America is unusual in having "charge stacking" (if you break in and steal something you can be convicted of both the break in and the theft, as opposed to simply the more serious of the two) and plea bargains (which are considered a human rights violation in many countries). The combination really tilts the power in favor of the prosecutor and, as the article points out, drives defendants towards conviction under the very low indictment standard of evidence rather than the rigorous one of courtroom proof.
This is sometimes true, though there are more relevant examples, such as multiple counts of the same crime.
There's a concept in American criminal law of lesser included offenses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesser_included_offense). To simplify, a lesser included offense contains the same, but fewer, elements as the greater. (Murder might necessarily involve a battery, therefore battery is a lesser included offense of murder.)
When charged with the more serious crime which includes a less serious crime, you would not be charged with each and every lesser included offense, but rather they merge together into a single charge. This has another implication as well: if the jury decides that the prosecution has proved the elements of a lesser included offense but not the charged offense, you could be found guilty of the lesser included offense, even though that lesser offense was only implicitly charged.
In your example, the elements of breaking and entering and theft may not line up so simply: if each of them contains an element the other does not, (and B&E and theft do not line up) they could indeed be charged separately, because the law says that that element should also be punishable. Attempted ____ is a lesser included offense of whatever crime the person was attempting, but conspiracy is not, because we decided as a society to punish more strongly planned criminality.
An interesting case occurred in Toronto, where Sammy Yatim was shot to death by Officer James Forcillo. Forcillo stood trial for second-degree murder AND attempted murder.
In the shooting, Forcillo fired two volleys, one while Yatim was brandishing a knife and another volley after he was incapacitated on the ground. The jury found that the first volley was justified, whereas the second volley was not. However, it had been successfully argued that the first volley killed Yatim, and so Forcillo was convicted of attempted murder and not murder.
In addition to what you've said, the maximum penalty for whatever crime someone is charged tends to be about 10 x higher than anywhere else on the planet (probably because of the stacking), and many things have been declared serious crimes in the US that would be minor offenses and barely be persecuted elsewhere. See Aaron Schwartz.
And the US has started to demand extraditions of people as fugitives, even though they've never set a foot on US soil and their company falls under a completely different jurisdiction. See Kim Dotcom.
If you ask me, that's crazy. Then again, for someone living in the US it's probably just normal. Anyway, if you wear a tie and are white, there's not much to worry about in the US ... unless you're some sort of leftist hacktivist or reverse engineer a device you've purchased or develop p2p software, of course.
> In addition to what you've said, the maximum penalty for whatever crime someone is charged tends to be about 10 x higher than anywhere else on the planet (probably because of the stacking), and many things have been declared serious crimes in the US that would be minor offenses and barely be persecuted elsewhere. See Aaron Schwartz.
The penalties in the American justice system parallel the pricing of medical care and the rationale used to justify them is the same as well.
# Health care :
"WTF?! My 1-hour doctor's visit came out to $18,000?!"
"Nah don't worry! Nobody actually pays that amount. The doctor just put that there as a starting point when negotiating with the insurance company!"
# Criminal justice:
"WTF?! The penalty for stealing a loaf of bread is 10 years in prison[1]?"
"Nah don't worry! Nobody actually serves that amount. The prosecutor just put that there as a starting point when negotiating with your legal representation!"
[1]: I have no clue what the actually penalty would be, and it would vary state by state, but you get the idea.
...or any citizen activist, really. The citizen journalists who broke the Planned Parenthood story last year were indicted with "tampering with government records" for faking identities so they could go undercover.
And two years ago, a story broke that the IRS was targeting certain nonprofits because of their names and political leanings.
Nobody has been held criminally accountable or 'overzealous' prosecution in either case. There was one early retirement (not even officially a resignation) after the IRS scandal.
+ If by "the Planned Parenthood story" you mean the allegations of selling body parts from fetuses, the story was fake from the get-go and the "citizen journalists" [sic] edited their recordings to push their right-wing agenda. [0]
+ Contrary to what right-wing conspiracy theorists claimed, the IRS wasn't targeting conservative nonprofits specifically; it was looking at other characteristics based on keyword searches. [1]
I disagree about your characterization of the stories, but that's really a digression from the conversation at hand: corruption of the American justice system. I'm providing examples from the other side of the aisle on purpose, to show it's not a partisan issue.
