In my humble opinion, this is the biggest crock of shit I've ever heard of

The BBQ Pit
101

[QUOTE=storyteller0910]
I, too, would like to hear Aangelica’s perspective on the above, as well as the below.

Honestly, Aangelica, I am incredibly confused by your Police Inspector Javert stance on all this. Our justice system has a variety of mechanisms that grant fairly broad discretion to the various officials charged with upholding the law, correct? A police officer may choose not to arrest or otherwise punish someone caught engaged in certain crimes, subject to that officer’s discretion (this doesn’t apply in all cases, but it certainly applies to some, as every couple who ever escaped with a knock on the window and a “move along now” when they could have been arrested for indecent exposure will attest). A prosecutor may choose not to press charges. Judges have a certain level of discretion.

Does this not all rather strongly suggest that our legal system has been explicitly designed such that there is the ability to choose not to punish a lawbreaker when the punishment would be: (1) inconsistent with the intent of the law; and (2) shockingly fucking stupid? That the system was actually set up so that we wouldn’t have to do what you’re doing, which is apply the same punishment across a range of unrelated situations, with no regard to the particular circumstances of each case?

What people in this thread are complaining about is that at no point along the line did anyone in a position to do so exercise his or her legally-granted power of discretion and say, “this is shockingly fucking stupid. Society is ill served by this mindless, unthinking application of the law; no good can come of this. Let him go.” Someone should have had that thought, and apparently no one did, and that’s annoying.

Because you can dress it up any way you want, but the fact is that sending a high school senior to jail with a sexual assault record for getting to third base with a sophomore is shockingly fucking stupid.
[/QUOTE]

My understanding of this situation is that this guy was given several chances to avail himself of the discretion of a variety of people in the justice system and declined them - preferring to take his chances at trial with a jury. This was not a wise choice in this situation, as it turns out. Notice that the other persons involved with (and presumably guilty of the same crime) did not wind up sentanced to 10 years. They did end up convicted of lesser offenses, but then again, they were all committing an illegal act. Some punishment for breaking the law is appropriate. Evidently, someone did, indeed, use their discretion - or else there would be six young men with the same 10 year sentance. Hell, even at trial, the top count of the indictment wasn’t successful - he was convicted only of the lesser included offense - although under the statute he was guilty of both charges. Just letting him go was not in any way an appropriate behavior.

Do I think this is an optimal outcome? No. Am I sympathetic for the guy? Again, no. For starters, aside from the fact that I deplore the practice of making excuses for people fairly and legitimately convicted of a crime, based on the information I’ve seen on this case, this guy didn’t even exercise basic common sense, let alone respect for the law. He was voluntarily videotaped having sex with a fifteen year old. Once confronted by the authorities with the fact that he was videotaped committing a felony, he refused any and all arrangement other than a total walk, preferring instead to attempt to convince a jury that they should perform an act of jury nullification. His attempt was unsuccessful.

102

[QUOTE=Random]
No. She just disagrees with you.
[/QUOTE]
Factually incorrect. She has stated there is no evidence the individual did not understand he was committing a crime. I have provided some evidence that the individual did not understand he was committing a crime. Yet she maintains there is no such evidence. There is no discussion on the merit of the evidence presented, it has simply been ignored. Hence, the 4 options I presented.

Which system am I advocating? I happen to agree it is not the place of the judge or jury to ignore or re-write the law. However, I do believe Wilson was a victim of a bad peice of legislation. Unfortunately, neither judicial discretion nor prosecutorial discretion were excersised in this case and now the only potential remedy is a pardon. The law was re-written due to the injustice of it’s application in this case, yet the victim of that very misapplication can not benefit from that rewriting. I can’t imagine calling it as anything but a ‘miscarriage of justice’.

I am not. I am contending Aangelica is not in possession of the facts when she stated “To start with, Ms. Parks did not break the law.”, and is talking out of her ass.

Cite for the proposition that the defendent did not know the female was underage (hence did not know he was breaking any law) has been provided upthread. I have not made any statement regarding Wilsons knowledge of the law in question.

