Our legal system shows no compassion, no sense of justice...

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Anytime I hear about someone who on one instance had a lapse in judgment (how many of us haven't sometimes had a lapse in judgment/made a mistake) and thus end up hurting someone though they never intended to and probably wouldn't harm a fly being thrown in jail for several years and having their lives ruined.

People aren't perfect, they make mistakes. And sometimes, these mistakes do cost lives. I understand why we must have laws and some form of punishment to discourage behavior that might lead to others being harmed. But how many of us can claim that we don't have serious lapses of judgments on occasion.

The legal system demands that someone be held accountable for and be punished for every serious crime. Sometimes this demand to hold someone accountable causes people who there isn't very strong evidence to believe that they are guilty to be prosecuted for a crime they might not have commited. And once they are taken to court, the prosecution does everything it can to convict them even if there is a decent chance that they are not guilty.

More so, the system encourages prosecutors to try to get the harshest sentences they can get, and they often succeed. But is the point of the legal system to ensure that we ruin another life because one life was lost?

I don't know about you guys, but I feel pained everytime I hear about some that gets thrown in jail for years and have their lives ruined because...

he shot a sheep thinking its a deer.

he made the mistake of driving while tired and fell asleep at the wheel crashing into and killing someone.

a parent leaves their baby in the car for a moment not realizing that this is against federal law even if for a moment and as a result winds up in jail away from their child.

"(the) student (who) brought box cutters, bleach and clay made to resemble plastic explosives on a plane. He informed officials, including giving his name and address, to make the point that there were holes in airport security. Now he is being charged with a federal offense, and could get up to 10 years in prison." posted by pheonix

a student who was sking a bit fast and when the snow got slushy due to hotter climate lost control and crashed into another woman killing her. Recently he was sentenced to 4 yrs in jail because the the prosecution charged him with manslaugter but refused to offer up the misdemeanor charge for the jury to choose.

Whatever the case, we are talking about the legal system severely punishing people that never meant to hurt anyone for having a temporary lapse in judgment. Punishing people for doing things they didn't realize was illegal, could have had harmful consequences on another, or in somecase, for no more than a technicality that couldn't have really hurt anyone. Is the purpose to be an eye for an eye? Is it to ruin the lives of people that if free would be productive members of society and wouldn't harm anyone.

There are several other points to bring up here.

First is the obvious that once someone is charged of a crime, the prosecution is often overzealous to find him/her guilty.

Second is human fallability/stupidity. People make mistakes. Some more than others. If a mentally handicapped individual did something stupid that cost others their lives, should they be charged. What about a person thats barely misses the target to qualify as mentically handicapped. Is the IQ scale even a good gauge, when should people be held accountable for lapses in judgment and when shouldn't they?

Third is the inconsistecny of the legal system. In texas, identical crimes are often punished far more harshly than in other states. Under republican controlled administrations, more people are consistently put on death row, drug possession carries higher sentences etc. In some states, pot possession is a minor misdeamnor, in others, it's a mandatory jail sentence. In a recent social psychology experiment, it was demonstrated with a mock trial that under identical circumstances, with the same testimony and evidence, a man with a mexican name is 60% more likely to be convicted than an identical man with a caucasian name. Similarly, women are less likely to be convicted than men etc. etc. These experiments go so far as to demonstrate a stronger correlation between the defendent than the quantity of evidence. Just how fair is a system where stereotypes, politics, state, the capacity of the defendent's lawyer, the zealousness of the prosecution play such a significant role?

Fourth is the failure to guage guilt...

"Just before Christmas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a police officer who discovers contraband in a car can arrest every occupant if no one admits to ownership of the illicit item. Warn your teen-agers never to get into a car with acquaintances who might have alcohol, drugs or weapons. And be careful whose car you get into yourself. " posted by Sugar

How many of us can claim that we are close enough friends with every person we have ever gotten in a car with that they would tell us if they have contraband? I would be extremely upset if I go to jail and have my life ruined for a crime that I would never commit. Not only would I be kicked out of med school, I would probably have a very hard time ever finding a job, or even getting my medical certificate even if somehow manage to reenter and complete med school.

Laws like this are common. People who commited no crime and never intended to commit any crime. never the less end up in jail on technicalities even when nothing can be proven. Is this fair?

Shouldn't prison be about getting those who are geniunely harmful to society off the streets, not about finding someone to blame for every bad thing that happens and locking them up. I understand the victim's family suffers and feels appeased when someone is locked up, but is this sufficent reason to destroy the life of someone who never meant to or even fathomed that they could harm anohter, or even someone who may well be innocent?

