Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts
41–50 of 229 posts
Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
No need to make it optional. If the state can't convict on all counts, you should get full compensation for all expenses, including your legal bills, any time spent in prison, lost income, etc. In a case like this it would be millions of dollars, maybe tens of millions. Of course, this case probably wouldn't have happened in the first place if that was the way prosecutions worked... Most criminal cases are open-and-s…
This is one of those things that sounds good in theory, but is terrible in practice. It would incentivize prosecution to avoid court at all costs. Which means de facto immunity for wealthy people who can easily afford to go to court. And it will probably make law enforcement even worse about railroading people who can't afford any legal representation.
But they already avoid court at all costs. It's why plea bargins are such a problem.
Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Overzealous prosecution.
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> All of this stems from religion, yet our system is supposed to have a separation of church and state.
Restrictions on prostitution are pretty far downstream of core church-state separation territory. The original constitutional prohibition is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" ("establishment clause") "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" ("free exercise clause").
The core territory of the establishment clause is that there can't be an official state church or an officially designated state religion. Later court cases extended that by analogy to require fairly broad religious neutrality, as well as to avoid various forms of "entanglement" between church and state.
But so far, there's no official interpretation of it that implies that laws that were originally motivated by religious sentiment or religious morality are invalid. (If I remember correctly, Scalia's dissent in Obergefell expressed concern that the majority was gesturing in that direction, although the majority definitely didn't phrase it that way.) Particularly, there's no clear constitutional law that all legislation always has to be justifiable in terms of addressing a harm (usually that only comes into play when another constitutional right is implicated).
I agree with the idea of legalizing prostitution and I agree with the idea of separation of church and state, but I don't think you can directly get one from the other.
Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts
#44Seems like there should be an optional trial end, in addition to conviction or acquittal, for "prosecution shouldn't have brought this case", where the accused would get some kind of compensation. I don't know the details of this case, but I remember hearing about it many years ago. I can't imagine the expense and stress of such a trial, dragging on for so long, and then at the end it's just "Okay, guess you're not g…
In Norway we have two different "not guilty" outcomes: - "frifunnet på grunn av bevisets stilling" (~"acquitted because of the situation with the evidence" my best translation at 00:02 in the night) which I think in practice means it wasn't proven that the person did it and so (s)he is acquitted. - "henlagt som intet straffbart forhold" (~"acquitted as no punishable offense" my best translation at 00:04 in the night)…
This probably matches reasonably well with the three-verdict situation in Scots law.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_proven
> Under Scots law, a criminal trial may end in one of three verdicts, one of conviction ("guilty") and two of acquittal ("not proven" and "not guilty").
Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts
#45Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts
#46America is bizarre. Technically prostitution is illegal in my state, Googling “new York city escort” shows thousands of results.
Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could receive money legitimately (let's say, donations to your synagogue) and funnel it to politically disfavoured causes (for example, anti-war protesters in the Middle East). It doesn't fit the metaphor of money laundering, of turning dirty money into clean, but it's usually prosecuted under the same statutes.
That isn't what money laundering is. Money laundering is taking illegally gotten funds and turning it into apparently legal funds. What you're describing is fraud: you took money for one purpose, and used it for something the donators didn't want it used for. Notably, it is not money laundering to obscure the source of funds when they didn't come from an illicit source. Nor is it money laundering to simply obscure th…
Money laundering can be defined as concealing either or both the source and destination of the funds.
Channeling legal money into illegal activities qualifies as well. Not clear either is applicable to this case however.
Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It would incentivize prosecution to avoid court at all costs. Their job is to prosecute. Their only option is to pick cases that can be won. Which isn't hard, as the average person who is charged with some criminal act is not only guilty, but clearly guilty. > Which means de facto immunity for wealthy people who can easily afford to go to court. Money can't make a guilty man innocent. If you've actually done someth…
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Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
No need to make it optional. If the state can't convict on all counts, you should get full compensation for all expenses, including your legal bills, any time spent in prison, lost income, etc. In a case like this it would be millions of dollars, maybe tens of millions. Of course, this case probably wouldn't have happened in the first place if that was the way prosecutions worked... Most criminal cases are open-and-s…
We have a very high bar for guilt in criminal trials. This is because we would rather have many guilty people go free than send an innocent person to prison (there are still mistakes, of course). Given this situation, it wouldn’t make sense to assume anyone who is not convicted on even one count is actually innocent.
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Re: Judge acquits Backpage co-founder Michael Lacey on most counts
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could receive money legitimately (let's say, donations to your synagogue) and funnel it to politically disfavoured causes (for example, anti-war protesters in the Middle East). It doesn't fit the metaphor of money laundering, of turning dirty money into clean, but it's usually prosecuted under the same statutes.
That isn't what money laundering is. Money laundering is taking illegally gotten funds and turning it into apparently legal funds. What you're describing is fraud: you took money for one purpose, and used it for something the donators didn't want it used for. Notably, it is not money laundering to obscure the source of funds when they didn't come from an illicit source. Nor is it money laundering to simply obscure th…
No, the donators gave you the money to use as you see fit. You're not betraying their trust: you're betraying your government, by funding a movement with aims inimical to them.
A relevant statute in the US is the USA PATRIOT Act [0], specifically Title III, which deals with "International money laundering abatement and terrorist financing". It absolutely does restrict transmission of clean money to non-favoured political entities, often in the same breath as it forbids actual money laundering. It does not forbid withdrawing cash from an ATM, but it does forbid a bank from issuing you an ATM card if they should have guessed you would use the money for the wrong purposes.
[0] https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ56/PLAW-107publ56.htm