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Strudel Man posted:I was just pointing out that 'discrediting you and convincing the jury you're a bad person' is kind of the prosecutor's job, even in an ideal implementation of an adversarial system. No, it's not. See Rule of Evidence 404b. [link] The prosecutors job is to prove that you did this particular, specific crime; the one you are accused of committing. This is founding fathers stuff. Under our system, a trial is to determine whether you did a specific bad thing at a specific time, NOT whether you're a bad person; bad person evidence is specifically prohibited. On the other hand, as a practical matter, the exceptions to 404b have swallowed the rule. e:link joat mon fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Aug 31, 2010 |
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Aug 31, 2010 23:43
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Strudel Man posted:The rule disallows certain kinds of evidence to be used in pursuit of demonstrating that you're a bad person, not that goal in itself. See 404a just above, specifically permitting "evidence of a pertinent trait of character offered by an accused." JudicialRestraints posted:what about 607-609 404a says a Defendant can open the door to character evidence. If and only if the Defendant uses character evidence, then the State can rebut with character evidence. There are exceptions to 404b, where evidence of other bad acts can come in, but only to show intent, motive, absence of mistake, plan, knowledge, etc. When this stuff comes in, it comes in with a limiting instruction that it can be used only for the limited purpose of showing intent, motive, absence of mistake, plan, knowledge, (whatever the State said they needed it for) and not as character evidence. Even when this evidence comes in, the State is prohibited from arguing character. 607-609 work the same way - there are limiting instructions for this evidence, too; it can be used only for gauging credibility, not guilt/innocence. (exception: prior inconsistent statements made under oath, if you've laid a proper foundation) For 609, this is an improvement from the common law days when a felon was considered an incompetent witness and could not testify at all, ever. P.S. 404b doesn't apply if you're accused of a sex crime - see 413/414 (but 403 still applies) P.P.S. Limiting instructions are worthless, unless the DA is dumb enough to actually argue a Defendant's bad character. Strudel Man posted:Establishing that the accused is somehow morally corrupt is, has been, and always will be a part of any adversarial criminal proceeding. If you're talking about what the law allows or intends, unequivocally no. If you're talking about what happens anyway and what gets taught/trained at prosecutor CLE conferences, unequivocally yes.
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Sep 1, 2010 13:39
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Lykourgos posted:Do you have statistics on how often defense attorneys attempt to suppress incriminating evidence? Do you mean 'suppress' as in 'suppress the State's illegally obtained evidence?' or do you mean 'suppress' as in 'illegally hide from court and counsel evidence that would incriminate your client?' If the former, the prosecutorial and police misconduct stat covers it. If the latter, give some real-world examples. (e.g., the MPRE "your client's best friend gives you a gun and tells you your client told him that it's the murder weapon" hypothetical doesn't count)
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Sep 6, 2010 03:22
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Lykourgos posted:Suppress as in make a motion to suppress evidence. As in, how often do defence attorneys go around trying to stop incriminating evidence being admitted. And what kind of evidence did you have in mind? Evidence code stuff? 403/404b, 608/609, 701/702, hearsay? Self-incrimination and right to counsel issues? actually, the DA raises these issues automatically because it's part of laying the foundation for admitting statements. search and seizure stuff? confrontation issues? More generally, The DA wants to bring in evidence that helps his/her case and wants to exclude evidence that hurts his/her case. Brady/Giglio puts some limits on the latter. The defense counsel wants to bring in evidence that helps his/her case and wants to keep that stuff that hurts his/her case. That's the nature of an adversarial system of justice. Usually, the State is bringing in the vast majority of the evidence in a case. This is due in part to its vast investigative resources compared to the defense but mostly because the State has the burden of proof. Thus, the defense is the side most often trying to keep evidence out. It's not that defense counsel try to keep evidence out more often that DAs do, it's that DA's have to bring more evidence to a trial. In an adversarial system, that's what you do. In situations where the two sides are on an equal footing, the State files as many motions to exclude the defense's evidence as the defense files against the State. How often does a party file a motion to exclude some kind of evidence? Every time there's an issue. Even when you know you're going to lose, because another Gant might come out tomorrow, and by not raising the issue you've waived it. On the other hand, either side will lose credibility by litigating bullshit issues, so there is a lower limit. When I get close to that point, I may only make a pro forma objection, but I'll always make the objection. Example: my guy was looking at LWOP for 11 grams of crack. I had three strong bases for why the evidence should have been suppressed. Each one got overruled, and I figured there was no way the fourth reason, which I knew was a loser, was going to succeed, so I might as well sit down and shut up. I said it anyway to make my record, and won the motion to suppress. No more LWOP, but client still had a straight possession charge. His assessment? "Man, how come you ain't working for me!?"
