The woman who’s been paralyzed since she was 18 and the woman who’s daughter was killed may disagree with you. They see a woman who killed one person and completely changed the life of another who has never paid for her crimes. Do they not have any rights or say in the matter? The legal system is supposed to give voice to their anguish and pain.
And where did you get the idea that prison wasn’t supposed to punish people? Punishment can be good - it acts as a deterrent, it gives people a sense of fairness so they don’t try to take justice into their own hands, and it sends a message to others that there are hard consequences to actions.
The way I read you, you think that prisons are not very good at accomplishing what they’re supposed to accomplish. The problem with your position is that you’re advocating a position which would be even worse at accomplishing those objectives: not punishing people at all. How much of a deterrent factor would that have? How much would that prevent crime? Prison surely is better than nothing.
Now, if you’re comparing prison to some other, fictional standard, like the US levying only monetary fines as punishments or using a Magic Guilt Gun on people who infract, then that’s another discussion, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the current situation. The choice is between sending a person to jail, or not punishing them at all in any way. So far, I’m not convinced by your arguments in favor of anarchy.
Mosier, you may have missed my earlier question to you, so here it is again, slightly reformatted: Do you think the woman should have received the original sentence for killing someone in a drunk driving accident? You’ve taken the position that the legal system should not be about punishment. What should the role of the legal system be, then? Rehabilitation? I can get behind that. How do you suggest that this be implemented? Someone takes the reckless action of driving while intoxicated and kills another person. How should the legal system address that situation, if we take prison off of the table? What are you suggesting we do with people who break the law instead of prison?
This blog has more info about the story. The sister of the victim actually responds to the article. She makes the following observations:
[ul]
[li]The driving force behind Mezzich’s skipping town was the threat of legal action from the victim’s mother.[/li][li] According to the daughter, the mother was not a very good mother and was/is estranged from the family. She was not close to the victim when she was alive, and allegedly stole her daughter’s identity at some point.[/li][li]Mezzich apparently was injured in the accident and suffered a brain injury.[/li][li]The mother allegedly was threatening a civil suit against the Mezzich family, which has deep pockets.[/li][/ul]
While this explains things a bit, it doesn’t change my opinion that Mezzich (and her family, who aided and abetted her escape) behaved in a cowardly, despicable manner. If they directed their energy toward fighting the civil suit instead of cutting and running, this woman might have a clear conscience.
No, it’s not. Nobody has the “right” for someone else to go to jail. The legal system is SUPPOSED to keep people safe and protect their property. The purpose of the legal system should not be to punish anyone, or make anyone “pay” for something.
The role of the legal system is to protect people and their property. The role of prisons within the legal system is only a small part of that, even today. Prison is not the only resource that the legal system employs to keep people safe and protect their property.
I’m not saying that prison is useless all the time. Prison isn’t “off the table” for someone who kills someone in a reckless accident, but it’s not always the best course. It’s usually the WORST choice, if we consider how likely former inmates are to commit future crimes.
Other courses of action are much more effective at detterring crime, like license suspension or house arrest. I think in order to imprison someone, you should have to show credible evidence that there aren’t any other options, and that they are likely to repeat their crimes. I don’t claim to know exactly how to make a program like that work, but right now we’re confronted with a penal system that actually encourages more crime. Facing this obvious failure, the answer isn’t “oh well, we don’t know how to fix it. Full steam ahead, damn the torpedos!”
Let’s just say I strongly disagree. Punishment is indeed part of (but not all of) the legal system. It would be justice if this woman went to jail and paid for the pain and suffering she caused.
I feel kind of conflicted on this, as well, but I’m going to have to go with extradition. Whether or not the victim’s father wants to press charges, we have laws for a reason, and a judicial system to enforce them for a reason.
I’m trying to think of a similar situation that could occur, in which I wouldn’t feel this way, but I’m not coming up with anything. Consider the following example:
A priest molests and kills a child, and goes into hiding for x number of years. After that time, the priest emerges back into public view, and the family of the child announce that they forgive the priest and do not seek to press charges.
He may never molest another child again for the rest of his life. Maybe he even started a homeless shelter while he was in hiding, saving the lives of hundreds of people. None of these things change the fact that the priest committed the crimes, and the fact that those crimes have certain punishments.
It seems to me that having her locked up is likely to prevent her from driving into anyone else while under the influence, at least for a while. And since she has shown no remorse, I think that’s an eminently valid concern.
