Another possibility is that he may become famous as the guy who started the big fire of 2008. If so, he may be collecting a lot of money in things like books and movie rights. The government and the victims will now have a claim against any money he collects.
This is particularly important as so-called “son of sam” laws, those that try to prevent notorious criminals from profiting from their notoriety as criminals, have been struck down in many states, including California as violating the 1st amendment. As such, restitutionary fines ensure that if any profit is made, it goes to the victims.
There is a Straight Dope column by gfactor about these laws, IIRC.
Slate Magazine has a column called The Explainer which can now be conveniently accessed on the left column of their page. I recommend it to all GQ readers.
Certainly I’ll defer to your knowledge of legal issues and my post was obviously in error stating that not being able to pay for a drug test could lead to failing the conditions of parole, but my understanding that the “willfullness standard” is something that obviously judges and parolees often find themselves disagreeing upon.
Even if a judge structures your restitution, drug tests, or any other costs so that they take up say 20% of your income, given the likely marginal socio-economic status of convicts to begin with, this can be a significant imposition on how parolees lead their lives and they often cite it as a reason for their failure to meet the conditions of their release. Obviously, if your best experience in making money is through drug dealing, needing to pay the state for your supervision will provide some pressure to return to drug dealing. I’m not here to debate the fairness of the manner in which the “willfullness standard” is applied across the United States, but I think it’s fair to say that the level of money owed to the state is a factor in failing parole.
Let’s leave aside for a moment the question of the destitute - what if a fire were caused by a bunch of college students screwing around with a bonfire, and that fire spread to destroy massive amounts of property, including an entire mobile-home park. Let’s wonder also what would happen if several people were to be injured severely by this fire.
What should be done with this bunch - they aren’t homeless and their future earning potential seems okay - assuming they work through some criminal charges, that is.
I ask this because it does seem to be the case in this latest California wildfire - at least one of them was caused by a group of college students between 18 and 22. Now, these kids have their whole lives ahead of them - but they screwed over a whole bunch of people. The people in the mobile home park lost everything, and one couple suffered burns so severe they’re in critical condition and might not make it.
I do know accidents happen - but setting a bonfire isn’t accidental. They should face some sanction - and it ought to be a pretty steep one, right?
Heck, with programs like this, a lot of people would commit arson just to get a jump ahead in their life.
I’m old-fashioned on issues like this. I think that when you’ve committed a major crime, you should be suffering some. Your life should be worse off than it was before you committed the crime. You should be punished. Because that’s a motivation to not commit crimes.
I feel that whatever resources we are spending on helping disadvantaged people get ahead in life should be spent first on the people who haven’t committed crimes. If you’re poor but you’ve resisted the temptation to become a criminal then you deserve a break more than the guy who gave in and broke the law.
I fail to see how fining an indigent person $100 million constitutes any kind of repercussion at all. You might as well fine him $100 billion, or $100 trillion. Taking away what he doesn’t have is a meaningless gesture as far as deterrence is concerned. You might as well ban him from trading on the stock market, for all the good it would do.
But as was explained above, he will be paying fifty bucks a month out of a pathetically small income for the rest of his life. A theoretical $100 million bucks might be meaningless - but he’ll miss that $600 a year and it will hurt.
I know this is about criminal restitution, but I noticed a undercurrent which felt strange to me. Doesn’t the US have custodial sentences in default of payment of fines? Here, the sentence is usually something like “$3000 fine, or 2 weeks in default”.
So what is the difference between fining him $100 million and fining him $100,000? If it is about sending a message, why not fine him $100 trillion and send a *really * big message?
My posts (#4 and #24) gave two reasons why the court might have decided to give him a large fine rather than one downgraded to his current financial state.
Because if a multi-millionaire were to set the same fire, he could dash off a check for the $100,000 and be done with the whole mess. Meanwhile, those people who lost their homes wouldn’t have anything to show for it. And the next time something like this happened - like these college kids I mentioned - they could point to the $100,000 as a “standard” penalty and have that paid off in a few years.
Equal protection certainly applies here - but the courts would likely get upset here if the application of this punishment meant that this guy were to be permitted no money for the rest of his life. On the sentencing side, there would be an equal protection issue if he were to be fined a different amount on the basis of his income. Punishment isn’t intended to work that way.