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You could discuss this subject for years, and not get agreement. I think one of the problems in the US is that your DA's are directly elected, which means a lot of what they do will be aimed at appeasing the blood lust of the unthinking masses.

Then there's places like Texas, where Maggie Simpson would have been convicted of the attempted murder of Mr Burns.

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Re: Our legal system shows no compassion, no sense of justic

Centroles wrote:

a parent leaves their baby in the car for a moment not realizing that this is against federal law even if for a moment and as a result winds up in jail away from their child.

Can you provide an example of where this happened? I could provide a few dozen examples of where people left their kids in their car all day long and the kid baked to death in the heat but I've never heard of anyone going to prison for leaving their kid unattended for a minute.

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Just before Christmas, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a police officer who discovers contraband in a car can arrest every occupant if no one admits to ownership of the illicit item. Warn your teen-agers never to get into a car with acquaintances who might have alcohol, drugs or weapons. And be careful whose car you get into yourself. " posted by Sugar

How many of us can claim that we are close enough friends with every person we have ever gotten in a car with that they would tell us if they have contraband? I would be extremely upset if I go to jail and have my life ruined for a crime that I would never commit. Not only would I be kicked out of med school, I would probably have a very hard time ever finding a job, or even getting my medical certificate even if somehow manage to reenter and complete med school.

You've mis-applied this one. If you read the rest of Sugar's comments you'd see very clearly that what she said was that the ruling allowed the police to arrest. Arresting someone and sending them to jail are two VERY different things. It isn't the function of teh police to determine innocence or guilt. Their function is to bring them in and let the DA and the court system sort out who actually gets charged and then up to a jury to decide guilt.

But to the main body of your thread - 99% of the time when you hear of these horrendous sentences there is a whole lot more going on than what is mentioned in the press. It usually turns out that the guy that "fell asleep at the wheel" had a blood alcohol level of .24 or the kid that runs into someone on the ski slope had run into 10 or 12 people earlier in the day and had been warned repeatedly, etc..

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Shouldn't prison be about getting those who are geniunely harmful to society off the streets, not about finding someone to blame for every bad thing that happens and locking them up. I understand the victim's family suffers and feels appeased when someone is locked up, but is this sufficent reason to destroy the life of someone who never meant to or even fathomed that they could harm anohter, or even someone who may well be innocent?

How many lives is it ok for me to ruin as long as I didn't mean to? Would it be ok for me to walk around pointing a gun at everyone I see and occassionaly pulling the trigger as long as "I didn't mean to" kill them? Would it be ok for me to go out every night and get drunk and drive around running people off the road as long as "I didn't mean to" do it? Is that OK just the first time or is it ok on the 20th or 30th time too? How about if I embezzle pension funds from a few thousand people? They aren't physically harmed are they? It's only money after all...

As society advances we become more and more entangled in what our neighbors do and the ease which someone can genuinely cause harm to others skyrockets. We aren't an agrarian society where houses are seperated by miles of open land and travel takes hours on horseback any more.

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We also have many judges that, in other countries, couldnt even stand for dog-catcher 9if they even have dog catchers anymore). Judges have lost control of their own courts and have let such proceedings happen.
Being held accountable should include different counts and also, different punishments , like financial restitution and meaningful public service.
We dont have very wise judges, mostly because judges come out of the legal profession. They should come out of some other endeavor, IMO

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Wilso wrote:

You could discuss this subject for years, and not get agreement. I think one of the problems in the US is that your DA's are directly elected, which means a lot of what they do will be aimed at appeasing the blood lust of the unthinking masses.

Ummm.. yeah. Rolling Eyes

Most of our DAs are appointed to office.

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Sorry, I thought they were elected.

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Some are - mostly in the larger cities and at county level and that ends up being just the lead DA. But on the whole most are appointed. I don't believe any of the Federal prosecutors are elected.

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fishin, by talking about drunken driving and such, you're completely missing the point.

i am not talking about people that conciouslly make the decision to do something that will likely harm someone. i'm talking about people who for one moment don't conciously realize that what they're doing could be harmful to another. Like the...

skier who was sent to jail for 4 years for sking too fast. I remember hearing the story on I think 60 mins a few years ago. The prosecution argued that he was going too fast and lost control in an area where the snow became slushy. There was a taped conversation of him taken by the sheriff without his knowledge in which he said I don't know how this could have happened because he was a very good skier. It was used against him though it was taken without his knowledge to argue that he was a good enough skier to realize that the snow might be less densely packed near the bottom of the hill and that he could lose control. The jury reportedly wanted to give him a misdemeanor charge but the prosecution refused to present them one. So they found him guilty of manslaughter.