In the first case, prosecutors were waging political battles with at best tangential tick-tack charges. In the second case corruption (even bipartisan corruption!) was ignored, again, for political reasons.
If you want more examples, the mayor of Houston subpoenaed sermons of pastors a couple years ago as part of a political witch hunt. Thankfully, there was some political rebuke afterwards, but, again, no criminal charges were filed in the aftermath after that abuse of power.
In all cases, the punishment is entirely political, so it's clear that there are no consequences to this sort of injustice if the action is politically popular enough. The point of the Bill of Rights is that there are some things that are wrong, even if they're popular.
The IRS isn't idiots. Nor is any gov't agency. Any agency that audits compliance will scrutinize whoever has more degrees of separation from whoever they answer to. It's a scaled up cousin to why town selectmen never get traffic violations, they have power over the $ pipeline.
> In addition to what you've said, the maximum penalty for whatever crime someone is charged tends to be about 10 x higher than anywhere else on the planet (probably because of the stacking),
s/tends/seems/
The US (at the federal level...I don't know if this happens with state/local charges too) uses a completely brain dead algorithm for coming up with the maximum penalty used in Department of Justice press releases announcing indictments which results in a great exaggeration in most cases.
The article "Crime: Whale Sushi. Sentence: ELEVENTY MILLION YEARS" [1] has a good explanation of this.
> See Aaron Schwartz.
(Swartz, not Schwartz) Here's an article that looks at how actual sentences are calculated, as opposed to how press release sentences are calculated, as applied to Swartz: [2].
> And the US has started to demand extraditions of people as fugitives, even though they've never set a foot on US soil and their company falls under a completely different jurisdiction. See Kim Dotcom.
You make it sound like this is something new and/or that it is just the US that does this. In fact, it is old and common. In general if you do something against the laws of country A affecting people in country A, from country B, and those things are also against the law in country B when directed against B's people, and A and B have an extradition treaty, it is quite common for A to request extradition from B and for B to agree.
Contrary to popular belief on the Internet (not meant to imply that you have this belief...I'm speaking generally here), the US is not the only country with copyright laws or whose copyright laws criminalize large scale commercial infringement. The acts Dotcom is charged with and for which the US is requesting extradition are acts that are also illegal in New Zealand.
Whenever I hear about the American justice system I wonder how it can live in the presence of the 8th amendment. Both life sentences (or multi life sentences) and death penalties are seen as cruel and not permitted in most of Europe.
It's because Europe doesn't interpret the 8th Amendment, the US Supreme Court does. And here, there's a really high bar for cruel and unusual. To the point where as long as it takes place in a prison, it seems to be okay. I don't like or agree with it, but the legal meaning of the 8th Amendment is not obvious from its text. That might be the first sign that we're getting it wrong, actually.
The meaning is pretty obvious considering that the folks who wrote the damn thing had capital punishment for numerous crimes and still practiced branding, public whipping, etc. as punishments. We just don't like the implications of the real meaning and look for ways around it.
>We just don't like the implications of the real meaning and look for ways around it.
Or, you know, the real meaning has not stood the test of time, and we should not hold centuries old texts as holy scriptures, like fundamentalists who try to hold close to the "original" intent?
Those guys (always guys) also had slaves and did "cruel and unusual punishments" to them on a whim, for another example...
You've got it backwards. It's the folks opposing the death penalty,[1] that are arguing the words on the page are so sanctified they empower the unelected judiciary to overturn the results of the democratic process. Given that, it's kinda relevant what those words on the page actually mean. What did people agree to when they committed to letting these words on a page curtail their democratic prerogatives?
[1] I oppose the death penalty as it is used today. Making an example of psycho serial murderers is pointless, because it's not like that conduct can be deterred.
Are you American? Just curious on your perspective.
Those "arguing the words on the page are so sanctified" I take for you to mean are originalists/textualists. Most people in that camp are not against the death penalty.
