germany has more draconic laws than the US in this situation, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. "Under German law, the maximum term for one count of aggravated tax evasion is 10 years. If an accused is convicted of more than one count, the court can increase the maximum to 15 years." The US is 5 years for each count, half of Germany's. Macafee was under accused of multiple crimes, which added up to the headl…
Prison time here in Germany is limited to 15 years at max — independent on the number of crimes. People imprisoned for violent crimes may stay there for their whole life if they pose an ongoing threat to public safety.
30 years for tax evasion? No wonder he preferred to die. I mean, you’ll get jail time for severe cases of tax evasion in Germany, too, but it’s a couple of years at max and most of the time it’s on probation. How do you justify your draconic punishments in the US which is supposed to be a free country?
US indeed has draconian punishments. However 30 years is a starting/worst case scenario to encourage a plea bargain. Plea bargains are horrendous and really should be banned or made extremely rare.
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I completely agree, but plea bargains are also the basic mechanism by which the justice system functioned. They represent something like 95% of convictions. If everybody who currently took a plea switched to demanding a trial, we'd need at least twenty times as many judges and juries. I'm not against that, mind you, I'm just saying that you are proposing a massive sea change in the legal system. Everything about the…
Given the US imprisons its citizens at nearly ten times the rate that Germany does, has hugely unpredictable outcomes to civil suits, and clearly has serious problems with reliability of convictions in criminal cases, the question shouldn't be whether the US should have radical changes to its legal system, but how to achieve it.
30 years for tax evasion? No wonder he preferred to die. I mean, you’ll get jail time for severe cases of tax evasion in Germany, too, but it’s a couple of years at max and most of the time it’s on probation. How do you justify your draconic punishments in the US which is supposed to be a free country?
Not just that but as a US citizen even if you aren't living in the US anymore you still have to pay US taxes. The 2014-2018 income taxes he owed were while staying abroad. The US forces you to renounce your citizenship to get out of paying taxes to a country you don't live in. IANAL but that's my understanding.
30 years for tax evasion? No wonder he preferred to die. I mean, you’ll get jail time for severe cases of tax evasion in Germany, too, but it’s a couple of years at max and most of the time it’s on probation. How do you justify your draconic punishments in the US which is supposed to be a free country?
He didn't want to end up like Julian Assange. Just speculation.
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> which is supposed to be a free country A common misconception. The United States takes the constitution seriously, but doesn’t even rank in the top 15 countries according to most freedom indexes.
Depends what you value. You have to really look at what the freedom indices are using to rank countries.
30 years for tax evasion? No wonder he preferred to die. I mean, you’ll get jail time for severe cases of tax evasion in Germany, too, but it’s a couple of years at max and most of the time it’s on probation. How do you justify your draconic punishments in the US which is supposed to be a free country?
The US loves it jails and they love making examples out of people unless of course you're a corporation or a politician. Then you're allowed to evade taxes, insider trading, and anything else that is considered a death sentence for everyone else.