I had a great day yesterday. I woke up early to kayak with some friends, went shopping and grabbed some lunch at a nice hole in the wall restaurant before heading off to the great state of California that evening. I also committed a felony. I'm not sure what it was, but were we ruled by an omnipotent computer-god with the sole imperative to identify law breakers I'd be being processed for booking right now, along with the nearly all of you. Such is the state of our hyper-regulated society and its gargantuan 175,000 page[1] Code of Federal Regulations that we all unknowingly commit innumerable crimes over our otherwise uninteresting lives--behind every straitlaced CPA lies an unwitting criminal mastermind. But have no fear! For the ambitious legal scholar potential offenses can easily be identified in the Code's 1,170 page index. If brevity is the soul of …show more content…
wit, Polonius's jurist equivalent is weeping. Luckily for us, most of the laws that directly impact us are crafted by our state. Rest easy citizens, because states are always more competent than the feds. That's why changing a lock in a New York public school is a six month, ten step process overseen by a "supervising supervisor"[2]. Any deviation from this process is a punishable offense, making it impossible for decent people to do their jobs or live their lives--should a prosecutor decide that your life ought to be ruined, it will be. Tough-on-crime politicians have created an environment where it's considered perfectly normal for men to be sentenced to life imprisonment for such crimes as stealing a slice of pizza or a $2.50 pair of socks[3]. Sock merchants rejoice! Enough jest--"An unjust law is no law at all." Because I agree with St. Augustine, I affirm. I. The purpose of a Jury If one had to describe, in a single word, the progression of western government since the fall of the Roman Empire, that word would be "centralization". Despite the fact that our primate brains are only evolved to personally care about 150 people[4], we are now the proud citizens of polities consisting of hundreds of millions of bodies all governed under the same laws--local nuances be damned. In contrast to the vast majority of human history where local authorities predominated, today the vast majority of our laws are crafted by unelected, distant, and anonymous bureaucrats and rare is the man who has even *met* his so called representatives. In all this absurdity, we seem to have forgotten why the *peer* part of a jury of ones peers is so important. With modern technology we can easily impanel a jury from all over the United States or, for that matter, the world. If they are nothing more than layman fact finders, why don't we? The answer lies in an assessment of the purpose of a jury. It's a subtle nod to the idea that what constitutes a "crime" is not always objective and cannot formulaically be applied to all situations--only an individuals peers can really understand the kinds of behaviors expected of him and if he acted in violation of these community norms and, thus, his own conscience. There are many things considered wrong in Chicago, for example, that would be viewed entirely differently in a rural town in Iowa. Scholar Mark Edwards calls this concept "parameters of acceptable deviance"[5]. People will accept a certain amount of deviance from the letter of the law to do justice to what their conscience demands. To do away with nullification is to defeat the entire purpose of a jury trial and to erase the ancient principle that in order for a crime to be a crime the individual had to act with criminal intent. This makes mockeries of the ideas of law and justice. Discretion is *good* and blind legalism is the cowards way out of having to take responsibility for ruining someones life even when every just bone in your body is screaming at you to stop. Nullification is an essential tool to deliver fair outcomes. Each situation differs, and human error ensures that no law can be crafted perfectly. As Lysander Spooner said, "Those who deny the right of a jury to protect an individual in resisting an unjust law of the government, deny him all defence whatsoever against oppression." If juries have no discretion, they have no purpose. II. Nullification is necessary Nullification is as American as Apple Pie. In 1733, John Zenger of New York spoke out about the corruption of newly appointed governor William Cosby. His trial for sedition, in which his lawyer appealed to the jury directly to nullify[6], became one of the most famous in legal history and helped establish the rights to freedom of the press we still enjoy. Justice Goodloe explains how throughout history juries have nullified unjust laws from Northern juries nullifying the Fugitive Slave Law to the absurdity that was prohibition. Very little has changed--our politicians still regularly pass laws that could best described as draconian, except even Draco would say "whoa..." Let's look at the moral abominations that are three strikes laws, present in 24 states. Leandro Andrade was sentenced to life imprisonment for stealing $153 worth of videotapes[7]. William Rummel refused to refund an A/C repair job worth $120 and was sentenced to life imprisonment[8]. And of course Curtis Wilkerson had the book thrown at him for the ghastly crime of sock theft. The tales go on and on. RollingStone put