Because society benefits from the fact there’s a legal system. Do you like that there’s a legal system? Then pay for it. Taxes. Deal with it.
Well, that and the mindset of “we have assessed that he deserves this one punishment due to what he did, and oh yes also he gets to also have all sorts of other punishments too because ha ha unjust cruelty” ain’t cool.
That doesn’t address the question. Why should the guilty not pay for the benefit society receives? The guilty are largely the reason that society benefits.
Saying something “ain’t cool” is not, in my view, much of an argument. Why is it not cool to assess both fines, and (where applicable) court costs? What is the moral distinction to be drawn? How is it different to assess a $280 fine vs. a $200 fine plus costs?
Regards,
Shodan
That part was to address why you should pay.
I got tired of saying “it sounds pretty damned unconstitutional to me for the state to apply punishments to a person that are not punishments for a crime.”
IF, and that is a big capital-letter IF, the government in its infinite and infallible reason determined that the just punishment for jaywalking is to become the whipping boy for every vindictive sadist and/or cheap bastard out there, then that would be just. But the mere fact that a person has committed a crime does not make it just to punish them for it above and beyond their actual punishment. I don’t see much of a legal or moral distinction between declaring financial open season on a dude independent of his legal punishment, and declaring that all persons who have committed any crime can be freely murdered to remove their inconvenient selves from society. They’re crooks, right? They deserve it!
So what would you do to make the person accountable for their actions?
Fine them again/more? They’ve already refused to pay it once.
Community service? They had an opportunity to ask the judge for that and refused to
Impound their car? Honestly, this is a great solution. Sell it and keep fine+costs and send them a check for the rest. But then will you complain that they are poor and The State took their only way to get to work?
Nothing because they’re poor. :rolleyes:
Asked and answered multiple times upthread.
Again, WADR, that doesn’t answer the question. Why should I pay? Why should not the guilty party pay as much of the cost as practicable?
The court costs are part of the punishment. What do you see as the Constitutional issue with saying ‘speeding shall be punishable by a fine not exceeding $200 and court costs not exceeding $80’ vs. “speeding shall be punishable by a fine not exceeding $280”?
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t feel like putting too much effort into explaining why anarchy doesn’t work. People who are part of a society are expected to pay taxes that go towards paying for the shared institutions of the society. Fire departments, police departments, and the stuff that happens as a result of those police departments too. All that stuff that people want their government to do. It’s called ‘civilization’ and junk. I’ll assume you’ve heard of it.
If memory serves, the topic of this thread (as laid out in the OP) includes costs that go far beyond $80. If in fact we really are just talking about $80, and it is determined just that the punishment should be a fee of $280 rather than a fee of $200, there are ways of changing what the stated punishment for the crime is so that the designated punishment for the crime is $280. And while some may argue that surreptitiously dumping a completely unlimited set of ‘incidental’ fees and punishments on the convicted is awesome, my thinking is that if it really were awesome, the additional punishments could be included in the actual punishment to start with!
You tell me something costs $280, and I give you $280, that’s fine.
You tell me something costs $200, and I give you $200, and then you come and take another $80 and tell me that you can actually come back and take as much as you want because I’m a criminal now and can’t stop you, that’s not fine.
And two situations aren’t equivalent, either.
Because access to the neutral adjudication of a qualified court before being punished by the state is a right that I shouldn’t have to pay for.
If you want to subject me to the power of the state to face punishment then it should be your burden to pay the costs of that adjudication, not mine.
If it’s eventually decided I deserve punishment, that’s a different issue. But either way I shouldn’t have to pay the costs of exercising the right to defend myself.
The justice system is there to serve the public, so the public should pay for it, not the individuals that the system decides to punish.
And by the way, I have to pay court costs even if I’m acquitted. That’s wrong too.
No one is suggesting anarchy, so I don’t see what that has to do with anything.
[qutoe]
If memory serves, the topic of this thread (as laid out in the OP) includes costs that go far beyond $80. If in fact we really are just talking about $80, and it is determined just that the punishment should be a fee of $280 rather than a fee of $200, there are ways of changing what the stated punishment for the crime is so that the designated punishment for the crime is $280. And while some may argue that surreptitiously dumping a completely unlimited set of ‘incidental’ fees and punishments on the convicted is awesome, my thinking is that if it really were awesome, the additional punishments could be included in the actual punishment to start with!
[/quote]
It already is included. The court costs and the fines are imposed at the same time, as part of the same punishment. There is nothing surreptitious about. Nor are court costs unlimited, any more than fines are unlimited.
It’s not fine, and it is also not what happens.
Regards,
Shodan
Interesting idea you have come up with there, but I don’t think that it would be the most practical way of going about it.
Unless, the reason that you put forward this idea is that it is the sort of thing that would be a consequence great enough to deter you from breaking the law.
Would it, if the consequence of breaking the law were to be having to show your taxes to a traffic judge, be enough to stop you from ignoring the laws that you don’t care to follow?
If you really think that that is the only way to get you to follow the law, then I could get behind it. But, before we go that route, can you think of anything else that may get you to comply with the law that is less onerous?
I didn’t come up with the idea, which I think is silly. You did.
Please don’t try to palm off your ideas on me.
Regards,
Shodan
That statement is nothing like the one that you made. That was an original idea that you came up with all on your own.
Don’t try to be modest, if you are actually trying to attribute your idea to what I said, then you are having some serious problems with reading comprehension or basic logic.
But, regardless of who gets the credit for the idea, do you think that if that was the consequence for breaking the law, it would deter you from doing so? Is there anything at all that would be acceptable to you that would keep you from ignoring the law?
Well, one of us does.
When you said this
Did you mean anything in particular? Do you know what a 1040 is?
Regards,
Shodan
Were you going to claim economic hardship? If so, then I can think of many people other than the traffic court judge to be in charge of that. If not, then why would you be showing your taxes to anyone at all?
Please, be specific.
In charge of seeing my tax returns? No, I don’t think many people are “in charge” of that.
But just to be specific - you only need to reveal your tax returns if you are claiming economic hardship - this idea that rich people will be charged more is not what you intend. Is that correct?
And again, this doesn’t address what happens when someone, rich or poor, never shows up in court. What do you do in that circumstance?
Regards,
Shodan
Summary judgement and wage garnishment.
I don’t have a dog in this fight but how much do you garnish? A percentage of the wage? A fixed dollar amount? How would you garnish the wages of someone like pre-President Trump? The whole idea of increasingly harsh punishment for one who refuses to obey the rules culminates in some mope locked down in Pelican Bay. What do you do with him when he breaks the rules by assaulting or killing a CO?
Cite. If someone is self-employed, unemployed, or paid under the table, it gets complicated.
Regards,
Shodan
Can SSDI be garnished to pay state fines?