No. There is no right to counsel for indirect contempt.
As to your latter point, they get counsel *after *the initial conviction. Not very helpful.
That is clearly not what is meant. A person who drives drunk and kills someone deliberately drove drunk. It’s a conscious act.
I suspect what the authors are driving at is the sort of nonsense one sees with, say, a homeowner losing their home to civil forfeiture when someone else had drugs stashed in it.
If that’s what they were driving at, they musta been drunk.
Some of us have very mixed views on this subject.
On one hand I favor:
- Legalization of marijuana
- Ban on civil forfeiture (drug related)–these should take place as part of criminal convictions
- Many prison sentences can be replaced by community service sentences
- More rehabilitation in prison (too much warehouses for criminals)
- Crimes of passion sentences often excessive (Jodi Arias…)
On the other hand I favor: - More prison sentences for serious white collar crime (particular upset about lack of enforcement in recent financial catastrophe).
- Predators (violence against people) need to be dealt with much more harshly–you read about someone who has murdered someone and they have a long line of previous arrests (and more still from unreported juvenile record)–and you wonder why weren’t they still in prison for all these previous offenses.
The reason they’re not in prison is frequently because they get released early to make room for drug offenders. So reducing the number of drug-related sentences will help keep violent offenders behind bars.
Something has to be done about the sex offender registry. If these people are so outrageously dangerous that the government needs us to memorize their faces and names and be on the watch…then they need to be in jail. Otherwise, let them get on with their life. This has nothing to do with background checks - If someone was convicted of diddling a kid, the conviction will still show up on a background check and the person can be blocked from become a daycare worker, schoolteacher, or whatever, but the only people who know that they failed are the person themselves and the manager doing the check.
I, also, like, totally don’t care about 40-somethings who were convicted of streaking in college. Get these people the hell off that list.
Hmm… would #1 abolish the Felony murder rule? I always thought that was just.
It would be hideous if a team of criminals could mount successful defenses on the basis of “Only one of the four of us killed the hostages, but you have to conclusively prove which of the four of us actually pulled the trigger. In each of our four individual trials there will be reasonable doubt that particular defendant was the person who actually pulled the trigger.”
No. All the members of a group who, say, rob a bank had intent to commit a bad act (absent some justification like duress, obviously.)
The situation you described is a non-controversial application of the felony murder law. But it’s also been applied in more controversial ways. For example if four people are committing a non-violent crime and the police show up and shoot one of the criminals, the three survivors can be charged with the murder of the one who was killed.
I am aware that the situation that I described is a non-controversial instance of the felony murder law under the status quo of law. This is deliberate, as that is precisely what I intended it to be.
Now, on to the topic of the thread, the proposed change to the status quo of law, specifically #1: "Criminal laws should not impose liability if the accused did not knowingly and willfully intend to commit the bad act. " Note that the proposed change to the status quo does not say “a bad act”, rather it requires that the state prove intent to commit the specific bad act in question.
It appears to me that under this proposed new legal regime the state would be obligated to prove that an accused in the case of felony murder did knowingly and willfully intend to commit felony murder. This contradicts the entire point of felony murder, which is that you can commit that crime without ever having the intent to kill someone. Therefore it would appear to me that implementation of the proposal would invalidate existing felony murder laws.
It doesn’t say anything about “intent to commit the specific bad act in question.” It says, “[c]riminal laws should not impose liability if the accused did not knowingly and willfully intend to commit the bad act.” The bad act at issue in the felony murder rule is the underlying felony.
That is a minority view. Most jurisdictions hold to the agency theory, which makes co-felons responsible for deaths directly caused by other co-felons.
Actually, on rereading it’s a nonexistent view. The felony murder rule only applies to dangerous felonies (generally, kidnapping, rape, robbery, burglary). I suppose it’s possible to commit a nonviolent burglary, but it’s not really controversial when you include that context.
No one is disputing whether they can be held liable for the underlying felony. The question is whether the state would be able to hold them liable for an act that they did not knowingly and willfully intend to commit. (The felony murder.)
#6. End asset forfeiture. No citizen shall have his property confiscated unless charged with a crime. If the citizen is subsequently found not guilty, the state shall return all property. If money was confiscated, it shall be returned, with interest. If vehicles were seized, they must be returned in the same condition or the citizen shall be paid for damages.
The notion that the police can just take your money and use it to fund the department without even charging you with a crime is abhorrent. It’s theft.
I’m not surprised at all that this comes from Charles Koch. Anyone who was surprised needs to stop drinking the Kool-Aid. The guy’s a libertarian. This is exactly what you would expect from him. He would probably haved like to go further.