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Sep 6, 2010 05:08
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Lykourgos posted:I'm hardly going to complain if you have detailed statistics Lykourgos posted:The statistic I was most curious about was how often defence counsel makes a motion to suppress physical evidence found pursuant to an arrest As to other stuff, it's all over the board. Where the law is pretty well settled e.g. if a defendant testifies, if he's been convicted of a felony that fact will come in, there's not a lot of litigation. Where the law is less settled or up to a 'totality of the circumstances' the chances of winning have almost as much to do with what the judge had for breakfast as the facts of the case,so those will get litigated. This is why search warrants get litigated 90% of the time. Part of this is that the Court's acceptance of any old crap as a reason has made the police lazy; when the Court requires only a barely constitutional minimum, the police will give a barely constitutional minimum. When issues are more fact intensive, the defense litigates less because the police get to pick the facts; judges simply do not believe defendants. Where the State is asking the court to make an exception to the rules just this once, (e.g. 403/404b, hearsay, confrontation, warrantless searches, etc.) of course those get litigated. According to the rules, that evidence is not supposed to get in. Perhaps a more interesting statistic would be how often does the State ask a court to permit the State to not follow the law. (3-20* times per case) *comedy option: Where the State asked to blanket admit 500 pages of stuff that happened in a particular family as long as 10 years ago. (and not a sex case, so 413/414 didn't apply) Also clouding the search for suppression statistics is that a lot of these issues get worked out before they get litigated, in the plea bargain process. Often the defense counsel and DA will split the risk of either side losing a motion in exchange for a better offer. Lykourgos posted:what's the frequency of appellate briefs crying "reasonable doubt," "[i posted:Jackson v. Virginia[/i] 443 US 307 (1979)"] That said, I'll raise reasonable doubt 15-20% of the time on appeal, but the issue is not "the jury f'ed up," but "the jury were not properly instructed as to the law to use in deciding the case; if they had been properly instructed, even looking at the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, no reasonable juror would have voted guilty." "The jury f'ed up" cases are well less than 5%. So unless you're dealing with a legislative or state constitutional basis for requiring a reasonable doubt analysis on appeal, (or pro se claims), you're not going to see appellate briefs crying "reasonable doubt." (pro se folks generally don't understand the "trial is where you litigate facts, appeals are where you litigate law" bit either) tl;dr: You try to bring in stupid stuff you're not supposed to, the defense will oppose it; you try to bring in stuff that hurts the defendant, and there's a good faith basis to oppose it, the defense will oppose it. \/\/\/\/ Scientific Wild-Assed Guess joat mon fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Sep 6, 2010 |
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Sep 6, 2010 15:48
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Domini Cane posted:When this judge says she doesn't want to be a 13th juror, that resonates with me. We spend so much effort and time getting people to serve on juries and then spend days and days educating them on the rules they have to follow it can be hard to poo poo on their decision once you've placed it in their hands. Is the system imperfect? Yes. But humans are imperfect. The judge's inaction resonates with me in a different way. Judges are granted special, almost unique powers of discretion under our rules; and she has specific discretion to mitigate sentences like this. She failed to exercise that discretion. Cop-outs like "I don't want to be the 13th juror" ring as hollow as "I was just following orders." "But the legislatures have decided the potential threat to society outweighs the rights of individual offenders once they have been adjudicated." is a slightly longer way of saying "I was just following orders." If you've been part of the system any time at all, you know that LWOP law wasn't the product of a rational, deliberative process, it was a misdirected knee-jerk reaction to something bad that happened, coupled with the fact that "get tough on crime" (no matter the cost) will always get you votes. e.g., What is the risk to society of a person who has 5 grams of crack (and two drug (even simple