# Oooh, I'm old and feeble, please be lenient, your honor **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 21, 2005, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooh-im-old-and-feeble-please-be-lenient-your-honor/309137 "2005-06-21T00:05:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2005, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooh-im-old-and-feeble-please-be-lenient-your-honor/309137/21 "2005-06-25T01:38:10Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > Yeah. What I’d been specifically commenting upon earlier was that at the time of the indictment it had been reported that even if the Amico’s had been convicted of all the offenses they were charged with because (the way I understood it) was that sentencing would have been concurrent, rather than consecutive, because it wasn’t a violent crime. Which might have made sense if we were talking 5 or even ten counts… 1. Apparently that was false. The court gave him an enhanced sentence, which means that the court pretty much followed the approach that you suggest. 2. > [@](#): > > The Commission, like other sentencing commissions, has found it particularly difficult to develop rules for sentencing defendants convicted of multiple violations of law, each of which makes up a separate count in an indictment. The reason it is difficult is that when a defendant engages in conduct that causes several harms, each additional harm, even if it increases the extent to which punishment is > warranted, does not necessarily warrant a proportionate increase in punishment. A defendant who assaults others during a fight, for example, may warrant more punishment if he injures ten people than if he injures one, but his conduct does not necessarily warrant ten times the punishment. If it did, many of the simplest offenses, for reasons that are often fortuitous, would lead to life sentences of imprisonment–sentences that neither ‘just deserts’ nor ‘crime control’ theories of punishment would find justified. > Several individual guidelines provide special instructions for increasing punishment when the conduct that is the subject of that count involves multiple occurrences or has caused several harms. The guidelines also provide general rules for aggravating punishment in light of multiple harms charged separately in separate counts. These rules may produce occasional anomalies, but normally they will permit an appropriate degree of aggravation of punishment when multiple offenses that are the subjects of separate counts take place. > These rules are set out in Chapter Three, Part D. They essentially provide: (1) \*\*When the conduct involves fungible items, e.g.,separate drug transactions or thefts of money, the amounts are added and the guidelines apply to the total amount. \*\*(2) When nonfungible harms are involved, the offense level for the most serious count is increased (according to a somewhat diminishing scale) to reflect the existence of other counts of conviction. > The rules have been written in order to minimize the possibility that an arbitrary casting of a single transaction into several counts will produce a longer sentence. In addition, the sentencing court will have adequate power to prevent such a result through departures where necessary to produce a mitigated sentence. (Emphasis added.) This is the approach taken by the [Federal Sentencing Guidelines](http://www.ussc.gov/2004guid/gl2004.pdf) (pdf) to multiple counts. You can see that they don’t place any sort of cap on the sentence or require concurrent sentencing. Instead they aggregate the amount stolen and calculate an initial offense level based on the dollar amount. §1A1.1 (comment 4(e)); _and see_ §2B1.1 (laying out the graduated offense levels for various amounts of fraud and theft). 3. Today the court would have even more freedom because the Supreme Court recently held that the Federal Sentencing Guidlines are “effectively advisory.” [US v. Booker (2005)](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=04-104) 1. As I pointed out earlier, this is a federal case, to which federal sentencing law applies. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2005, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooh-im-old-and-feeble-please-be-lenient-your-honor/309137/22 "2005-07-13T22:35:14Z")
[CNN story](http://money.cnn.com/2005/07/13/news/newsmakers/ebbers_sentence/index.htm?cnn=yes) Woo-hoo! Another greedy bitch goes into the slammer. Rot, fucker, rot! ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooh-im-old-and-feeble-please-be-lenient-your-honor/309137/23 "2005-07-14T06:23:01Z")
The oldest person I represented in criminal court was 93. He and his wife had an argument, so she locked him out of the house. He says that he then gave her a bouquet of flowers and a card. His wife said that he gave her dead flowers and a card calling her a bitch. The police said that they were worried about him freezing to death in the Canadian winter while sleeping in his truck, so they arrested him and sent him to the nut house for being a danger to himself. The doc found him to be competent and released him, so he went back to sleeping in his truck. By this time the police had interviewed his wife to see why she was making him sleep in his truck, so when they heard about the dead flowers and hurtful card, they arrested him for assault and threw him in the district jail (a distinctly overheated building) while waiting to make bail. That’s when I came across him and had him released pending trial. I called the wife, who was very surprised to learn that her husband had been tossed in the can and was up on charges. She thought that the police had simply taken him in and would be putting him in a retirement home. It turns out that she was pissed at him because he pissed himself at night in bed while asleep. The prosecutor figured that 93 was a typo, and that he was 39, so she followed the government’s policy to prosecute and matters in which domestic assault was alleged even if the spouse did not which for the authorities to proceed with the prosecution. Once I pointed out his age, she still continued on with the prosecution, telling me that he was a danger to his wife. Now I realize that waking up in someone else’s cold piss is mighty uncomfortable, and that being called a bitch for sending the pisser to sleep in his truck is not nice, but how any of that deserved a full blown prosecution for assault was beyond me. It was also beyond the judge, who himself spent quite a bit of time sleeping in the cold in his truck during the late fall hunting season, and who quite enjoyed chatting with my client. The crown relented. My client moved to a retirement home a day’s drive away. I began to receive calls from that retirement home’s manager complaining that he was pissing himself in bed at night. I advised my client to wear Depends. He refused. I advised my client to move into a care home that could provide for his needs. He refused. So I advised him to piss proudly, to not let the bastards get him down, and to carry my card with him in case of further arrest. He liked that. I have not heard from him since, so for all I know, he may no longer be with us. I just hope that he found a situation that afforded him some dignity, for what it all came down to – the sleeping in the truck in the winter, the psych evaluation, the incarceration, the prosecution – was that his nocturnal incontinence humiliated him, and he would rather do anything than have anyone know about it. All he wanted was to preserve his dignity. I hope the people in the system are a little more understanding when it comes my time. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooh-im-old-and-feeble-please-be-lenient-your-honor/309137/24 "2005-07-14T07:12:26Z")