Bigger picture, the words on the page DO overturn the results of the democratic process. The US holds the Constitution as its highest law, and any law implemented (democratic process) cannot conflict. If it does, meaning the (unelected) judiciary interprets the law that way, then it is invalid. But that's viewing checks and balances only one way. The executive and legislature (both democratically elected) also check the judiciary - they appoint the Federal judiciary and confirm, respectively. Those appointed judges may choose to interpret the Constitution in a more modern context, while others may stick to originalist thought. What I think you're missing is that it is the prerogative of the judiciary to choose how to interpret. There is nothing in the Constitution itself that mandates originalism, pragmatism, or anything in between, and given our system of government the only place to specify such a thing would be in the Constitution itself. It wasn't there in the beginning and we've made no such amendment. And we probably wouldn't, because judicial independence is a very important principle.
> Those "arguing the words on the page are so sanctified" I take for you to mean are originalists/textualists. Most people in that camp are not against the death penalty.
No, that's the perspective I am saying is backwards. Originalists/textualists just think the words on the page are the words on the page. If the words proscribe certain things then so be it, but otherwise, democracy controls. It's the "living Constitution" folks--who are generally opposed to the death penalty, who think the "spirit of the document" transcends the words on the page and overrides democratic decisions. They're the ones elevating the Constitution to holy writ, not the textualists.
> There is nothing in the Constitution itself that mandates originalism, pragmatism, or anything in between
No, it's logic that mandates you interpret the meaning of the words on the page by what they would've meant to those who wrote the words. Only in the highly political context of Constitutional interpretation is this even a debate. Meanwhile, folks who study Shakespeare are going back to not only the original meaning, but the original pronunciations of the words to fully understand the text.
>Originalists/textualists just think the words on the page are the words on the page.
That is incorrect.
>No, it's logic that mandates you interpret the meaning of the words on the page by what they would've meant to those who wrote the words.
Only if you think the original meaning is what governs today. Obviously many others do not, hence the mix of people you see on the Supreme Court today. Arguing that there is one and only one correct way (because "logic dictates" or whatever else) is an ideological argument on theories of constitutional interpretation. It's an ongoing and lively debate if you're into constitutional law.
> Only if you think the original meaning is what governs today.
That's a circular argument: "The meaning of the words to the people who wrote the words doesn't matter because we don't think the original meaning is what governs today."
> Obviously many others do not, hence the mix of people you see on the Supreme Court today.
I think that's actually a bit of a strawman of the "living Constitution" position. If I write a letter that is read 100 years from now, it would be absurd to say that what my words "mean" should be interpreted in any way other than how I would have understood them. Clearly, very smart people would not subscribe to a patently absurd idea like that.
Instead, I think they subscribe to the idea that the meaning of the words on the page isn't the be-all end-all. That the framers intended the independent judiciary to exercise discretion within the general bounds of the Constitutional text.
Which was the point of my original post upthread: it's not really unclear what the text "means"--we just disagree about what to do with that information.
>That's a circular argument: "The meaning of the words to the people who wrote the words doesn't matter because we don't think the original meaning is what governs today."
That's not circular. That's pretty much exactly what you do when you take a balancing approach to conflicting interests. Some part of the original meaning is often tossed out. It happens a lot in Speech cases, and (in my opinion) is happening more frequently with 4th Amendment cases.
>I think that's actually a bit of a strawman of the "living Constitution" position.
Maybe.
>Clearly, very smart people would not subscribe to a patently absurd idea like that.
It doesn't matter what we think very smart people would or wouldn't do. The constitution means what the Supreme Court says it means, and the justices themselves are free to interpret however they wish. The current bench contains a variety of approaches, some fairly divergent from originalism, which it sounds like you prefer.
At this point you're probably a little bit surprised to learn that I do ascribe to originalism as my preferred approach to constitutional law. I can appreciate the other approaches, but there's the slippery slope of making the constitution fit whatever it is that we're trying to accomplish today, and at that point we might as well be like the British again and have no written constitution. Constitutional positions aside, though, I'm not a huge fan of capital punishment, whether or not the 8th amendment permits it (it does).
> Obviously many others do not, hence the mix of people you see on the Supreme Court today.