possession) priors) that justiifes making LWOP the only possible punishment? If that kid is still a sociopathic monster at 34 (pretty much guaranteed after being raised to adulthood in prison) he won't get paroled. Yes, people do get paroled and commit terrible crimes; but 99%+ don't. That balance of "how many errors on granting parole are acceptable vs. never letting anyone out of prison, ever" is another question that will not get a rational, deliberative hearing in a Legislature. That is why we give judges lots of money, lots of respect, lots of power, and lots of discretion. So they will use their discretion. If the judge was sure that in the remaining 50-60 years of that 16 year-old's life he could never be fit for release, she should have made that decision and stated her reason. That, too, would be an exercise of her discretion. If you're going to abdicate the discretion that is a judge's raison d'etre and fob off your responsibilites on "the legislature" you're in the wrong job.
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Sep 17, 2010 15:43
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Shang Yang posted:Good catch on the name, but actually my position in this thread has little to do with his views and I'm not a gimmick. Shang Yang's specific position, like Dracon's, would be capital punishment for The Valuum, so in that respect, your position is not like his views. (a weakness on your part, perhaps) On the other hand, Shang Yang was all for using the law as a blind, universal bludgeon to perpetuate the State, divorced from any ideas of Justice. That is where your positions are the same, and probably why you picked the name. Shang Yang posted:It's not a gimmick to disagree, and when random posters go "hurgh you're too old fashioned," etc, rather than engage the topic, it is unfortunate. The problem with your schtick is that it stinks up the discussion. You use your Bizarro Plato/Aristotle gimmick (I'm waiting for Bizzaro T'ien Ming) like chaff to distract the discussion and derail it at its beginning. You can then claim that people are attacking you and your gimmick and not your ideas and thus convince yourself that you are the honourable victor, doing honourable things. Maybe there could have been a useful discussion about The Valuum's social/moral brokenness and why it is not cured because the war on drugs (which is very much in line with Bizarro Plato/Aristotle / Chinese Legalists) is a bad idea. But instead we have suffer through your Dadaist take on week two of Intro to Philosophy.
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Nov 8, 2010 01:47
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Fire posted:...or the sake of argument, how do you know they are only 1%? Its not like the statistics distinguish or are objectively capable of distinguishing between murder 1 committed by someone who was at the end of their rope because her husband was abusing her, someone who is pressured into confessing to something they didn't do, someone who committed what a sane court would consider to be crime of passion against someone they knew, and some complete monster who committed murder 1 against a total stranger so that he could eat their soul by cooking them and eating their flesh. "Completetly evil" and even "sociopathic" (in a cultural, rather than clinical sense) are very subjective terms, so you're never going to get a truly objective determination of either. On a more objective level, when I did trial work I met 10-15 new clients every two weeks for five years for crimes ranging from marijuana possession to capital murder. I had lots of clients who would be clinically sociopathic, but that's not a very good metric because lots of 'successful' business people are similarly clinically sociopathic. Out of those 1500 or so clients, exactly two were "completely evil" or "sociopathic" in a cultural (as well as clinical) sense. Neither of them were death penalty clients, or even murder clients. On the other hand, my jurisdiction of about 450,000 sends about 10 people to prison each day, every day. In prison, the funds for treatment programs have dried up, there haven't been rehabilitation programs for over a decade, and the staff is 20% below minimum safe levels. Rehabilitation is a farce, as is general deterrence. Specific deterrence while incarcerated works by definition, but with no treatment, no rehab, and next to no supervision, a person comes out of prison worse in every way than when they went in. That leaves retribution. And voters love retribution and they love awful punishment and torture of people in prison. As a legislator, you can't go wrong ignoring awful punishment and torture and voting for more retribution.