[QUOTE=Aangelica]
you’ll note that I said the sole exception I was willing to entertain was when people chose to break the law and accept their lawfully imposed sentance in order to draw attention to what they saw as the injustice of the law.
[/QUOTE]

Now you’re lying. Or perhaps you don’t recall what you said up in post 99
(emphasis added by me)

[QUOTE=Aangelica]
If this guy didn’t do it - or was at least arguably ignorant of his sex partner’s age - or he was the victim of entrapment or misconduct on the part of someone other than himself, I’d be right with the crowd calling this a miscarriage of justice.
[/QUOTE]

It’s the dishonesty that bothers me.

103

[QUOTE=Aangelica]
My understanding of this situation is that this guy was given several chances to avail himself of the discretion of a variety of people in the justice system and declined them - preferring to take his chances at trial with a jury. This was not a wise choice in this situation, as it turns out. Notice that the other persons involved with (and presumably guilty of the same crime) did not wind up sentanced to 10 years. They did end up convicted of lesser offenses, but then again, they were all committing an illegal act. Some punishment for breaking the law is appropriate. Evidently, someone did, indeed, use their discretion - or else there would be six young men with the same 10 year sentance. Hell, even at trial, the top count of the indictment wasn’t successful - he was convicted only of the lesser included offense - although under the statute he was guilty of both charges. Just letting him go was not in any way an appropriate behavior.
[/QUOTE]

Except that we don’t grant those discretionary powers to the judges, cops, and prosecutors to be used only for the benefit of the people who jump through the proper hoops. At least theoretically, those powers are designed to give the people in question the ability to use their judgment in situations, like this one, where slavish application of the letter of the law doesn’t produce an optimal outcome. I am neither a lawyer nor a district attorney, but I am fairly certain that at some point along the line, a prosecutor could have simply said “you know what? This is dumb. I am going to decline to charge this kid for sexual assault. I’ll charge all of them with disorderly conduct, no one goes to jail, everyone learns a little lesson.” Or the legal equivalent of that. Are you telling me that you can genuinely see no middle ground between “just letting him go” and sending him to prison? Until he is nearly thirty?

Wow. A seventeen year old boy demonstrates a lack of basic common sense. Go figure.

I have to say that the tone with which you speak about this kid is unsettling. It just seems so… I guess… vicious. Cruel. Petty.

Yes. And what I and others here feel quite strongly is that the fact that his attempt was unsuccessful represents the wrong outcome, is unjust. The fact that his attempt was unsuccessful, if I may once more repeat the phrase, is shockingly fucking stupid.

And finally, this:

…is at least consistent. I would consider it to be plain old insane. But consistent.

104

[QUOTE=Aangelica]
My understanding of this situation is that this guy was given several chances to avail himself of the discretion of a variety of people in the justice system and declined them - preferring to take his chances at trial with a jury. This was not a wise choice in this situation, as it turns out. Notice that the other persons involved with (and presumably guilty of the same crime) did not wind up sentanced to 10 years. They did end up convicted of lesser offenses, but then again, they were all committing an illegal act. Some punishment for breaking the law is appropriate. Evidently, someone did, indeed, use their discretion - or else there would be six young men with the same 10 year sentance. Hell, even at trial, the top count of the indictment wasn’t successful - he was convicted only of the lesser included offense - although under the statute he was guilty of both charges. Just letting him go was not in any way an appropriate behavior.
[/QUOTE]
All the men/boys involved must now register as sexual offenders, including those that pled down. This young man felt that was an unacceptable outcome. I concur.

105

I think Aangelica has done a fine job of demonstrating that there is a fairly large gap between “the law” and “justice.” It is, however, more than a little distressing to realize that she apparently thinks this gap is a good thing.

106

Should we be surprised if, upon his release, he becomes a serial killer in the same community that convicted him? There’s your justice.

107

[QUOTE=Aangelica]
To the best of my knowledge, it’s not illegal in my jursidiction for my husband and I to have oral sex, but if it were and we did it anyway, I’d have to be prepared to live with the possible consequences - one of which could conceivably be jail time. Personal responsibility and all that.
[/QUOTE]

I’m gonna have to call bullshit right there. I find it very hard to believe that you’d maintain a vulcan-like emotional detachment while being sent to jail for having oral sex with your husband.

Would you turn yourself in if you were to find out that it’s illegal in your jurisdiction? Would you insist that the letter of the law be followed? After all, the law is there for a reason, and by not following it to the letter, you’re disrespecting it- and knowingly taking your chances.

