FSTDT

David Behar #fundie sentencing.typepad.com

[Commenting under "Eleventh Circuit upholds a 57-year sentence for federal juve offender for non-homicide crimes based in part of possibility of good-time credits"]

@Jim Gormley

During my 8 years in Federal prison, I served time at FCI - Gilmer in Glenville, West Virginia with two young black brothers who were juveniles when prosecuted (they were also cellmates in the same prison)in Federal Court in South Carolina for "Armed Robbery in or Affecting Interstate Commerce", after conducting a series of robberies of gas station/convenience stores, during which they carried pistols, threatened to kill people, and even pistol whipped a 17-year old female clerk. They had been passed around in the South Carolina foster care system for years, and really never had a fair chance at life. Their public defender got them to plead guilty to the crimes, without advising them of the sentences they faced, including mandatory consecutive time for "use or carry of a firearm while committing a crime of violence or a drug crime". When I met them, they were in their late teens, and had been sentenced to 53 years in the Bureau of Prisons. Neither the prison staff nor most of the inmates knew what to make of these youngsters. One or two older black men tried to take them under their wings and teach them how to live in prison. If an when they are released, they will not be able to work or survive in civil society. Legislators, prosecutors and judges lose sight of what serving so many years in prison does to a man, particularly if his sentence began when he was a teenager.

From David Behar:

Jim. I agree with you. Those victims of society would never function in the outside world. What you do not mention is their behavior in prison. I am going to bet the crime meter continued to spin at supersonic speed, and they had to be straightened out by the prisoners, because the staff owes their jobs to them. The prisoner victims of their crimes were left to fend for themselves, as we all are on the outside.

They should have been executed on the reading of the guilty verdict. If they wished to redeem themselves they could have signed consent to donate their organs after screening for diseases. The purpose of warehousing them is to provide jobs for registered members of the Democratic Party, and absolutely nothing else. Let me guess again. The overwhelming majority of rent seeking, worthless, make work government workers were white males.

The criminal justice system of the USA is a major scam to defraud the tax payer by the criminal cult enterprise that is the lawyer profession. It achieves nothing, and takes in a cool $trillion.

Later

The Congress must impeach the entire Supreme Court. Any dissenters failed to stop the pro-criminal majority. They have accomplice liability, and deserve to be impeached. These are out of control rent seeking, pro-criminal, criminal cult members, in out of control insurrection against our constitution. Judicial review is prohibited by Article I Section 1, giving law making power to the Congress.

Supremacy Claus #fundie sentencing.typepad.com

[Commenting under "Mother sentenced to 8-10 years for withholding cancer meds from son"]

@Bill Otis

The forthcoming torrent of defense-type excuses for this one ought to be a real doozy.

Bill: I strongly morally condemn what she did. Under 123D, she would likely go home, with some acts of atonement enforced by the court.

Safety is the first and last job of government. How does her going to prison make us safer? It makes us poorer, but not likely safer. I do not see how withholding treatment is assault and battery, and attempted murder. Is there a duty to rescue for this class of victim?

One thing about this autistic child, and why the law has come down so hard. Had he survived, he would have generated $millions in cost to the taxpayer, with zero return. So, her biggest sin? Not protecting future government jobs.

Supremacy Claus #fundie sentencing.typepad.com

[Commenting under "Moneyball Sentencing"]

123D.

One is punishing for past crimes, not trying to predict the future. One is preventing recidivism in the most reliable way, by death. Start the count at the real age of adulthood, 14. No violent repeat offender makes it to 18, and the start of their busy period of crime. Any deterrence is incidental and an added benefit.

Because each conviction has to stand in for an average of 10 other crimes, by the time one gets to 3, one knows the defendant is a bad guy. His innocence of the third crime is not a problem, because ha has committed many hundreds of crimes.

Soronel Haetir #fundie sentencing.typepad.com

[Commenting under "A good question about prison nation ... dodged"]

Maybe I can get some traction here with my ideas:

I produced the following under the basic theory that any convict chosen for rehabilitation deserves enormous resources dedicated toward that end, while those not so chosen deserve nothing more from society..

The basic plan goes as follows:

1) Upon felony conviction, of whatever level ranging from first degree murder to passing bad checks a new quasi-jury pool is chosen. These panel members, unlike the guilt jury, come from localities where the crime did not occur. Also unlike the guilt jury they are not actually convened into a sitting panel.
The size of the pool is inversely proportional to the severity of the crimes of conviction, though never falling below a minimum threshold.

2) Each member of this new pool is approached in turn, one at a time. They are not told their order within the pool. The pool member is presented facts about the convict, though some material is held back (race and name as race proxy being two that come immediately to my mind). A defense representative will be part of this process to ensure that no improper information is conveyed. If any such information is conveyed then the results of that pool member are disqualified if adverse to the convict.