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Nov 17, 2010 05:37
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lurkaccount posted:I wonder if it's the same at youth prisons, but there are many reports of inmates being threatened with reprisals for talking to the ACLU and filing complaints. I have no reason to believe it would be, especially at private prisons. Yes, the kids get threatened. However, it didn't stop the DoJ from investigating my state's only high security juvenile facility, finding violations, filing suit, and entering into a consent decree to try to fix things. In reprisal, the legislature changed to law so that if you're late 16 or 17 years old, you can't go to that facility; you go straight to adult prison. Also, the state is closing the facility but won't spend the money to build a new one.
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Nov 18, 2010 13:40
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HidingFromGoro posted:We're radically different in our racial makeup than Norway, and that contributes greatly to the realities of our police and prison systems. I mean, policies and procedures in the prison system were implemented immediately after the end of our Civil War to maintain the ability to essentially buy or lease black people to do work- and as soon as those were enacted, the percentage of black inmates increased greatly, sometimes as much as tenfold, immediately following the War. Do you have some sources for this? I'd like to do some further reading on it.
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Nov 21, 2010 12:34
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nm posted:I like this. 1. 14 year-old black girl steals car, crashes it. It rolls onto and kills a toddler. Charge? First degree felony murder. 2. 17 and 18 year-old white high school football players from rich side of town playing paintball shootout on a four-lane highway. One of the trucks crashes and kills a passenger. Charge? Misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter all time suspended, expunged after a year. (Don't want to ruin their bright futures, after all) This was actually a good thing, in a twisted way. The WTF injustice between the two cases (that happened within weeks of each other) played a part in getting the girl sent to juvenile rather than adult court.
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Dec 18, 2010 00:05
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BattleMaster posted:I worded it poorly. I meant that the inventor designed it specifically so that prisoners suffered. Other methods he explored were deemed too humane. Nope, totally wrong. Lethal injection was thought up by Bill Wiseman, a young Oklahoma legislator who voted what his constituents wanted rather than his conscience; in favor of reinstating the death penalty after Furman. He then went about trying to make the death penalty as humane as possible. He came to regret both his vote and his 'invention.' His story is both interesting and compelling: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A42135-2003Dec6¬Found=true the article posted:William Wiseman Jr. sits on a worn cottage sofa as rain pelts his reflection on the sliding glass door behind him. "I can't think of any rationale for destroying life," he says the day after Thanksgiving at his family cabin in the Blue Ridge foothills near Harrisonburg, "but I thought if we're going to kill someone on purpose, we should do it gently."