What area do you live in? We can get this thing started today, if you’d like. Any other laws you might’ve broken? We can take care of those while we’re at it.

108

.I’ll add: Until quite recently there were states in the US where homosexual sex acts were illegal. Should all gay people in those states have refrained from having sex while fighting the unjust law?

109

I played dominoes for money once at home. Send in the gestapo.

110

The possibility of this kid coming out of prison in ten years a hardened criminal when he went in as a high school kid who did what comes naturally to horny teenagers is a very real possibility.

So is the possibility of harassment, threats, stalking and violence once he’s out and his name and residence readily available on the sex offender registry.

It doesn’t seem that far off from the world Victor Hugo introduced us to, does it? It’s already been suggested that Aangelica play Javert.

I wonder whether Aangelica believes that those who defied the law and hid the Jews got what they deserved when they were caught. Does she believe that those who ran the Underground Railroad should’ve been punished?

If the law is absolute in letter and has no spirit, why do we have judges at all? Justice doesn’t mean the strict application of the law without the temperance of judgment and mercy.

111

“Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time” is a fine motto, and one that I often subscribe to, but there are circumstances where the “time” is entirely disproportionate to the “crime”, and the criminal may not always be aware of such subtle details of the law.

For example, in my youth, I occasionally dabbled in recreational drug use. Now I was aware that there was a non-zero chance I would get busted, but I was also aware that there is a sliding scale for punishment, and someone caught in possession of a single joint would be punished much less harshly than someone who had kilos or more on their person. For this reason I was content to simply consume, and not distribute. Unknown to me however, there is a large distortion in this principle in the case of LSD. The active ingredient in LSD is a liquid, a single dose of which is measured in micro-grams. Since it is so small, the drug is usually placed on a carrier, such as a piece of paper or a sugar cube. Prosecutions for LSD are based on the total weight, including that of the carrier, so someone in possession of a single hit on a sugar cube could find themselves prosecuted as if in possession of thousands of doses. This is clearly disproportionate, and even the laws’ authors have said they did not intend for it to be interpreted this way.

It seems to me that this is a similar case: the young man may have been aware that the act he engaged in was illegal, but he had no idea that the laws violation would be punished so severely.

112

Well, if those Jew-hiding criminals had written letters to their Nazi legislators, they might have had a moral leg to stand on. As it stands I think Aangelicawill probably have to say they harmed German society. Unity and obedience to authority are the keys to a successful society, after all…

113

[QUOTE=catsix]

If the law is absolute in letter and has no spirit, why do we have judges at all?
[/QUOTE]

For several reasons, none of which require ignoring the law:

  1. Conduct fair trials (which includes applying procedural rules, ruling on questions of evidence and other disputes, and general administration);

  2. Deciding what law applies (which includes ruling on questions of law that are disputed)

  3. In cases heard without a jury, ruling on questions of fact.

  4. In criminal cases, determining an appropriate sentence for those convicted(usually constrained by statute to some degree).

114

[QUOTE=catsix]
Four.

If you can convince a jury of 12 of your peers that although you did the crime, you do not deserve to be convicted and can get a “not guilty” verdict out of them, there is nothing that can be done to set aside that verdict or try the case again.

[/QUOTE]

You are correct about the existence and effect of jury nullification, although whether it can be characterized as a deliberately intended part of the system is debatable.

And be careful before you advocate more widespread use of the practice.

In some cases, it’s undoubtedly been used to good effect. In many others, it’s been part of a system of ongoing injustice, perhaps the worst stain on American justice in our history, where the rule of the majority mob was substituted for the the rule of law.

Yes, the systematic refusal of white juries in some states in the past to convict white defendants for crimes against blacks was jury nullification.

115

I disagree with much of what Aangelica has said here.

For example, I think that the system, in this case, led to an overly-harsh sentence.

Despite that, I’ve been able to restrain myself from comparing her to Nazis and slaveowners.

I’ll repeat what I’ve asked twice before:

For those of you who condemn the result, who is to blame? Most reponses have been pretty vague on that. To the extent anything can be gleaned from some of the more vitriolic attacks, the animosity seems mostly directed at the recent appellate ruling. Is that right? In your view, who dropped the ball here?