Even the ones that aren't "originalists" (textualists aside) tend to view that the original meaning governs, they just tend to believe that the original meaning itself of many important provisions incorporated sensitivity to changing external context than the people that label themselves "originalists" do.
> Originalists/textualists just think the words on the page are the words on the page.
Er, no. While that's the marketing spiel for textualism (the words in a legal enactment, including the Constitution, mean what the words mean in their ordinary meaning), its very much not for originalism, which focuses not on the meaning of the bare words, but of the meaning-in-original-context of the words (including looking to things like legislative intent.) While textualism and originalism are often held by thinkers of similar political backgrounds (both approaches are frequently associated with the political right) and people purporting to follow them often come to very similar conclusions, they are quite different philosophies.
> If the words proscribe certain things then so be it, but otherwise, democracy controls.
Neither originalists nor textualists tend to think that the Constitution is a document under which everything which is not prohibited is allowed; quite the opposite, in fact.
I'm not conflating the two. Textualists reject reliance on legislative intent, but still recognize that the "ordinary meaning" of the words is what the words meant (in general) when they were written. If the Constitution uses the word "blue" but in 1789 "blue" meant what we would think of as "green," a textualist would interpret the word to refer to what we think of as "green." But she would reject any attempt to dive into the legislative history to see what Congress intended to do by using those particular words.
> Neither originalists nor textualists tend to think that the Constitution is a document under which everything which is not prohibited is allowed; quite the opposite, in fact.
We are talking about state law here. States are not governments of enumerated powers.
> Meanwhile, folks who study Shakespeare are going back to not only the original meaning, but the original pronunciations of the words to fully understand the text.
Legal documents tend to rely far less on puns and rhyme than does entertainment.
You two are now arguing about which side is better represented by a particular strawman. Both of you seem to be assuming that "the other side" is far more monolithic than realistic.
>Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
What you're referring to is the original meaning. There are other principles of interpretation in the US judiciary. The Supreme Court has shifted from the original meaning, given that there are some restrictions on capital punishment (mostly based on age and mental handicap). Most of that development has been from the mid-80's to today.
However, to further address your point, I don't think the meaning is obvious from the text. In particular, the word "cruel" in relationship to "punishment" is not obvious to a layman.
If you're reading Darwin's work, you don't look at a 20th century dictionary to figure out what he meant. The question is, what would the phrase "cruel and unusual punishment" have meant to people when those words were written?
Do you also take the position that the second amendment applies only to arms that were available at the time?
A constitution is not a codification of objective facts but of principles and processes for resolving disputes between people. To my mind it seems more likely that "cruel and unusual punishment" means "any punishment cruel and unusual according to community standards" than "this specific list of punishments".
> Do you also take the position that the second amendment applies only to arms that were available at the time?
No, but I also don't think a textualist interpretation of the 8th amendment proscribes only a fixed set of punishments that existed in 1789. Words like "arms" and "punishments" denote categories--kinds of things grouped by shared characteristics. Someone in 1789 would be amazed by the technology of a modern shotgun, but would perceive it shared all the characteristics of what they thought of as "arms."
Likewise, hydraulic presses did not exist in 1789, but someone from the time would have recognized putting a convict's appendages in such a machine as sharing the characteristics of what they thought of as "cruel and unusual punishment."
But the death penalty did exist in 1789, and it wasn't considered a cruel and unusual punishment. So you're not just talking about fitting new things into existing definitions, but changing the definitions themselves to include things that were previously excluded.
The ordinary definition of "unusual" refers to frequency in the current environment; there is nothing inconsistent with textualism to understanding that the use of that word in the 8th Amendment very much meant exactly that the frequency of practice of particular punishments in some context (whether global, or among "civilized nations", or whatever) would be relevant in determining whether or not it was "unusual".
Its not a changing definition when the ordinary definition of a word refers to circumstances which are subject to change.
This leads to a strange outcome where the government needs to execute X people per year to ensure it retains the right to execute people in the future.
Not necessarily. If something is widely accepted, both domestically and globally, as the standard punishment for a particular crime that is itself infrequently encountered, than that punishment for that crime is not unusual, even if the crime itself is unusual.