it best when it wrote that these stories "[read] like a macabre joke, a surrealistic comedy routine." In California alone, over 2800 people languish in life imprisonment for *nonviolent* crimes[3]--Jean Vaijeans 5 years for a loaf of bread looks positively merciful by comparison. These laws are so blatantly unjust that prosecutors use underhand tactics to conceal invoking them until it's too late for the jury to nullify. Gail Cox[9] tells us of a case where prosecutors purposely kept the jury from being informed that the defendant was a repeat offender and faced life imprisonment until the sentencing phase. One of the jurors began openly sobbing when she found out what their guilty verdict had wrought and the jury "revolted", refusing to return to deliberations and forcing the judge to declare a mistrial. Whiteflames position is that the prosecutors were in the right, and the jurors actions were unjust. Three strikes laws are far from alone in absurdity. Juan Matamoros publicly urinated 29 years ago and has been on the sex offender registery ever since. His status forced him and his family to vacate their home in 2007[10]. Diane Huang was sentenced to two years imprisonment for accepting a shipment of lobsters in a clear rather than opaque packaging[11]. Phillip Russell destroyed a hard drive containing child pornography, since child pornography is illegal to possess in any circumstance, and was hit by an obstruction of justice charge[12]. According to civil rights lawyer Harvey Silverglate: "Virtually any professional, engaging in seemingly legitimate practices, can find himself in a Kafkaesque nightmare where effective defense is nearly impossible, as the various federal anti-fraud and obstruction-of-justice statutes have neither clear definition nor logical bounds." Forty years into the drug war, around half of federal inmates are imprisoned for drug crimes[13], mostly nonviolent and often with unfair and frankly racist penalties. Telisha Watkins got 20 years in prison for setting up a single sale of crack cocaine. Atiba Parker was hit with 42 years for selling below 3 grams of crack[14]. Drug laws, disproportionately levied against minority offenders, have destroyed communities and contribute heavily to Americas ballooning prison population--by far the highest in the world. Moreover due to our system of criminal records, when you strap someone with a felony conviction it makes it almost impossible for them to find a job or live like a normal person ever again, which is why around 75% of former felons are still unemployed a year out of prison[15]. This costs society enormous amounts of money in lost output ($65 billion[16] annually) and forces many back into a life of crime, creating more victims. Each and every time a jury fails to nullify an unjust law it victimizes us all. Welcome to whiteflames world. Mass incarceration is unfair to the individuals imprisoned and for the society that has to pay for it--it costs more to imprison someone for a year than to send a kid to Princeton[17].
All of these laws need to be modified, but no change is on the horizon. Hyper-liberal California eventually modified its three strikes law, but only after 20 years of tyranny and via referendum--a system most states don't have. Forty years of failure and the drug war continues. Nullification deals with the here and now, it doesn't wait several decades to take action. Politicians, who have every incentive to appear "tough on crime" and no incentive to free masses of offenders, some of whom will inevitably commit well publicized crimes and cost them reelection, will *never* solve the problem. The political system has failed and the citizenry needs every tool in its arsenal to protect itself from tyranny--nullification is not perfect, but given what I've demonstrated about governmental overreach I'd much prefer to be taken to court by an overzealous prosecutor in a world where nullification exists. Voters, which world would you
prefer? An unjust law is no law at all. The task faced by whiteflame is to demonstrate to the voters that were they jurors the moral choice is to imprison a sock thief for life instead of nullifying. Until he does, vote Pro.
Individuals’ right to keep and bear arms in self-defense should be further restricted. For example, George Zimmermann – neighborhood watch citizen responsible for the teenager Treyvon Martin’s death
...e data I gathered from both sides of the argument, I have come to a conclusion on whether the law is just. Personally, I feel these laws are not as harsh as some people have made them out to be. We must tackle criminals of any kind to maintain a good society. How can we have this good society if habitual offenders keep polluting it? Deterrence seems positively correlated with the facts I presented in the argument that supported the Three Strikes law. Crime went down with the implementation of these laws. My overall thoughts are that if a person cannot grow and learn from their mistakes to become better individuals, then they must be taken off our streets. Criminals are just that C R I M I N A L S. Certain crimes serve as stepping stones to more violent crimes. The threat of these long sentences may stop a second time offender from committing their third offense. This law can help reduce the prison population by serving as a deterrent to these potential repeat offenders.