3) The pool member is asked whether they wish to rehabilitate the convict. If the answer is "yes" then the convict is placed in the pool member's home in some form of legal guardianship and is once more considered to be a juvinile for legal purposes. A stipend calculated to make the convict's presense and rehabilitation financally neutral shall be paid in order to negate at least most cost-benefit analysis from the pool member's mind.

4) If all pool members say "no" the convict is placed in prison where they are given a chance for a normal set of appeals. When those appeals are exhausted the convict is executed, not for the crime of conviction, but for being considered unfit for living within society.

5) Upon completion of the term of legal guardianship, the the convict is returned to full civil status with no restrictions whatsoever on their liberty.
The only time the prior conviction can be discovered through legal means is during a subsequent penalty determination.

This system is intended for use only in felony cases, misdemeanors should be reduced strictly to incarceration/fine with no other effects outliving whatever term of probation is also given. Also no actual juvinile is to be placed in this system, though many juvinile cases make the natural parents appear as a significant issue.

I realize the distance requirements of step 1 would be far easier to acheive in the federal system and large states like California and Texas than smaller states. I believe this could be overcome by setting up some form of convict exchange. I include this step for the purpose of removing the convict from
an familiar environment, and hopefully make it at least somewhat more difficult to establish contact with whatever criminal element exists in the new location.

This system would also reduce the value of plea bargaining, the remaining options being immunity or a negotiated pool size larger than contemplated for the criminal category.

I also realize that current precident would not allow the above system to be implemented and that amendment(s) would be required to effectuate that change.

David Behar #fundie sentencing.typepad.com

[Commenting under "Minnesota Supreme Court upholds consecutive sentences adding up to 90 years before parole eligibility for juve killer of three"]

"I can understand how those troubled by these SCOTUS decisions are not troubled by efforts to limit their application." Good insight.

Lawyers are the stupidest of people. Ivy grads are the stupidest of lawyers. The Supreme Court is the stupidest of Ivy grads, compounded by an acculturation to the arrogant, Washington rent seeking, self dealing culture. Supreme Court decisions have been lawless, unmitigated disasters, from the Civil War set off by Dred Scott to the American Holocaust of Roe v Wade. Every one has been a violation of Article I Section 1 of the constitution, giving law making power to the legislature.

Its decisions may be considered to have no external validation. They are the subjective, invalid feelings of stupid, East Coast elite, know nothing lawyers. All are biased, not in favor of criminals, but in favor of lawyer rent seeking and of big government, the industry of Washington. At best, they should be deemed advisory. No federal marshal will come to enforce any. That would require agreement with a decision by the executive branch. If any does, taser him, expel him from the state. Nothing will happen.

In Miller, the Court cancelled the decisions of more accountable state legislatures. The decision contains future forecasting, based on nothing, a finding of a 5% difference in myelination of the frontal lobes, continuing to age 30. That minuscule difference has not been tied to anything in behavior. Teens commit fewer violent crimes than adults. Teen crime is dropping. Adult crime is rising.

It is also illogical and harmful to the defendant. Say the mass murderer becomes a priest, and a saint. He qualifies for canonization by his good deeds and verified miracles. The flaw in logic is that his improvement has been within the structure of prison. Release would end the achievements. A diabetic was brought out of a coma with aggressive insulin treatment. He has been doing well for years, with no side effects on insulin. Let's stop the insulin since he is old and his blood sugars have been great, the Court is saying. That is its "feeling." No. Both conditions are defects, and will never improve, since a function is missing. Prison structure is the insulin that allowed the defendant to thrive.

Supremacy Claus #fundie sentencing.typepad.com

[About the execution of Licho Escamilla for murdering a Dallas police officer]

The condemned likely killed again and again until restrained in prison. He should have spent his time on death row on the productive activity of being water boarded to solve all the murders he committed.

Death to the lawyer filth that defended the condemned and torture followed by death to the arrogant heartless filth on the bench that delayed justice. Direct action groups of victims' families should visit them and mete out justice. To deter these reptiles.

I consider these heartless judges internal enemies of the nation, and to be more morally reprehensible than the condemned. He has a brain defect where empathy and morality are located. They are normal and only moved by self dealing rent seeking.

Adamakis #fundie sentencing.typepad.com

[About Steven Smith, who suffered death by lethal injection in Ohio for raping to death his six-month-old step-daughter Autumn]

1. Did any bloggers herewith attend the Planned Parenthood/ACLU vigil at Lucasville?

2. Wasn't the baby still part of the woman's body, or did Smith wait a few too many months?