So you're saying that the laws under which Americans are governed shouldn't be up to Americans but should be, at least for some things, up to people who live in other countries?
> So you're saying that the laws under which Americans are governed shouldn't be up to Americans but should be, at least for some things, up to people who live in other countries?
No, I'm not making any normative statement about what laws should be. I'm pointing out a fairly direct reading of the plain language actually adopted in the 8th Amendment. Which, in any case, was drafted and ratified by Americans, and so, whatever interpretation of it is correct, is not an example of the law under which Americans are governed being up to anyone but Americans.
It more or less does apply only to arms that were available at the time. Is there a type of weapon available to the armies of the founders that was not available to individuals at the time of the founders? Because there are all sorts of weapons available to our armies that aren't available to individuals, despite 2A.
Some private ships had cannons, at least by the time of the War of 1812. I don't think there was anything bigger than cannons at the time. So, yes, private individuals (at least ones wealthy enough to own ships) had access to all the weapons of the day.
To me, it follows that we already accept the notion of 2A applying only to the kinds of weapons known to the founders. We might make exceptions for some weapons, but for the most part, weapons entirely alien to the founders are illegal today despite 2A.
Fully automatic weapons were unknown in the founders' time but it's possible (if difficult) for private individuals to own them. Whereas private individuals can no longer own even historically-accurate warships armed with cannons. There are all sorts of restriction that intrude on the natural interpretation of 2A (at least if we ignore the "being" clause, which the courts don't seem to interpret in the natural way at all), but I don't see a particular correlation with when a weapon was invented.
This is the law, though, not scientific research. Getting it wrong on reading Darwin is relatively inconsequential. Getting the law wrong impacts peoples' lives. That is why you have different theories of constitutional interpretation. It's more than what it means or what it meant, some will delve into should it mean what it meant.
I think you may be conflating original intent and original meaning.
Original intent is historically how the constitution has been been interpreted by courts, at least once ambiguity in the plaintext has been found.
Original meaning is a modern approach propounded most famously by Justice Scalia.
The difference is that original meaning focuses on the definition of words and phrases as understood at the time of drafting or ratification, and in the relevant context in which they're used, regardless of intent or purpose. It's like an abstract version of plaintext but which is supposed to overcome (with a suitable amount of handwaving) the deficiencies of a plaintext, literalist approach. Original intent, by contrast, focuses on what the drafters or legislatures thought the law would accomplish. The literal meaning and the original meaning are both strong evidence and often dispositive, but they're hardly exclusive.
Original meaning is supposed to be a more concrete examination, less susceptible to contemporary political prejudices and likely to be more consistent over time. But I think in actuality that has proven false. Language is far more flexible than Scalia and similarly-minded jurists believe. Lawmakers regularly write statutes that either rely on judicial precedent, or that put the onus on courts to decide material issues, especially when ambiguity and plausible deniability is politically expedient. Certainly there are indisputable examples of this in the constitution. For these and many more reasons, the functions of a judge simply cannot be reduced to such mechanical approaches. And they probably shouldn't be.
Many of the drafters of the constitution were lawyers. Most were versed, more or less, in the common law. The drafters used common law phrases; many of which had _already_ undergone an evolution in their meaning and application; many of which were de novo inventions of English courts altogether. They clearly used ambiguity to their advantage when reaching consensus on clearer language was difficult or inconvenient. So we'd be naive to think that their view of the common law was of a static, unchanging approach, or that they didn't expect courts to take license.
Scalia would probably admit much of that. (He certainly admitted some of that in his many essays on the subject.) But in his view even if the drafters wanted courts to use traditional approaches to statutory interpretation, that's been a failed experiment. In his view, preservation of the higher ideals of the constitution, like separation of powers and democracy, demand that courts use original meaning, even if it subverts original intent in the particular.
I disagree with Scalia roundly. But whether you agree or disagree or fall somewhere in the middle, the fact of the matter is that original meaning is a very modern approach. By contrast, only extreme proponents of thea "living constitution" can be considered wholly modern; in some understandings "living constitution" is just a recognition and embrace of the reality of constitutional interpretation and application. Scalia's application of original meaning changed so much over the decades that he's a prime example of the inherently dynamic nature of the business and the rules it produces.