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Jan 24, 2011 04:58
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Mikser posted:I'm not sure why there's such a fixation on a trial in the first place. In the Finnish judicial system, a child below the age of 15 cannot be held criminally responsible, and hence cannot be arrested, tried nor sentenced. It is up to the social workers to determine how to best lead the child away from the path of crime and to ensure their healthy mental and moral development. CQC posted:That would work for me. I was speaking of juvenile courts as more of an idealized entity that would essentially accomplish the same thing, and I guess in the of the American court system that's patently untrue. I was sort of imagining a system in which a judge would look at the circumstances of an offense and make the appropriate recommendations for therapy and placement (a group home? a mental hospital?), but I guess in effect that would be "refer them to a doctor." This is pretty much how juvenile courts in the US are intended to work, generally for kids under 18. This has been the case since the 19-teens to 20s. However, over the last 10-15 years, legislatures have lost sight of that purpose and have started to think of juvenile courts as "Court Light." As a result, they have applied the same stupid, short-sighted get-tough-on-crime, never forget, zero tolerance B.S. that has makes up a substantial part of the injustices in the adult system. This mentality has also led to lowering the age of juvenile-ness for serious crimes. CQC posted:You will never, ever, ever sell America on the idea that someone who commits a crime should not be subject to a trial, so why not make sure the trial they are getting is what they actually need? America was sold on the idea for about 60 years. (No, it didn't/ doesn't work perfectly)
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Jan 30, 2011 06:37
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dr.gigolo posted:When a juvenile is charged with an adult crime, their court proceedings take place in adult criminal courts. It really depends on the crime, but the cases I see where juveniles are taken to adult court usually is something pretty serious such as attempted murder, murder or rape. They are usually housed in a juvenile detention facility until or even after their sentencing until the age of 18 as young offenders are often taken advantage of in adult facilities. It may vary by state. Here, if you're charged as an adult, you're jailed as an adult in the county jail, (though you're put in segregation) If at some point you get reverse certified as a juvenile, only then do you go to juvie. If you're sentenced as an adult, you're imprisoned as an adult in an adult prison.
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Jan 31, 2011 02:36
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Pillowpants posted:He's been in two prisons in the South, one of which I believe is considered a supermax prison Not many opportunities for rape at the security level you have to be at to be sent to a supermax because that security level was insufficient.
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Mar 15, 2011 01:45
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duck monster posted:Is that constitutional? Yes. Richardson v. Ramirez, 418 U.S. 24 (1974) Short version: The Supreme Court interpreted Section 2 of the 14th Amendment as permitting the States to disenfranchise people on the basis of "participation in rebellion or other crime."
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Mar 26, 2011 19:30
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Solkanar512 posted:Here's a thought - why not make the legislators take a drug test? They're being paid from the public coffers, what do they have to hide? Because the Supreme Court said that was unconstitutional. Chandler v. Miller, 520 U.S. 305 (1997) (mandatory drug testing of candidates for state office unconstitutional) the court said there was no showing that there was a drug problem among candidates and that there had been no showing of 'special needs' for testing among this group - that they weren't working in a dangerous or potentially dangerous environment that would justify testing. Orange Devil posted:On a serious note though, how exactly is this constitutional? I expect, "because it's for the children" and "everybody knows that the welfare queens spend their money on drugs." The Supremes said it was OK to random drug test schoolchildren involved in sports because "it's for the children" and "everybody knows the jocks are the biggest druggies." Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646 (1995) It's unconstitutional to work with police and prosecutors to drug test pregnant women without their knowledge and then arrest or threaten to arrest the women who test positive in an effort to scare/force them into not using. Ferguson v. City of Charleston, 532 U.S. 67 (2001) Lack of consent and involvement of law enforcement is what made Charleston's procedures unconstitutional. If, however, welfare applicants were told that they had to consent in order to receive benefits and that the testing was for eligibility only and they would not be referred to law enforcement, I expect the current Supreme Court would find it constitutional.
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Apr 22, 2011 14:43
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Broken Knees Club posted:I'd love to know which definition of socialism considers creating crime, permanent underclasses and depreciating labor value to be positive outcomes. Let's not be silly. While you won't find that in either The Wealth of Nations or in the 1844 Manuscripts, both Socialist and Capitalist nations have prisons. Societies of any appreciable size, no matter where on the spectrum, lead to prisons. Anarchists don't need prisons because when it comes down to it, there's no anarchist society larger than one. Socialist anarchists don't need prisons, because the biggest you can get is about 200 people, and banishment works for a society that small. Capitalism has plenty of problems - but creating prisons isn't one of them. It sucks, but we're stuck with prisons - and it's better than good old-fashioned lex talionis. The useful mission is to make prisons as rarely-used, rehabilitative and not-bad as we can. A giant first step would be to end the 'one strike and you're essentially unemployable for life - welcome to the underclass' system.