Well, “white collar” criminals tend to get lower sentencing as they steal BIG, and thus can afford the very best attorneys. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooh-im-old-and-feeble-please-be-lenient-your-honor/309137/25 "2005-07-14T08:40:43Z")
> [@ParentalAdvisory](#): > > I honestly don’t see the difference. With these kinds of cases (Like Enron), thousands upon thousands have lost their jobs, pensions, etc… With robbery, one person might be out $50 bucks. A gas station? Couple hundred or so on a good night… Nothing to scoff at, but really not a big deal. Robbing the company and putting thousands of people out of work due to fraud deserves the electric chair if you ask me. When you’re robbed you don’t just find yourself inexplicably missing $50 dollars. Usually someone threatens you with physical violence in order to get your cash. In a robbery you’re faced with immediate bodily risk, “your money or your life, pal,” while most white collar crimes don’t include the risk of death or dismemberment. So what I’m getting at is that the worse thing about a robbery isn’t the amount stolen but the threat or use of violence. Of course I still think many white collar criminals get off way to easy. Marc ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooh-im-old-and-feeble-please-be-lenient-your-honor/309137/26 "2005-07-14T12:43:41Z")
> [@Jackknifed Juggernaut](#): > > This is one of the few things that gets my blood boiling. Plus, they get to live in “prisons” that are very different than prisons. Well, to be fair, that’s generally because there’s considerably less concern that they might stab a guard and make a run for it. And if they do get out of line at a country club prison, regular prison awaits. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooh-im-old-and-feeble-please-be-lenient-your-honor/309137/27 "2005-07-14T12:47:22Z")
> [@Max Torque](#): > > I can’t believe how many people will let an older defendant get away with excuses for failing the field sobriety tests. “Oh, I can’t follow the pen with my eyes because my eyes are old and feeble, oh, I can’t walk a straight line because I have arthritis in my knees.” . You keep saying DWI in this thread, which to my mind means, ‘Driving Without Insurance’ while I think you mean “DUI” "Driving (while) Under (the) Influence (of alcohol). I’ve been trying to figure out when driving without insurance got elevated to a felony – given the power of the insurance companies, I’m prepared to believe it could happen … ---
**Author:** ![belladonna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9fc29f/32.png) [@belladonna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/belladonna)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooh-im-old-and-feeble-please-be-lenient-your-honor/309137/28 "2005-07-14T12:54:00Z")
DWI = Driving While Intoxicated ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooh-im-old-and-feeble-please-be-lenient-your-honor/309137/29 "2005-07-14T13:07:51Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > And if they do get out of line at a country club prison, regular prison awaits. From what I understand, “Country Club Prisons” are still prisons. There’s less security, but it’s not like the inmates are living in hotel rooms: they typically live in massive dorms without privacy, eat the same crappy institutional food, have highly regimented schedules, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooh-im-old-and-feeble-please-be-lenient-your-honor/309137/30 "2005-07-14T14:07:58Z")
Have any of these jerks expressed remorse at the damage they have caused and lives they have destroyed? We should start a pool on what penalty Ken Lay is going to get. ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2005, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooh-im-old-and-feeble-please-be-lenient-your-honor/309137/31 "2005-07-14T19:16:43Z")
I thought the OP as going to be about [this](http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?category=&storyID=377836&BCCode=BNNATION&newsdate=7/9/2005%209:55:47%20PM) recent case. Personally, I don’t think age matters where criminality exists. You do the crime you do the time, no matter how little you may have left. Old people aren’t always sweet, and an old bitch is still a bitch. ---
**Author:** ![5que](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/3bc359/32.png) [@5que](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5que)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooh-im-old-and-feeble-please-be-lenient-your-honor/309137/32 "2005-07-15T13:55:15Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > You keep saying DWI in this thread, which to my mind means, ‘Driving Without Insurance’ while I think you mean “DUI” "Driving (while) Under (the) Influence (of alcohol). I’ve been trying to figure out when driving without insurance got elevated to a felony – given the power of the insurance companies, I’m prepared to believe it could happen … Maybe not a felony, but in Illinois driving without minimum liability insurance will get you a minimum $500 fine, suspension of vehicle registration, and $100 re-registration fee. In an accident where you are determined at fault without insurance, your license is suspended. Every time I’ve been stopped (ticket, roadside check for seat belts/drinking) they’ve wanted to see my “licenseandproofofinsurance” (state troopers always make it one word…) ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2005, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooh-im-old-and-feeble-please-be-lenient-your-honor/309137/33 "2005-07-15T15:33:43Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > You keep saying DWI in this thread, which to my mind means, ‘Driving Without Insurance’ while I think you mean “DUI” "Driving (while) Under (the) Influence (of alcohol). I’ve been trying to figure out when driving without insurance got elevated to a felony – given the power of the insurance companies, I’m prepared to believe it could happen … My state (Texas) calls it DWI, Driving While Intoxicated. Some other states refer to it as DUI, true, but not here. That does mean that sometimes I gotta be very careful to make it clear whether a person was arrested for DWI or DWLI (driving while license invalid)… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oooh-im-old-and-feeble-please-be-lenient-your-honor/309137.md?page=1)