Nonetheless, I suppose we could say that his arguments have effectively shifted the "Overton window". Scalia managed to convince even ardent liberals like Ginsburg that traditional approaches to constitutional interpretation used during the 18th, 19th, and much of the 20th centuries were inappropriate. That there was a need to "return to the text", as-if courts somehow had ever ceased doing that. Scalia often made unfounded or poorly researched historical claims, and most jurists have already internalized much of it. Scalia is hardly unique in having that effect; I spent half of law school using Google Scholar and other historical databases disproving various historical claims in legal decisions and treatises. Most people don't even realize that there were multiple transcriptions of old decisions, and sometimes they conflicted. Which one was put into a legal treatise was sometimes the real inflection point in the law, not the legal opinion itself.
But his effect is unique, I think, in shifting the entire judiciary to the right. Usually such things are a mixed bag from a political perspective.
>I don't like or agree with it, but the legal meaning of the 8th Amendment is not obvious from its text. That might be the first sign that we're getting it wrong, actually.
Exactly. Old those BS "needs to be interpreted" Amendments and old laws are really problematic (including the "well-armed militia thing"). Law should be clear, not some divine (or "founding father") decree that gets interpreted according to the whims of those in power.
It's bigger than that, though. Me (or you) disagreeing doesn't make us right. A lot of the stability and rule of law in the US is attributed to having a stable constitution that has stood the test of time. On certain issues, its immutability has been bad or inefficient, but in the long run it's helped with our stability. For all of the shit our courts take, we have the most stable, transparent and probably fair (meaning impartial) judiciary in the entire world. A lot of that is driven by the originalist/textualist/pragmatists/intentionalist debate. None of them are entirely right, either. That's the nature of law and trying to achieve the "right" outcome.
But as a counterpoint, that room for interpretation, while allowing room for "bad" readings of law is also what allows some space for the same law to be adapted to changing circumstance rather than thrown out entirely.
In only a few generations the world (and US society specifically in this case) has changed quite a bit from when this stuff was set down. If it was very specific but tied to the prevailing attitudes and situations of the 1700s or 1800s, it would be like a "lite version" of the folks arguing that we should be following biblical law or sharia law as written hundreds or thousands of years ago.
There needs to be at least some room for interpretation and adaptation in order to avoid a system of law that does not reflect the actual people subject to it.
Europeans have put a man who mass murdered 90 teenagers in cold blood, in a hotel.
He has great meals, internet access, healthcare, video games, internet, porn, he can marry. A music room.
Scandinavian justice is a failure.
I was at a dinner in Denmark, speaking to this guy next to me for a while. My brother later pointed out this guy had murdered someone just a couple of years ago, served a light sentence and was now in a half-way house.
I was revolted.
I'd suggest that in many cases - criminals can be readily reintroduced into society without much intervention. Some therapy, the fact they know they are being watched, blocking them from triggers etc. - and they likely won't rescind ...
But is it moral to allow someone who murdered your children on the streets without punishment because Scientifically we can establish that they are highly unlikely to kill again?
Europe is in some ways morally corrupt, as America is in others.
Anders Brevik should be executed, it is the moral thing to do.
I would not advocate torture, but if found out someone were torturing him, I would have no sympathy.
Contrast that to the American system wherein a lot of people are executed and we know that many of them were innocent.
It seems basic justice is difficult to hand out ...
As far as 'trial by jury' - I'd rather a trial by a judge - ore better - a panel of judges... because one of them always has an agenda.
Anders Brevik should be executed, it is the moral thing to do.
You say Scandinavian justice is morally corrupt. How? Why do I care about a person who's not going to kill someone in the future? If anything, I care about intervening before someone commit a crime so that it won't be too little too late.
There are thousand of things to focus our attention and time on that has nothing to do with criminal intent. Cancer and heart attack will cause harm and kill you without any moral intention. These are worth spending money and time on, not some harmless humans.
If all humans can be rendered 'scientifically' unable to murder even a fly without attendant system of prison and punishment, why do we care about revenge so much?