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May 16, 2011 04:19
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coolskillrex remix posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px2kTQKZaSU The program is a modern freak show, nothing more. That's what Theroux does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Louis_Theroux_Documentaries If you're charged with a serious felony and you don't have a viable defense and you don't like the plea bargain that's offered, delay is your best hope for a better resolution. On the other hand, Miami Dade has 27 felony judges - they can only try so many cases a year. What sucks is that even if you want your trial, it's going to take several months for a felony to get to trial, a year or two for a murder and twice that for a capital case. The super crappy thing is being too poor to bond out on a misdemeanor. Don't want to plead guilty and take that plea bargain offer for walk-out-of-jail suspended time? You're going to wait 3 months in jail before your trial.
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May 25, 2011 23:05
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Junior G-man posted:Does this thread still have an offsite hosting? I'd like to show it to some people without all the non-member ad interstitials. Piell posted:Right here HidingFromGoro posted:I periodically repost the news articles and some of my longer posts at the re-think america blog, also home to financial and economic articles by dm and Dante.
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May 26, 2011 15:05
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Regarding those lucky duckies who go to jail for their three hots and a cot? They're like the legendary welfare queen HFG mentioned - there might have been one at some point in time who then became the poster child for the people who wanted to push that particular false narrative. As for false narrative of jail as the poor man's hotel/ hospital, I don't have any data, but five years' worth of anecdote: In five years of public defender work at the trial level, I never once had a client who wanted more time or chose in-time over probation or wanted to stay in longer to get more medical treatment. Winter or summer, felony or misdemeanor, it didn't matter. Tias posted:*fake edit: badge of honour would be more correct. Not sure how to translate it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dueling_scars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_fencing
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May 30, 2011 21:57
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Tias posted:Yes and no.. People from my town, Copenhagen, see the time spent inside itself as credibility. You're not going to be able to point to a physical scar (though comrades often have those as well, either from an injury gotten by accident inside or police brutality prior to their original arrest), but if it is well-known that you have spent time as a felon (or what corresponds to a felony, here), you are seen as a kind of hero because you took one for your group. Yes, you made perfect sense. I was just derailing because I thought it was interesting that the origin of your word for 'stripes' had its origin in an affectation of the elites from a century ago.
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May 31, 2011 02:25
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Down Right Fierce posted:Isn't that literally anywhere in this country? Like, I live in hell and can still name 3 parks and 2 schools within walking distance. Yep. There were exactly two places in my urban county where sex offenders could live. One was a few-block area filled with million dollar homes and the other was a block of seedy motels in an unicorporated no-mans land near a highway interchange. (Until the nearby city annexed the land an built a 'park' nearby)
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May 31, 2011 23:56
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Bum the Sad posted:Bullshit, I've known people who've chose to spend a weekend in jail over a year of harassing and demeaning probation. Around here you can't trade a year's probation for a weekend in jail. If we could, we'd do it all the time. Anyway, that has nothing to do with going to jail to get free food and housing - you're talking about something completely different: Somebody making a very mature decision to put up with a little bit of suck now to forego a lot of suck (PO's gently caress-gently caress games or revocation from reoffending) later. However, I do advise my clients who are going to prison that it will probably be better for them if they discharge their sentence than if they take parole, even if it means a few more months in. If you discharge, you're done. Of you take parole, even though you're out a little earlier, you're on the hook for the remaining 2/3 of your time and subject to revocation and going back in. Unfortunately, most people aren't very good at making rational choices, particularly when it requires delayed gratification. If we could spend 30-40k a year per schoolkid on the front end, there'd be a lot less of them going to prison in later years.