How are we protecting people and their property, though, if we don’t punish people like this? What is the incentive for this woman to not drink and drive again?
This is comically naive. She’s already demonstrated that she can’t be trusted to follow the laws about not driving while drunk, so you propose a remedy that relies on her following the laws about not driving without a license? And house arrest? For killing someone? Hell, I can think of a couple people who deserve killing, and if all I have to worry about as a consequence is being sent to my room, well, that’s not exactly what I’d call a huge disincentive. I mean, I like my room! It’s where I keep all my stuff.
Look, I agree that the prison system is in serious need of reform, but even if it’s utterly ineffective at preventing recidivism, at the very least its effective at preventing people from breaking the law while they’re in prison. Or, at least, restricting their predations to other prisoners, which while not a good thing, at least limits the amount of damage they’re able to do to society as a whole. You’ve yet to come up with an alternative proposal that can do that much. You’ve offered “solutions” that to absolutely nothing to deter crime, while leaving offenders at large to re-offend at will. Prisons are not as effective in crime prevention as they need to be, but, to coin a phrase, facing this obvious failure, the answer isn’t “Oh, well, we don’t know how to fix it. Screw it, let’s just not do anything.”
Not in the least. Driving drunk is appallingly irresponsible behavior, and accidentally killing somebody while driving drunk is a terrible thing to do that should burden the perpetrator with shame and remorse for the rest of their lives, but it doesn’t come close to fitting my definition of a “heinous” crime.
The adjective “heinous” is commonly reserved for deliberate acts of violence like murder and rape, and often restricted further to apply only to such violent crimes committed in outstandingly vile and malicious ways. The case of a teenager unintentionally causing the death of her own friend and roommate because she had too much to drink and stupidly imagined that she was fit to drive is damnably irresponsible and definitely criminal, but it doesn’t even nudge the needle on my heinous-meter.
But as I noted above, this aspect of the issue is strictly Peru’s problem now, and has been for the last ten years.
Your reasoning is a very good argument for having this woman arrested and tried if she ever attempts to come back to the US. But while she stays put in Peru, I do not think that the threat she poses is sufficient to justify the American legal system in expending the effort and resources necessary to extradite and punish her.
And the result of that? If anybody wants to avoid facing jail time for negligent homicide, all he or she has to do is skip the country. At that point, the US government should then declare “Not our problem anymore!”
Just in this particular case (not even “cases like this”, as I don’t off the top of my head know of any other cases like this). Which I think answers JThunder’s question too.
How does a prison protect people and their property? In a very small way, it does so by putting the person in a box for a while. In a very large way, it does so by providing a punishment, a disincentive for committing crimes. Absent punishments there is no legal system.
Now, you might think that there are better and more effective methods of backing up a legal system than with prison. That’s nice but irrelevent to this discussion. The options are not “she should be extradited and face the possibility of prison” vs. “she should be extradited and face a stiff fine” or vs. “she should be extradited and forced to sit through counselling about responsible drinking”. The actual choice is between “she should be extradited and face the possibility of prison” and “she should not be extradited and get off scott free”.
Which do you prefer? A flawed but somewhat effective legal system, or a totally ineffective one that provides no protection whatsoever?
You could make silly, comic situations out of any action the legal system takes. “What? Three squares a day, a free bed to sleep in, and a free education? What’s not to like about prison?” The reality isn’t so silly, though. Prison doesn’t work (ever), and house arrest and revocation of license does (sometimes).
I’m not saying I have all the answers. I’m just saying being rabid about enforcing a prison sentence in this particular case just won’t do any good, and will do quite a bit of bad.
Do we even know she’d get a prison sentence, were she extradited? It was my impression that she hadn’t been sentenced yet (regardless of what had been in discussion when she fled the country).
“Won’t do any good”? That strikes me as a rather bold and overly generous claim. I see no reason to accept that view.
I think it’d do plenty of good. It would send a message that you can’t escape punishment simply by skipping the country, for example. It would spare the victim’s family from the anguish of knowing that the perpetrator had gotten away scot free. It would quite plausibly prevent this woman from killing anyone else during her prison term. And in a highly publicized case like this, it might even deter someone from committing the same crimes (both the negligent homicide and skipping the country).
Now, one might argue (incorrectly, IMO), that these benefits are outweighed by the resultant cost and inconvenience. Even if we grant that claim though, the assertion that extraditiong this woman “won’t do any good” is a questionable and unsubstantiated claim, to say the least.