You seem upset by the Norwegians treatment of murderers. I see the US murder rate is about 6 times that in Norway. I'm not sure that fits with the US system being better.
A majority of Americans are still for the death penalty. It was close to the opposite before we ran full-force into "tough on crime", mandatory minimums, 3 strikes laws, the War on Drugs, and so on, and tripled the incarceration rate and population. All of those things ended up being extremely detrimental and set the US back decades, but we're still reeling.
I don't know what it is, but Americans - especially the Bible Belt voting bloc (for lack of more nuanced regional targeting) - feel not only "just" in passing judgement on others, but divinely so, and therefore questioning them is questioning God. It's scary. (It's also the same voting bloc backing Trump. We could chat all day about misappropriated rage and the decline of financial stability and the middle class, but the result of decades of it is where we are now.)
>especially the Bible Belt voting bloc (for lack of more nuanced regional targeting)
It's not just them. Take a look at what reddit has to say about "the Bible Belt voting bloc"
People in in homogenous cultures are quick to write off those outside it. The "flyover state trailer trash" who live among like individuals have a hard time recognizing the legitimacy of opinions held by "suburban millennials" but the latter group has just as hard a time recognizing the legitimacy of any opinion held by the former.
There was a news story about compus carry at state schools in Texas (IIRC) on reddit a few days ago. It was a perfect example of this. Tons of people saying that the sky is falling with occasional locals saying that the law change just makes the status quo legal.
People have a very, very hard time objectively considering things that aren't common in their societal niche aren't.
Wait, are you surprised that adherents to Abrahamic religions would be in support of capital punishment? Each of the holy texts are filled with harsh judgments and abusive punishments meted out by god or god's servants.
Also your comment about Americans feeling like divine judges comes off as a touch hyperbolic, and if that's your experience you must live near some pretty extreme Christians.
'Progressive Europeans' have Anders Brevik, who mass murdered 90 children, sitting in a hotel room with great food, internet access, video games, porn, girlfriends etc..
And will he eventually be out after is 'non life sentence'?
They executed SS Officers for much less.
I suggest in some cases the death penalty may be warranted.
>'Progressive Europeans' have Anders Brevik, who mass murdered 90 children, sitting in a hotel room with great food, internet access, video games, porn, girlfriends etc..
Yeah, so?
They are bad because they don't care much for revenge or they didn't punish hard someone who killed many people?
As if having him die in some electric chair will bring those people back?
If anything, that's even more Christian (in spirit) than the Old Testament "eye for an eye" US mentality.
And if anything else, this treatment helps show Brevik for what he is, a lone loony who hurt innocent people -- as opposed to some "martyred" killer in a society that itself hypocritically kills people too.
And maybe this mentality is part of the reason why those "progressive Europeans" have way less Anders Breviks, whereas in the US there's one born every minute...
An 'eye for an eye' would imply someone who stole could be stolen from, someone who maimed could he himself be maimed.
Executing Brevik is not 'revenge', it is justice.
He deserves to be executed.
I'm not generally a supporter of capital punishment, but it is blatantly immoral that he should live an almost normal, healthy life after his mass crimes.
Brevik committed unthinkable acts in an attempt to change Norwegian society. Applying anything other than the established law to him, let alone ending the European moratorium on capital punishment, would gift him success.
Life sentences are permitted in most of Europe. What is not permitted are life sentences without the possibility of parole.
The typical pattern in most of Europe is that a life sentence means you serve N years (with N being determined at the time of sentencing, either by law or by the court, often from a range of allowed values). After N years, you can apply for review, and may be released if the reviewing body decides that further incarceration serves no legitimate penological interest. If release is denied, at some later time (how "later" is determined varies from country to country), you can try again, and so on until you eventually get released or die.
The 8th amendment specifically states cruel and unusual. I'm not going to search for it at work but I seem to recall an appellate or Supreme Court decision saying essentially that the death penalty is cruel but is common enough that it is not unusual, and therefore does not violate one's Constitutional rights.
While the US has multiple counts for conviction purposes, at least under the federal rules, "grouping" rules are used to combine counts arising out of the same conduct to compute the actual sentences: http://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/training/annual-... (page 5).