The driving force behind "three-strikes" legislation in Washington, were politicians wanting to "get tough on crime". The reasoning behind the law was to reduce recidivism and get violent offenders off the street. I think that the legislation was merely a response to public outcry rather than a well thought out strategy to actually reduce crime. Advocates say that after "three-strikes" laws were adopted across the country there was a drastic reduction in crime in general. They also argue that once a person has committed a his second "strike" and knows that he faces a life sentence if convicted again will think twice before committing another crime. These arguments are fallacies. Finally what supporters fail to point out is that these three-strike laws target minorities over whites in a severely disproportionate amount.
Officially known as Habitual offender laws; “Three Strikes” laws have become common place in 29 states(Chern) within the United States and the Federal Court system; these laws have been designed to counter criminal recidivism by incapacitation through the prison system. The idea behind the laws were to maximize the criminal justice systems deterrent and selective incapacitation effect, under this deterrence theory individuals would be dissuaded from committing criminal activity by the threat of state imposed incarceration. Californians voted in the “three strikes” law (proposition 184) on March 7 1994 by a 72% vote with the intention of reducing crime by targeting serious repeat offenders with long term incarceration thereby eliminating the ability to commit another offense.
The three-strikes law is defined as “judges sentence offenders with three felony convictions (in some states two or four convictions) to long prison terms, sometimes to life without parole (Cole 2014). The purpose of the three strikes law includes is incapacitation and deterrence (Cole 2014). The purpose of a sentencing and the goals of punishment ideally are meant to correspond to each other. The goals of punishment include retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and restorative punishment (Cole 2014). Deterrence is broken down into either specific or general deterrence. General deterrence is defined as punishment of criminals that is intended to be an example to the general public and to discourage the commission of offenses”. Specific deterrence is defined as “punishment inflicted on criminals to discourage them from committing future crimes”. Lastly, incapacitation is defined as “depriving an offender of the ability to commit crimes against society, usually by detaining the offender in prison” (Cole 2014). Two empirical articles research the effectiveness of the three strikes law on crime trends, the impact the law has on population prisons, effect on a prisons budget,
The majority of prisoners incarcerated in America are non-violent offenders. This is due mainly to mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which is a method of prosecution that gives offenders a set amount of prison time for a crime they commit if it falls under one of these laws, regardless of their individual case analysis. These laws began in the 1980s, when the use of illegal drugs was hitting an all time high (Conyers 379). The United States began enacting legislature that called for minimum sentencing in an effort to combat this “war on drugs.” Many of these laws give long sentences to first time offenders (Conyers). The “three strikes” law states that people convicted of drug crimes on three separate occasions can face life in prison. These laws were passed for political gain, as the American public was swept into the belief that the laws would do nothing other than help end the rampant drug crimes in the country. The laws are still in effect today, and have not succeeded to discourage people from using drugs. Almost fifty percent...
Some of these crimes such as fraud, gambling, and bribery can really upset the flow of politics and the economy. But the difference is that drug and alcohol crime make up a majority of federal prison inmates, and it’s something that would be treated better with rehabilitation than incarceration. As of January 2014 50.1% of inmates in federal prison are there for drug offenses (a non-violent crime). Over 3200 of these people in are serving life sentences without parole. 83.4 percent of these people received the punishment that was mandatory under sentencing laws. According to the United States Sentencing Commission between October 2012 and September 2013, 27.6 percent of drug offenders were locked up for crimes related to marijuana. The drug policies in both state and national government are not flexible enough. Spending tax payer dollars to incarcerate drug users who don’t get the help they need is a waste of money. The recidivism rate of prisoners continues to rise. Should drug users and alcoholics continue to be incarcerated because they don’t have the ability to help themselves and stop using drugs? That is a form of neglect and continuing to waste taxpayer dollars to neglect the issue is only digging the national debt deeper, and avoiding the real
Starting in 1970s, there has been an upward adjustment to sentencing making punishment more punitive and sentencing guidelines more strict. Martinson's (1974) meta-analyzies reviewed over 200 studies and concluded that nothing works in terms of rehabilitating prisoners. Rehabilitating efforts were discontinued. The War on Drugs campaign in 1970s incarcerated thousands of non-violent drug offenders into the system. In 1865, 34.3% of prison population were imprisoned for drug violation. By 1995, the percentage grew to 59.9% (figure 4.1, 104). Legislation policies like the Third Strikes laws of 1994 have further the severity of sentencing. The shift from rehabilitation to human warehouse marks the end of an era of trying to reform individuals and the beginnings of locking inmates without preparation of their release. Along with the reform in the 1970s, prosecutors are given more discretion at the expense of judges. Prosecutors are often pressure to be tough on crime by the socie...
