Archive for the Crime/Punishment Category

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Capital Punishment And . . . Scientific Evidence (July 12, 2010)

Posted in Capital Punishment, Constitution, Courts, Crime/Punishment, Death Penalty, Law on July 12, 2010 by e-commentary.org

. . .

P          “There are times when it is hard not to conclude that a person has forfeited his right to stay in the pack and instead should be placed on an ice floe.”

C          “Seems that we are running out of ice floes.”

P          “The reaction to a reprehensible crime may be emotional, yet it is a human response.  There are some crimes that are so heinous that death seems appropriate and necessary.  And yet too much about the death penalty seems wrong.”

C          “And expensive.  The cost of reaching a final judgment without any additional appeals is substantial.  The mere cost of litigation concerns me and others.”

P          “Those costs are in part driven up by those who oppose capital punishment.”

C          “The old litmus test in politics has been resolved by resorting to . . . this is hard to believe . . . scientific evidence.  DNA evidence carried the day.  The sea change in the public support for the death penalty occurred after a critical mass of the public accepted the mounting DNA evidence exonerating many of those individuals who had been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death.”

P          “Only carbon dating is more readily accepted by the public.”

C          “For more than a century, capital punishment was part of the private sector-public sector partnership of terrorism inflicted on Blacks and the underclass.”

P          “I have no doubt that the legal system is far too imperfect to believe that it can condemn someone to death with any accuracy.  Yet there are some individuals who have committed unimaginable crimes and are beyond redemption.”

C          “The problem is that the legal system too often simply cannot identify the right individual who has done wrong.”

. . .

Bumper sticker of the week:

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth only leaves one blind and toothless.

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Rating The Rating Agencies And The Courts That Should Berate Them: FFF (May 3, 2010)

Posted in Bailout/Bribe, Conflicts of Interest, Courts, Crime/Punishment, Perjury, Perjury/Dishonesty, Rating Agencies on May 3, 2010 by e-commentary.org

. . .

NNN          “The ratings agencies such as Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch knew or should have known that third parties would and did reasonably rely on their ratings.”

OOO          “Exactly.  They intended for third parties to rely on their ratings.”

NNN          “Didn’t some court reach the preposterous conclusion that the ratings agencies are protected by the First Amendment?”

OOO          “The free speech rights of the rating agencies are protected against government interference.  The government did not interfere with their right to free speech.  That ends the First Amendment inquiry.  The ratings agencies are not immune from civil and criminal prosecution.”

NNN          “But the court used the First Amendment to provide complete immunity for the rating agencies.”

OOO          “Keep in mind that there are thousands and thousands of incompetent and marginally competent judges in America.  And thousands of dishonest ones.  The judge may have seen his stock portfolio decline and decided to take action.  In the end, if the decision is patently incorrect, do not follow it.  Disregard the decision as a perverse anomaly.  Law books are littered with dishonest decisions.”

NNN          “The ratings were patently false and fraudulent.  The rating agencies intended for others to rely on the ratings.  Ordinary citizens reasonably relied on the ratings.  Ordinary citizens were damaged by the fraudulent ratings.  So the only issues for an honest judge in a civil action are the amount of damages and the amount of punitive damages.”

OOO          “Exactly.  And the heads of the ratings agencies lied under oath before Congress.  They were advised by their attorneys not to ‘tell the whole truth’ to Congress and they did not ‘tell the whole truth’ to Congress.  That is perjury.  Except in the land of perjury.  Their attorneys suborned perjury.  Combine perjury and obstruction of justice and conspiracy and RICO charges.  The sentence for four felonies is much stiffer.  A summer law clerk could handle the prosecution.”

NNN          “The biggest question is also easily answered.  There are no prosecutions because the ratings agencies and their friends on Wall Street own the government and the prosecutors.”

OOO          “Talk about systemic failure.”

. . .

[See the “e-ssay” dated Jan. 14, 2008 titled “The ‘R’ Word, The ‘D’ Word or the ‘S’ Word?” on the rating agencies and the “e-ssay” dated May 2, 2005 titled “Ohio – Not Forgettin’ Ohio; The Battleground State Battles On.”]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Better to know the judge and the prosecutor than to know the law.

Spill, baby, spill.

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Less Government Regulation Series: Drugs (March 2, 2009)

Posted in Crime/Punishment, Drugs, Less Government Regulation Series on March 2, 2009 by e-commentary.org

“Can any policy, however high-minded, be moral if it leads to widespread corruption, imprisons so many, has so racist an effect, destroys our inner cities, wreaks havoc on misguided and vulnerable individuals and brings death and destruction to foreign countries.”