I think the bigger issue is that our sentences can be insanely long. In Germany you can get parole after 15 years even for murder. In New York, embezzling $1 million can get you 25 years in prison.
I think the complaint is that the charge stacking is what contributes to the long sentences. And that plays into the plea bargain problem because the prospect of an insanely long sentence if you lose your defense is enough to make many capitulate and admit guilt as a kind of insurance.
Yes, although people claim (speculate?) that the stacking may result in a jury thinking they can "split the difference" and convict on one count but not the other, not realizing that the end result is the same as convicting on all counts.
We do have various versions of the merger doctrine in US criminal law. The details depend on jurisdiction, but generally in order to be merged into a greater offense the lesser included offense must have elements that are a strict subset.
For example, battery and murder will generally merge, but a breaking and entering leading up to the homicide will not.
You mean being charged for the crimes you are accused of? Are there countries where crimes are 'buffet style' where once you commit a bad one you might as well commit a whole bunch because the single crime covers the rest?
The post you're replying to is not talking about committing different offences. It's talking about a single event which then attract multiple charges.
And, while not quite answering what you're asking, it's useful to look at how other countries deal with multiple offences.
In England a person accused of one crime can ask for other crimes to be "taken into consideration". (TIC).
This gives them the opportunity to have a clean slate when they've served their sentence (thus supporting rehabilitation); it gives police a better detection rate; it gives victims some small amount of comfort to know that the person who offended against them has been caught.
The sentence for one offence and a bunch of TICs is longer than one offence by itself, but short than if each TIC was prosecuted as a separate offence.
There have been some problems with the system, but these tend to be vigorously investigated.
Yes and no. Lets pretend you break into a pharmacy at night. You damage the windows, perhaps went in and disabled the alarm first. You stole some goods and some drugs.
In a lot of countries, this is considered a single criminal act. You might have broken numerous laws, but you would wind up with one charge, with the others more circumstances of your guilt and punishment. You'd only get another charge if you left the place and committed a different criminal act.
In the US, however, it is quite possible for you to get charged with numerous crimes. Breaking and entering, destruction of property, some sort of hacking law (for the security system), and a drug law or two, including possession of a controlled substance (or dealing a controlled substance). All of the charges would have their own penalties and fines, though they may be part of the same criminal proceeding.
Yes, that's essentially how it works in every other country of the world. The US is very special in that the same sequence of action can be covered by ten different competing laws and you can and will be charged for ten different crimes on the basis of one and the same sequence of action. In the rest of the world, crimes are counted differently, you can be charged for several crimes at once, but prosecutors cannot stack up crimes on top of the same actions.
That's also the reason why the US has almost 25% of the world's prison population and the highest percentage of prison inmates per capita of any country in the world, with a growing tendency. People in the US are not inherently more criminal or violent than elsewhere, the US sense of justice is just very special and not shared by the rest of the world.
> That's also the reason why the US has almost 25% of the world's prison population
No it's not. The US has the world's highest prison population for two reasons you didn't list. 1) repeat offense violent crime in inner cities, which is what the majority of inmates are in for. 2) The war on drugs, which is directly and indirectly responsible for most of the crime in the first reference, to go along with the substantial prison population that is there for only drug offenses. There have been numerous studies done on the US prison population and it does not mostly consist of people in there on trumped up charges and wildly exaggerated sentences (and yes that does exist very obviously), it mostly consists of repeat violent offenders.
> with a growing tendency
Shrinking tendency in fact. The total US prison population peaked several years ago and is now declining and is set to decline dramatically over the next two decades as the war on drugs is ending. If your theory were correct, the US prison population would still be spiraling upwards at the old rate.
A third answer is the USA population is 26% of the developed world population. 319M/1200M. Outside the developed world, the criminal justice system is not quite as ... developed, and therefore criminals often end up uncaught, shot in the street by vigilantes/opposing tribe members, pay a bribe to avoid trial, executed for fairly minor crimes, shorter prison terms to save money, worse conditions in prison mean prison is often a death sentence, etc.
Look at the typical outcome WRT prison time of a felony car theft in the USA vs, I donno, Chile.