Three Strikes, an independent variable, is measured by its underlying trend in three strikes states and trend in three strikes states after three strikes. Truth in Sentencing is measured by comparing underlying trends in TIS states and trend in TIS states after TIS. Three strikes laws were found to be slightly associated with declines in robbery, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft nationally. Incapacitation rates were found to have similar effects in California, a state using Three Strikes more aggressively, than in other states. TIS and Three Strikes laws were found to have a limited effect on crime throughout all 50 states. Three Strikes laws were also found to have a greater effect on crime more so than TIS.
While this law was created to keep people who really deserve to spend their lives in prison locked up, it often affects other non-violent criminals who have made bad decisions. The statistics are staggering as well. Currently out of all the people who are in incardinated under the three strikes law, less than half are in for violent crimes (“Three Strikes”). America needs to seriously reevaluate their three strike laws. It does not necessarily have to be taken completely off the law book, as it does have its place for some offenders.
Unlike many other countries America has freedom of speech. Even in other countries in Europe people are not allowed to use “hate speech” and they can be sent to prison for it. Fortunately, the American constitution defends people’s freedom of speech, no matter how controversial it is. Political correctness diminishes people’s free speech. It may not be direct but even indirectly the knowledge that someone might have adverse consequences; such as losing a job as a result of their speech is unacceptable. People have the right to state their opinions without others infringing on them, it was the principle in which America was founded. The first amendment of the constitution of the United States declares that: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” (US Const. amend. I, sec. i). While the first amendment only affects congress’s control over free speech, it indicates that free speech is a right that people must have. Some people are of the opinion that if something can be found offensive
To begin, Mandatory minimum sentences result in prison overcrowding, and based on several studies, it does not alleviate crime, for example crimes such as shoplifting or solicitation. These sentencing guidelines do not allow a judge to take into consideration the first time offender, differentiate the deviance level of the offender, and it does not allow for the judge to alter a punishment or judgment to each individual case. When mandatory sentencing came into effect, the drug lords they were trying to stop are not the ones being affected by the sentences. It is the nonviolent, low-level drug users who are overcrowding the prisons as a result of these sentences. Both the U.S. Sentencing Commission and the Department of Justice have determined that mandatory sentencing is not an effective way to deter crime. Studies show that mandatory minimums have gone downhill due to racial a...
We cannot afford to keep using the same approach in hopes of diminishing our drug problem in the United States. In a study posted on RAND.org, the author Jonathan P. Caulkins compares many methods we can use to help with drug crime. The first graph compares federal mandatory minimum sentences, conventional enforcement at all levels of government, and treatment of heavy users. Conventional enforcement prevented around thirty kilo grams of cocaine from being used, while federal mandatory minimums prevented around forty kilograms from being used. Treatment of heavy users blew both of the other methods out of the water.
The Judiciary Branch of the United States government is responsible for interpreting the law. Those involved with this branch determine the meaning of the laws and decide what to do with those who break them. Because of a drug movement that took place through the 1980s, the courts have severely punished those who break laws associated to drugs; Congress is now trying to step in to change the way the Judiciary Branch is forced to punish such criminals. Congress has been busy the past couple of years evaluating the proper sentencing of those convicted of drug crimes. Many men and women of Congress are joining forces in an attempt to come up with a solution to propose as an amendment. Our elected leaders believe the need for the reform of drug crimes is due because of the number of cases and number of years those convicted are spending in prisons. Because of the drug wars that took place in the United States, the minimum sentence has been set so high today. Drug reform is needed in the United States, and those convicted of drug crimes with improper sentences need to have their sentence reduced. 1
It was October 6, 1998 when he was lured from the bar that cold, fateful night. His skull was smashed with a pistol butt as he was lashed to a fence, left for dead in near freezing temperatures. Nearly eighteen hours later he was found by passersby and taken to a hospital where he remained in a coma for several days until slowly slipping away. At his funeral, picketers carried signs saying, "God Hates Fags" and "Fags Deserve to Die."