Milton Friedman, Recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics

“Eighty-five million Americans have experimented with illegal drugs.  Since the object of criminal law is to detect and punish the wrongdoer, should we reason that 85 million of us should have spent time in jail.”

William F. Buckley, Jr., Founder of the magazine “National Review”

One in every hundred American citizens is now in prison.  The War on Drugs is really the War on the Populace.  Once again, because victory is impossible, declare victory and call off the war.

Bumper sticker of the week:

There oughta not be a law

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Close the Harvard Business School (February 23, 2009)

Posted in Crime/Punishment, Education, Law, PATRIOT Act, Schooling, USA PATRIOT Act on February 23, 2009 by e-commentary.org

The government is closing the prison at Guantanimo.  Problematic yet necessary.  Any change should be purposeful and careful.

The government should close the Harvard Business School, America’s madrossa for economic terrorists.  The USA PATRIOT Act provides one legal vehicle.  Convert the structure into a youth hostel for the young and old.  Many if not most of today’s political and social problems originate or are exacerbated in the schools.  If we do not close a school, it may be time to revisit the curriculum.

Bumper sticker of the week:

Crime should be punished

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1000 AUSAs (February 9, 2009)

Posted in Bailout/Bribe, Crime/Punishment, Economics, Economics Nobel, Law on February 9, 2009 by e-commentary.org

Some commentators are suggesting that the current economic crisis is a result of amnesia.  Too many years have passed since the failure of Long-Term Capital Management, a business that pursued a short term business scam, they say.  LTCM followed an economic formula developed among others by Robert Merton and Myron Scholes who both won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1997.  They won for “a new method to determine the value of derivatives.”  Derivatives are a steal for those who do the stealing and costly for the taxpayers who ultimately bail them out.  Their “value” to society:  pricey.  Does the Nobel Committee ever revoke its prize?

The problem, so the thinking goes, is that everyone simply forgot.  No one needs to remember.  Business types respond to current incentives and disincentives not to moral intoning or calls to virtue.  The message being sent today is simple and straight forward:  Crime pays.  Not only the criminal act itself but the cost of remedying the criminal act.

The Justice Department should hire 1000 new Assistant United States Attorneys (AUSAs) to prosecute the massive fraud that has been perpetrated on Wall Street for the last half dozen years.  This is not some undigested populist anger.  Without the restoration of the rule of law, the economic culture of the country will continue to rot.

Bumper sticker of the week:

Crime pays in the US of A.

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Ohio – Not Forgettin’ Ohio; The Battleground State Battles On (May 2, 2005)

Posted in Bush, Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Constitution, Crime/Punishment, First Amendment, Military, Politics, Society on May 2, 2005 by e-commentary.org

[May 4 is the 35th anniversary of the incident at Kent State]

The battleground in Ohio in the Fall of 2004 could become another battleground in the Fall of 2006 or the Spring of 2007.  America engaged in one of its periodic civil wars when the Ohio National Guard attacked kids who disagreed with America’s actions in the earlier Iraq.  Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (not a law firm) chronicled the activities in the eponymous essay entitled “Ohio.”  “Got to get down to it, soldiers are gunning us down.”

The state revealed its character in the last election.  Democracy flourishes in places like the Ukraine because the people demand it.  The Republicans own Ohio and would not allow democracy to flourish there.  With some commendable exceptions, Ohioans did not demand democracy.  Not a good start.  A cradle of democracy is a better starting place than a graveyard.

The Guard was always a hybrid group of militia that could both “provide for the common defense” and “promote the general welfare.”  They were the backup local police and EMTs and weekend warriors who could spell the regular military for a few weeks or months at the front.  They have been swept up in a Back Door Draft (BD) with “stop gap” orders in support of an illegal war.  Bush has eviscerated the very haven he sought to avoid active military service to his country.  Few will go into the Guard in the future except as a last desperate resort.  When there is a need for Guardsmen to help after a hurricane in Florida, a tornado in Oklahoma, a wild fire in Montana, or an earthquake in Alaska, there may be no one there to assist.  And there will be no one there to assist in a generation. 

When the kids get conscripted in the Bush Front Door Draft (FD) to support the Second Crusades, will they resist?  Will the few remaining members of the Guard shoot them or lay down their arms?  Will this new generation of returning Guardsmen be willing to shoot American kids who don’t want to be departing Guardsmen?  Time, they say, will tell.  Forgettin’ Ohio?  “How can you run when you know.” 

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