My classmates cousin was sentenced to 2 years in jail because he fell asleep at the wheel and killed another driver reportedly driving early morning. He was not intoxicated or drugged. As a student, he had to discontinue his education and spend his late teen years in a jail.

I sympathesize with the victim's families. But I do think that these sentences were too harsh a punishment for a momentary lapse in judgment.

Then there was this post... http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17317&highlight=

while the particular article may be a bit biased, the point it was making is a valid one. There are geniune miscarriages of justice due to technicalities and overzealous prosecutors.

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Sounds like you arguing for abandoning all laws, or at least those you personally don't agree with. The Anglo-American system of trials is the best I know of. There are mistakes, and there are inequities, but the alternatives are much worse. Instead of "innocent until proven guilty by a jury of peers in open court", would you rather "guilty unless proven innocent to a single judge in secret session". Without Law there is chaos, and every person becomes their own arbiter of what is right and wrong. Those who are powerful have a poor record for protecting the powerless, that is the job of Law.

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most cases dont even go to trial and when they do, the judges make some of the most idiotic rulings in jury cases and often modify what the juries decide.

Judges need to have sanity and competency tests periodically because they, more than physicians , believe in judicial infallibility.

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asherman, unless you are convinced that our system is flawless, i don't see how you can claim that it is beyond criticism.

it is our duty to constantly improve the system to be more fair to more people.

if you read my posts, you'll see that i simply argue that the punishment should fit the action, not the end result of the action.

if one man goes 5 miles over the speed limit on a turn and gets off with a warning and another does the same but as a result gets thrown in jail for 5 years because he doesn't have enough time to stop due to the traffic jam on the otherside of the curve and winds up killing some on, is it fair that two identical actions result in such disproportionate punishment.

is it fair that just because a man is latino, or lives in texas that he be far more likely to be convicted or likely to get a much harsher sentence than a nonlatino man or a man living in vermont for the same crime, same evidence and under identical circumstances?

personally i believe that we would be better off if the system's focus was to lock up and try to reform those that pose a threat to society instead of to make sure that someone gets blamed for and is put in jail for every bad thing that happens anywhere.

a jail sentence WILL ruin an young life. We should be careful for handing it out for well meaning or unintentional mistakes or worse yet, based on technicalities.

now reexamine this quote...

"a student brought box cutters, bleach and clay made to resemble plastic explosives on a plane. He informed officials, including giving his name and address, to make the point that there were holes in airport security. Now he is being charged with a federal offense, and could get up to 10 years in prison." posted by pheonix

the system needs to be improved. what system doesn't? and it is our duty as citizens to figure out how.

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Centroles wrote:

...if one man goes 5 miles over the speed limit on a turn and gets off with a warning and another does the same but as a result gets thrown in jail for 5 years because he doesn't have enough time to stop due to the traffic jam on the otherside of the curve and winds up killing some on, is it fair that two identical actions result in such disproportionate punishment....

Of course these two identical acts shouldn't result in the same punishment. In one scenario, a person wastes some gas and hypothetically may have been endangering people. In the other, a person has been killed. The actions may be the same, but the results are far different.

In the law, there is a concept called "The Eggshell Skull". What that means is, let's say I tap two seemingly identical people on the head with my index finger. One of them just gets annoyed and walks away. The other one, with the hypothetical eggshell-like skull, dies, because my gentle tapping has resulted in his skull caving in and, hence, his demise. My intent wasn't to kill anyone - my intent was simply to tap on two people's heads.

But that doesn't matter, because we are held responsible partly for our actions (as you argue), but also for the consequences of our actions. That is why there are different penalties for murder and attempted murder, even though a life may be saved (or lost) due to the presence (or absence) of adequate medical care, which, according to you, should be wholly separate from the concept of fault.

But the concept of intent does not work that way in the law. Rather, the intent is (generally) to do the deed, not to create the consequences. So my intent was to tap on heads, and I fulfilled my intent. But I should be punished (or not) based upon the consequences of my actions. If I accidentally hit the thin-skulled person in the head, it would be adjudged an accidental death, as my intent was not to touch the thin-skulled person at all. But if I mean to touch him, then I have to be held responsible for what happens, even if I didn't know what would happen, even if the consequences are rare or unlikely and even if I meant for something else to happen.