In other words, posts that boil down to “I disagree with the result! It’s too harsh! And I think blowjobs between (among?) consenting 15 year-olds should be legal! If you disagree, that means you’d support Nazi prosecutions!” fail to impress. Instead, try suggesting a change in the system that shows that you’ve given 15 seconds of thought to possible neagtive consequences of what you are advocating.

116

Ah, Random: if I didn’t love you already… :wink:

I have nothing more to add to your most excellent and articulate points.

117

[QUOTE=Campion]
Ah, Random: if I didn’t love you already… :wink:

[/QUOTE]

And yet, here we are in the Pit, wasting time talking about the law.
Instead, we should elope to a tropical island, where we can sip umbrella drinks (and waste time talking about the law).

118

Here’s my $1.35 Jamacian on the topic. I think the blame for the situation mostly lies on the legislature for making the mistake of only including intercourse in the Romeo and Juilet exemption to the statutory rape laws. This forced the 12 year mandatory sentence(with parole after 10). The Prosecutor would probably have happily dropped the charges against Genarlow Wilson IF he was the only person at the party being prosecuted for acts there. If he had declined to prosecute Wilson it might have undermined his case against the others who had committed more heinous acts at the party. He offered the plea deal, but that’s about as far as he could go within his discretion. I think the DA held his nose and sent Genarlow up the creek so the case against the others at the party would be stronger, an act of courtroom realpolitik perhaps. Maybe Hamlet, a prosecutor IIRC, could let us know if this is a possiblity. Once the case went to trial the video evidence made the jury find Genarlow guilty, and the flawed statutes took over from there.

So, here’s how I see the breakdown of fault for the situation here.

Legislature - 50% Both for making the initial law, and for not making the addendum retroactive.
Prosecutor - 30% For not finding some way to let Genarlow off with a lighter sentence through the plea bargain. An offer with sex offender status, which means he can’t even go home, is no offer at all.
Court of Appeals - 20% Come on jerkoffs, let’s not pretend that decisions aren’t written every fucking day at every level of jurisprudence which reach outside the plain text of the statutes. You had testimony from the sponsoring legislator saying this case was not covered in the intent of the statute. You could damn well have overturned this conviction. It would not have been the downfall of the republic.

Honorable mentions: Governor for not commuting the sentence, although it could just be that he doesn’t know about the case or hasn’t researched it to know if a reduction is appropriate. The Jury for not practicing Jury Nullifcation on this dumbass crap, although to be fair they probably didn’t know they had that power.

Enjoy,
Steven

119

[QUOTE=Mtgman]
Here’s my $1.35 Jamacian on the topic.

[/QUOTE]

A well thought out analysis, sir.

I wont quarrel with most of what you say. Certainly, I agree that the legislature did a poor job in drafting the original law. And, assuming it had the power, in failing to make the amendment to the law retroactive. (Theres been some suggestion that the state constitution barred it from doing so, which strikes me as unlikely where the amendment works in favor of potential defendants, but I can*t rule that out without research.)

Whether the prosecutor erred, I dont know enough to say. Among other things, Id want to see the videotape and learn whether there was some convenient lesser offense that he could have instead pursued.

I do pretty much let the appellate court off the hook. Yeah, maybe there are some close calls where the equities influence an appellate judge. But as extreme as this will (no doubt) sound to some of you, from an appellate perspective, I dont see how this was a close call. Its possible that Im missing something. I havent read the briefs or the opinion. But on the three or four main questions, the defendant didn*t have much of an argument. 1) There was ample evidence offered at trial that he engaged in oral sex with a 15 year old. 2) That act was against the law in effect when it occured, according to the clear language of the statute. 3) The subsequent change in the law was not made retroactive. 4) The statute provided for a minimum penalty, which was imposed after a determination of guilt.

Again, judges are not supposed to ignore the law. If its not ambiguous as written, or unconstitutional, the judge is pretty much stuck. And testimony from one legislator that he would have written it differently, if he only had a brain, doesnt change things.

Governor? Yeah, maybe so. Again, Id need to know more. And theres still time for him to act.

Jury? No. It appears like the jurors honored their oath to follow the law.
Yes, Im on that keyset again.

120

I wasn’t talking about the actual rape. More like the sociological background that caused the rape to happen. I mean this whole story just sounds like typical " I am a big Pimp Daddy Jock , who needs to “score points” off of these girls. Exactly the same socilogical mentality that allowed the Glen Ridge rape to happen…