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Jun 2, 2011 16:02
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Alhazred posted:Just saw the last part of Justin Theroux's doc about the Miami mega jail. And was wondering what people think of the boot camps. Also, trying a fourteen year old as an adult, what the gently caress America? If done competently, boot camps work for some people. You'll get your best results after probation fails but before someone's gone to prison. "Competently" does not mean "put the big, mean, loud guy who did boot camp at Parris Island in charge." Good DIs are worth their weight in gold, but unfortunately, most DOCs don't pay in gold. I'll see your fourteen year old and raise you a twelve year old: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ld-brother.html
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Jun 10, 2011 17:48
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nm posted:Raise you a 5 year old. Maybe gently caress me. My optimistic side hopes this is only a statutory investigation requirement in case the ME rules the death a homicide (as a civil records-reporting matter) and will not be referred for prosecution (or declined if it is) On a brighter note, Oklahoma now has one less guy on death row.
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Jun 10, 2011 21:19
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Borneo Jimmy posted:Recently Peter Moskos, a law professor at John Jay college who has just recently released a book called In Defense of Flogging, which claims that the US prison system is so inhumane and a complete disaster that it would be better to reinstate corporal punishment I think it makes sense on a lot of levels. It satisfies the bloodlust of the tough on crime folks. It costs less/ takes money from the prison/industrial complex. It doesn't wreck people's lives or futures (floggings shouldn't count as convictions or priors except for subsequent floggings. Because it's more immediate and more physical it would have more chance of influencing future behavior without wrecking a person's future (people very rarely think about the future when about to commit a crime) To broaden the idea of flogging a bit, how about other, milder forms of shaming? Stocks, sandwich boards, etc.? Again, like flogging, done on a short term basis only - no offender lists, no special offender's driver's licenses, and so on. Similarly to nm, I'd limit it to less serious crimes, but I'd only exclude the old commonlaw felonies (except grand larceny - that'd still be floggable) It's got problems on a lot of levels, too. Physical punishment is hard to moderate properly and hard to administer without sliding into brutality. Other forms of shaming would be somewhat easier. In a society that no longer has shame, will shaming even work? Could a flogging ever be enough to overcome a lifetime of parental, societal and educational neglect/failure? (The real modest proposal would be to introduce flogging at the Jr. High school level) It would be another nail in the coffin of the Quaker penitentiary idea of punishment. However, that model is working at about 1% of its ideal, so maybe admitting failure and trying something different would have better outcomes. Unfortunately, I expect flogging would be unacceptable to the left (too icky) and to the right (not life ruining enough)
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Jun 19, 2011 05:20
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KingEup posted:So is this dude going to end up in prison? Probably not prison, because the correct charge is a misdemeanor. http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ut-supreme-court/1394185.html
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Jun 21, 2011 20:41
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Tigntink posted:I thought it was sarcasm! Our office entertained some high-level Vietnamese criminal lawyers a few months ago. They were genuinely aghast that in America we can charge 12 year olds with crimes.
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Jun 30, 2011 23:26
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A.S.H. posted:Why don't we have offender registries for other types of criminals, like con artists? I'd very much like to know people who have committed perjury or otherwise have been found of being criminal dishonest or abusing peoples trust in other manners, but we don't apply these conditions to those convicted. Methamphetamine Offender Registry Act - at the moment, accessable only by pharmacists.
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Jan 30, 2012 19:58
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nm posted:The good news is that in California, those deemed Sexually Violent Predators are entitled to a jury trial on that fact. Is that good news? I'd rather have a judge deciding whether the state should pay for (effectively) lifetime confinement in (effectively) prison for a  Sexually Violent Predator than a jury who will believe that it's only until the offender is 'cured' and that the offender will actually be getting treatment.What is your experience with the system? (Such a bill just got introduced in our legislature)
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Jan 31, 2012 18:18
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Pillowpants posted:Does anyone know when the USSC is going to vote on Juvenile Life Without Parole for the case they heard in November? The two cases were heard in March. Six of the nine March cases have not been decided yet. There should be decisions on all of the cases from this term by the end of this month.