Otherwise, a killer waving a gun around (fishin''s hypothetical) would never go to prison, under your proposed system, even if the gun went off and the bullet hit someone in the head - because according to you the gun-waver should be charged with (if anything) gun-waving (threatening the peace, I suppose), rather than manslaughter, which is what he would be charged with under the current system.

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Centroles wrote:

asherman, unless you are convinced that our system is flawless, i don't see how you can claim that it is beyond criticism.

I do not at all seen asherman's claim that the system is beyond criticism. Possibly, you can show me?

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Centroles wrote:

personally i believe that we would be better off if the system's focus was to lock up and try to reform those that pose a threat to society instead of to make sure that someone gets blamed for and is put in jail for every bad thing that happens anywhere.

I agree. Furthermore, I believe that anyone who is aware that he is drowsy but nevertheless gets behind the wheel of a car, and who then falls asleep while driving and kills someone, poses a threat to society. Likewise, an experienced skier who, knowledgeable of the risks, goes too fast and kills someone on the slopes poses a threat to society. In short, Centroles, the examples you've cited are good examples of people who should be punished for their decisions, not their mistakes.

But perhaps you'd care to suggest a better, or more equitable way of punishing these people?

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so if that's the case, what do you propose we do about cases like this...

"a student brought box cutters, bleach and clay made to resemble plastic explosives on a plane. He informed officials, including giving his name and address, to make the point that there were holes in airport security. Now he is being charged with a federal offense, and could get up to 10 years in prison." posted by pheonix

just sit back and let the system ruin a youth's life.

Asherman in his post seemed to be claiming that the system is fine as it is that it is the best. I am simply stating that's not the case. The system is not flawless. It makes mistakes, it jails the innocent, it doesn't treat people under identical circumstances equally based on such factors as race, it ruins the lives of harmless individuals needlessly, and it should be reformed.

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Centroles wrote:

so if that's the case, what do you propose we do about cases like this...

"a student brought box cutters, bleach and clay made to resemble plastic explosives on a plane. He informed officials, including giving his name and address, to make the point that there were holes in airport security. Now he is being charged with a federal offense, and could get up to 10 years in prison." posted by pheonix

just sit back and let the system ruin a youth's life.

Making a judgement on what anyone would do is hard to say because he HASN'T been found guilty or sentenced. If history is a guide he'll get 3 or 4 months probation. That doesn't seem like an outragous punishment for someone that knowingly and willingly violated the law and it doesn't come anywhere near close to ruining his life.

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Centroles wrote:

so if that's the case, what do you propose we do about cases like this...

"a student brought box cutters, bleach and clay made to resemble plastic explosives on a plane. He informed officials, including giving his name and address, to make the point that there were holes in airport security. Now he is being charged with a federal offense, and could get up to 10 years in prison." posted by pheonix

just sit back and let the system ruin a youth's life.

The "system," in this case, seems to have been greatly assisted by the asshat who decided he wanted to play Johnny Detective for a day. Even if you're right, Centroles, and this guy's life is ruined, why isn't this his fault?

Centroles wrote:

The system is not flawless. It makes mistakes, it jails the innocent, it doesn't treat people under identical circumstances equally based on such factors as race, it ruins the lives of harmless individuals needlessly, and it should be reformed.

Well, let's not go off in three directions at once. No doubt the system makes mistakes, and people in ostensibly identical situations receive different treatment. Those are issues that can be handled on a different thread. But your main point, Centroles, as I understand it, is that the system "ruins the lives of harmless people needlessly." As I see it, however, the people are not so harmless, and the ruination is not so needless.

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Farmerman's point about judges is well taken.

Most judges, especially those in big cities, are political hacks who rank doorbells for the local political powers and were rewarded with a judicial appointment.
Most of these phonies graduated from the lowest tier of law schools and probably had to take the bar exam several times before passing it.

And yet, they play God in the courtrooms of America.

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bocdaver wrote:

Farmerman's point about judges is well taken.

Most judges, especially those in big cities, are political hacks who rank doorbells for the local political powers and were rewarded with a judicial appointment.
Most of these phonies graduated from the lowest tier of law schools and probably had to take the bar exam several times before passing it.

And yet, they play God in the courtrooms of America.

Would this description apply to Judge Richard Posner, bocdaver?

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What has Posner done recently? This is the 2nd or 3rd reference I've seen about him in the last day or two but there is nothing in the news...

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Our legal system shows no compassion, no sense of justice...

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