131–140 of 200 posts
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Counterfeiting, IMO and apparently the opinion of the Government (we rarely agree, for the record), is basically on par with treason.
Counterfeiting seems to me to be on par with fraud and theft. Could you explain why you consider it to be on par with treason?
The insanity of the charges/sentencing reminds me of a passage from The Hot House (which is excellent, Pete Earley somehow got permission to go mingle with prisoners at USP Leavenworth for a year and write about it). A Bank Robber, 45 'They originally charged me with murder, kidnapping, and bank robbery, but I'm really just a bank robber with really bad luck. You see, my buddy and me were robbing this bank, and when…
If you think this sentence was unjust, there is another Colorado prisoner named Michael Dipentino. He is currently serving a 305 year sentence. What was his heinous crime? According to the Denver DA [1] he created phony checks to buy $200,000 worth of postage stamps, that he later pawned or resold. He was facing a minimum of 96 years after his conviction, but the judge decided to give him 305 years. The "justice" sys…
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Another side of this is that the harsher you make the punishments for small crimes, the less you discourage moving up to bigger crimes. If you're robbing a place and your punishment for being caught is effectively life in prison, what reason do you have not to murder all the potential witnesses to improve your odds of getting away with the crime? All you have is morality, and I don't want to rely on the morality of c…
> Another side of this is that the harsher you make the punishments for small crimes, the less you discourage moving up to bigger crimes. Actually it makes it easier ... there is upper limit on how much you could punish a person. And if the penalties for stealing pack of gum and high treason are the same - well ... why bother with only the first.
I would not be so sure about that. We, humans, are extremely creative when it comes to hurt each other.
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> But, I'm not about to toss out the legal system because a criminal had a shitty time in court. Fuck this guy. I don't think anyone is suggesting anything other than reform of how we prosecute laws in this country, there is an obvious imbalance at play here and cases like this highlight the problem. Second.. sure, fuck that guy; but what about his family? His children? The community? Just because you put one person…
Oh, the children! What about the children? What does it matter? He robbed a bank! Someone died! He chose to break his contract with society. If I did that, I would expect zero considerations be made for my two kids. It is my responsibility to never put them in such a position.
Who's going to raise them? A single mother, if they're lucky. Think she's going to have an easy time re-marrying with an ex-con husband? How about getting a good job in the era of background checks? Think she was highly educated to begin with?
Taxpayers at large are going to foot most of bill for this domestic disaster. Further, these children are now more likely to end up in jail themselves. Now society gets to pay another $30,000 a year per child to house, feed and care for another inmate.
This isn't strictly touchy-feely stuff here, there's a hard cost to society when you jail people without any thoughts towards true justice. It's stupid, ineffective and perverse.
The insanity of the charges/sentencing reminds me of a passage from The Hot House (which is excellent, Pete Earley somehow got permission to go mingle with prisoners at USP Leavenworth for a year and write about it). A Bank Robber, 45 'They originally charged me with murder, kidnapping, and bank robbery, but I'm really just a bank robber with really bad luck. You see, my buddy and me were robbing this bank, and when…
> He shoots my buddy, but I don't know he's dead so I pull him into the car and drive away. What if his friend wasn't dead, but in fact died in the car as he was driving away from the scene? What if his friend's life could've been saved by treatment at the scene? Moreover, did he have a plan for saving his friends life or was he simply trying to get them both away from the police? Furthermore, being charged with some…
This is another deplorable aspect of the US justice system. The vast majority (something like 95%) of convictions are not from jury trials, but from plea bargains. Piling on charges is one way prosecutors force plea bargains on suspects.
It's likely that the prosecutor charged this guy with everything he could find in order to induce him to plea to a lesser charge to avoid the hassle and uncertainty of a trial.
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Not to mention they slapped them with kidnapping charges because they forced the people they were robbing into a room.... How the fuck.... The sad truth is the American people simply do not care. Period. If you are a criminal you are a nobody and you get everything you deserve in the eyes of many Americans. People sit and rot in prison for the stupidest of reasons or technicalities and then when they get out we are s…
I think its easy to say that sitting in your chair from this side. I would imagine that if I was one of the people in the bank that was being robbed, and I were forced in to a room. I would feel that I was being kidnapped / held hostage.
The U.S. incarcerates more people than China. Not per capita, mind you. More total people. If ever there's a stellar example of the kind of disaster that can result from privatizing a government function, this is it. Private prisons have a strong profit motive to increase the number of people behind bars until we have the kind of situation we have today in the U.S. These are folks who can afford to pay lobbyists to c…
A much bigger influence is probably things like prison guard unions. They have the same sort of profit motive to increase the number of people behind bars, and that applies just as much (probably more) to state-run prisons.
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Oh, the children! What about the children? What does it matter? He robbed a bank! Someone died! He chose to break his contract with society. If I did that, I would expect zero considerations be made for my two kids. It is my responsibility to never put them in such a position.
The children who are going to grow up without a father, yea, I'm thinking about them. Who's going to raise them? A single mother, if they're lucky. Think she's going to have an easy time re-marrying with an ex-con husband? How about getting a good job in the era of background checks? Think she was highly educated to begin with? Taxpayers at large are going to foot most of bill for this domestic disaster. Further, the…
What is true justice?
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Counterfeiting, IMO and apparently the opinion of the Government (we rarely agree, for the record), is basically on par with treason.
Counterfeiting seems to me to be on par with fraud and theft. Could you explain why you consider it to be on par with treason?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> He shoots my buddy, but I don't know he's dead so I pull him into the car and drive away. What if his friend wasn't dead, but in fact died in the car as he was driving away from the scene? What if his friend's life could've been saved by treatment at the scene? Moreover, did he have a plan for saving his friends life or was he simply trying to get them both away from the police? Furthermore, being charged with some…
> The quote begins, "They originally charged me," so I'm guessing some of the charges were dropped? Even then, it comes down to a jury to decide guilt. This is another deplorable aspect of the US justice system. The vast majority (something like 95%) of convictions are not from jury trials, but from plea bargains. Piling on charges is one way prosecutors force plea bargains on suspects. It's likely that the prosecuto…