Harsh New Drug Bill About to Be Introduced in House 11/21/03

How does that belie logic and reason? I happen to think that most of the punishments in our criminal justice system are too light. We are far too concerned about the rights of criminals. I don't have to worry about what the penalties prescribed for breaking laws are, because I can choose not to break the law. I know it is a cliche, but if you can't do the time, don't do the crime. No one is making anyone smoke pot, snort coke, shoot up, etc.

Seperate from my feelings on how our criminal justice system should work, I also have views on what the laws of our country should be. There are many laws that I don't think are necessary. I also unerstand that it is not up to me to chose which laws to follow. If I break the law, I am accepting the consequences. If I don't believe in a law (and feel strongly enough to really care), then I don't ignore it, I try to get the law changed through the proper channels.

Mandatory minimum sentences have the effect of putting people who knowingly and willfully broke the law in jail for long periods of time. No one has to be a drug user or dealer of any level. Mandatory minimum sentences also attempt to prevent judges from legislating from the bench. If some judge feels that it should be okay to smoke pot, it is not his place to let the person off with probation, or whatever. The people have elected legislators who have drafted laws for them. The laws should then be enforced until the people elect legislators to change them.

If the only purpose of detention was to prevent future crime, your argument might hold water. You ignore that prison is a punishment for breaking the law as well. I think we should punish those who do not respect the rule of law.

 

1. Which punishments are too light? Punishments, especially for drug offenders, are by no means light. THis is an example I picked at random, it's South carolina's penal code:

[size =1]A) A person possessing or attempting to possess less than one gram of ice, crank, or crack cocaine, as defined in Section 44-53-110, or less than ten grains of cocaine, as defined in Section 44-53-210(b)(4), is guilty of a felony and, upon conviction for a first offense, must be imprisoned not more than five years and fined not less than five thousand dollars.[/SIZE=1]

5 years in jail for having trying to score some coke for personal consumption? That's light? Maybe in Saudi Arabia it's light, not in any other Western country.

2. Mandatory minimums have been a complete disaster. In theory, what you said is correct, but in practice, it has not worked...at all.

The Cato Institute, C.J. Rehnquist...not exactly bleeding heart liberals.

3. If it is all about respect for rule of law, then why not 3 year mandatory minimums for tax evasion? Insider trading? Speeding? Parking in a handicapped zone? Why or Why not?

 

That 5 years was just a random example. But if you think five years for a gram of coke is "light" you're crazy. You have the same in canada, and its up to a year. Please, how much social bad does some dude who gets high on coke do? Anymore than a dude who drinks 15 beers? 5 years in prison more? Right....

The problems with mandatory minimums go well, well beyond what I quoted above. Does it not bother you that it is the consensus opinion within the legal community, cutting across political spectrums, that they are at both a disastrously inefficient way of allocating resources as well as brutally unjust?

BTW, how is a prison going to pay for itself? Cheap labor? Indeed, and put non-criminal workers who are displaced out of work? Yeah, that's real just.

Simplified thinking like yours without regard for the consequences is what makes such things possible in the first place.

BTW, you can claim that you support mandatory minimums for speeding and illegal parking, but you and I both know that you are talking out your ass and if you or anybody you know was taken to jail for speeding for a mandatory 3 year sentence, you would not stoically say "well, rule of law! off to the pokey for me!". That's just plain silly.

 

Everything above this, we just disagree on. On this point you are calling me a liar. I do support having whatever punishment they want for speeding or parking violations. All you have to do to avoid them is not break the law. If the punishment for speeding was death, would you still speed, and then b**** about it when you got caught and were sentenced to death. I don't know about you, but I would just drive under the speed limit. That is the point. I wouldn't need to say "off to the pokey for me" because I have the ability to choose to follow the law. The same ability that people who use drugs have now. If you obey the law, you don't need to worry about what the punishment for breaking the law is. Think of it this way, drinking a bottle of drain cleaner will kill you. Do we demand that all drain cleaner must be made safe for human consumption, or do we simply chose not to drink drain cleaner. Be smart and avoid the consequences altogether instead of complaining that they are too harsh.

 

This is not a problem with sentencing, it is a problem with conviction. It is not against the law to ride in a car. Your friend sounds like she suffered from having a crappy lawyer. She also didn't have the good sense not to associate with drug dealers. However, I am certain this is the exception and not the rule. Most people are going to be busted for possesion, not for unknowingly riding around with a drug dealer to/from a pick up.

The quote you responded to had nothing to do with mandatory minimum laws. I was pointing out that under the penal code posted by SamFisher, it was possible to receive no jail time and only a 5k fine. He quoted that statute as being to harsh, and I was claiming that he misread it and it was in fact to light.

As for rich people avoiding punishment, what else is new. I take it you have not heard of OJ Simpson. That has nothing to do with the criminal justice system and everything to do with the sharpest lawyers working defense because that is where the money is in criminal law.

 

OK, so what about the death penalty for speeders. Too harsh or is rule of law worth it?

 

I don't believe in the death penalty in general, but the point is that I don't care what the penalty is for any crime, because no one has to suffer the penalty, they chose to do so by commiting the crime.

 

But putting aside your moral objections, you would be fine with any degree of punishment for the sake of rule of law as long as individual choice was available?

Well, if you do then I guess you do and there's nothing I can say about it, other than it sounds too Vulcan to be true.

But anyway, the anglo american justice system is not based on such principles (e.g, death penalty or life imprisonment for speeders would be held unconstitutional, in all likelihood as cruel and unusual punishment) It's based on the principle that the punishment is commensurate with the offense. However, mandatory minimums turn this principle on its ear, while having many, many, many negative consequences in addition thereto.

 

I would be fin with that, I guess that makes me:

 

A red x?

or this

 

It was actually supposed to be a draconian, but the picture wouldn't link.

 

So the government would be perfectly justified in illegalizing everything that isn't absolutely vital to human life and imposing 20-year prison sentences for any deviationism?

 

Sounds like you get convicted of crimes you didn't commit if you have a crappy lawyer, which is exactly what I said and you quoted.

Okay, either your friend was driving around with a stranger (not too smart), someone she knew was a drug dealer (not too smart), or someone who she knew but who was secretly a drug dealer (bad luck). I have a pretty good idea what my friends do to make money, and if one of them was selling drugs, I wouldn't ride around in their car.

All that is fine and dandy until you get an activist judge that tries to legislate from the bench. Now you have someone that decides he does not agree that people should serve time for possession and lets people off with a fine. Unfortunately, neither way works perfectly, but justice will be served more often if there is a standard than if you leave the discision to individuals.

Make up your mind. Do the laws only affect poor people, or do they affect everyone that does not have OJ money. BTW, weren't the Tulia cases overturned?

 

Where do these paranoid delusions come from? "The government" in America (at least the legislative branch, you know the ones that make laws) are elected by the people. I don't think it is very likely that America is going to elect legislators that make everything not essential to human life illegal. If the people did choose to elect such legislators, then they would be justified in doing so (as long as all the laws were constitutional, other wise they would be overturned by the SCOTUS), as that would be the will of the people.