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Jun 15, 2012 13:17
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YOUR UNCOOL NIECE posted:Heard a decent segment on NPR about the use of solitary, and how a bunch of states are beginning to (slowly) pull back on its use. I guess it has to do with ongoing congressional hearings. To my surprise, it almost sounded like some prison admins 'get it.' I think all the admins 'get' is that their state's fiscal interests align for the moment with human interests. But I'll take anything we can get.
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Jun 20, 2012 02:51
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Main Paineframe posted:And the fact that it's progress can't be minimized, since the court is moving to restrict the use of such punishments against juveniles at a rather quick pace - the Supreme Court only abolished the use of the death penalty against minors in 2005. This. There aren't many states that have LWOP as the only possible punishment, but this opinion continues to breathe life into proportionality review (if only for juveniles, at this point) and the understanding that death and LWOP is different.
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Jun 26, 2012 04:56
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Pillowpants posted:29 states had LWOP as the mandatory option for kids who kill....thats not an insignificant number of states.
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Jun 26, 2012 12:35
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Leandro Andrade - nine children's videos Gary Ewing - three golf clubs ^^^^^^^ Positive Optimyst posted:I have no criminal record and hence have done not time. But I hear/read that County is much more difficult that actually doing state prison time. With so many people coming in and going out of county, a stable hierarchy never gets established inside, so you're always jockeying for position and it's hard to establish a small back-watching group. Prison has some programs (however few) that help train/rehabilitate/ease the transition back to the outside - county is just warehousing. This may be more local, but around here (Oklahoma) you get fewer good-time credits in county than in prison. (1/3 to serve vs. 1/2 to serve) You can work for slave wages (and good time credits) in prison. In county, you work unpaid, and get fewer good time credits for it. On the other hand, drugs are easier to get in county, your family is able to come visit you (if they are so inclined), and judges may give less time because they know your time is coming out of their bottom line.
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Jul 14, 2012 21:12
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Honey Badger posted:Asked in A/T and they sent me this way, so: http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/witness/ https://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/EncyMD.pdf (esp. pages 3-4) joat mon fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Feb 19, 2013 |
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Feb 19, 2013 17:04
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BatteredFeltFedora posted:My wife works with parole officers (in county mental health services for offenders) and this is something she's never heard of. Apparently in her experience parole officers aren't even supposed to make you take any time off work to do parole-related stuff, let alone quit a job. Can anyone else's experience shed some light on what might have happened here? He had a positive uninalysis and told his PO he was using with or buying from folks from work? He was in a welfare-to-work subsidised wage program and and the time/money ran out and Wendy's didn't want to be responsible for 100% of his pay? Kinda stretching for these...
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May 16, 2013 17:03
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MechPlasma posted:I never got why most places don't give former criminals back their voting rights. If you're taking an approach that anyone can become reformed, and you want to encourage reformation as much as possible, then why prevent them from having basic civil rights? That's not going to make people feel welcomed back to society at all! At least in the US, there has never existed a law that requires a person to risk their own death to save another. In general, in the US, there is NO legal duty to do ANYTHING for someone else. (in the absence of a specific duty of greater care, like parent/child) The closest 'law' in the US to what you quoted is that you can't commit murder to save yourself. (Which itself is an exception to an exception - There is something called a necessity defense, where one in essence says, "I'm not guilty of this lesser crime because I was compelled to commit the crime to avert a worse crime by someone else." You can't use a necessity defense for murder, because murder is already the greater crime)
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Jul 16, 2013 22:01
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Fun fact: because of how your brain works you can have a pretty limited number of people that you think of as actual people. People that are outside of that circle don't register as PEOPLE they register as THINGS. If you dehumanize an entire group or category of people enough your brain has about the same response to mistreating them as you would smashing a rock. This is what makes war possible but also makes a lot of people feel like real assholes after the fact. America has done a really good job of dehumanizing the poo poo out of criminals to the point that you have people advocating literal torture for anybody that's in jail at all for any reason. Cracked has a surprisingly good explanation of this process - What is the Monkeysphere? (Based on Dunbar's number)
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Jul 17, 2013 17:35
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