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| 5/23 |
| 2007/6/4-10 [Health/Disease/General, Politics/Domestic/Crime] UID:46848 Activity:moderate |
6/4 Enron exec gets only 2yr jail time for screwing up so many people's
retirement:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070604/bs_nm/enron_sentencing_dc
\- the real punishment issue is they got to "club fed" type
prisons, not ass prisons. how many years in non-ass prison
would you be willing to do to avoid 1 yr or ass prison?
would you be willing to do to avoid 1 yr of ass prison?
\_ Just send him to Iraq and tell him to patrol the city
neighborhood for road side bomb...
\_ As much as I hate Enron, I hate the idea that repeated gang
rape is an acceptable punishment, especially one to joke
around about, even more.
\_ Quite aside from the gang rape and psych. trauma
there is the very high risk of infection.
\- who is joking? i think it is a very serious inequity
in "the system" along the lines of the crack vs cocaine
sentencing disparity, some weird pathologies in the
mandatory sentencing guidelines etc. is your ass/non-ass
prison multipler less than 5? or maybe we should phrase
it in terms of "how many months are you willing to trade
for change in marginal risk of hepatitis, hiv etc." are
you willing to add a year to your sentence to take the
risk of hiv/hep from 5% to .1%?
\_ The prison system is broken. The sentence itself should
be the punishment. Getting raped, getting a disease, or
getting abused in some other way by the other inmates is
not justice and should not be part of the system.
\_ Agreed, but the solution is not softer sentencing for
corporate pirates.
\- Again, eliminating the abuses in the prison
system is a separate issue than the sentencing
disparity. For example you can feel the penalties
for drugs are overly harsh *across the board* but
it is a separate issue to look at the (racial)
disparate impact of the sentencing guidelines.
A better example, also turning on race, concerns
capital punishment. Again being pro/con capital
pusiment is a separate issue from the fact that
black people killing white people have VASTLY more
likely to get the death penalty than black people
"only" killing another black person. [and of course
this is a spearate issue than quality of repre-
sentation etc. but of course money makes a difference
whether it is law or medicine].
\_ OJ Simpson vs. Scott Peterson.
\_ The plural of ancedote is not data.
\_ I agree with you on the sentencing guidelines for
things like crack vs. cocaine. It's all coke and
should be treated the same. But is it? Isn't
crack a much stronger version of the same basic
stuff? Shouldn't a more serious substance get a
more serious penalty? If not, then why treat
pot use as a decriminalised activity but send
coke users to jail? Some lines? No lines? Or
just one big line that treats all drug offenses
the same?
\_ Coke and crack are both Sched. II substances;
as such, sentencing for possession/dealing
should be the same. However, judges have a
tendency to view coke-heads as still socially
redeemable, whereas crackheads are considered
irredeemable, and so sentences tend to be
harsher for crackheads. This is not consistent
with the espoused purpose of establing Scheds.
to begin with.
\- often there are arguments like "crackheads
are more likely to commit other crimes"
as opposed to upstanding wall street
coke users, or suburban upper middle
class coke heads etc. but it seems like
you should only be able to convict people
for what they did rather than statistical
propensities ... like if the crack head
paid for the crack by stealing car stereos
you need to convict him of that rather than
just infer it from "no visible means of
support". on the flip side, you also have
to wonder about "hate crime" laws with
harsher pentalities, under the theory that
hate-fuelled beatings are worse than run-
of-the-mill beatings ... if a hate beating
averages in 50stiches rather than 25 stiches
surely there is a way to have the sentencing
reflect the "actual damage" and dispense
with the "thought crime" aspect. although
i acknowledge something like hate-graffitti
may be different from "<my gang> rules"
type graffiti ... but once it advances to
something like arson, i dunno if you really
have to consider the "hate" element so
much.
\_ The why is always important in crime.
For instance look at the difference
between a premeditated mob hit and
a crime of passion.
\- fair point. but some whys matter.
like premeditation. does it matter
whether the premediated mob hit was
for financial reaasons [like say
remove competition/turf war ...
fundamentally about money] or say
to prevent a witness from testifying.
but i think we agree sentencing is
complicated and hard to make a
determiistic function of n-variables.
like for white collar crime how do
you factor in the magnitude of the
harm [embezzing $50k, vs $10m in
some kind of securities fraud],
what should be criminal vs civil
penalties etc.
\_ Crack and coke are the same thing, one is
not inherently stronger than the other,
though the method they are used leads to
slightly differrent effects. They may
finally be eliminating the sentencing
disparity, btw:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n656/a04.html
\_ If the method of use of one leads to a
greater (or less socially acceptable)
effect then I'd claim it is "stronger".
\- so for say assault, there should be
different sentencing guidelines
based on whether you are a welter-
weight or heavyweight or a black-
belt? how about just focusing on
the actual damage. if somebody
embezzles $2000 and buys math books
vs. mexican drinking binge, should
they get differnent sentences?
\_ In the case of drug sentencing the
charges are related to possession
not your blood content. So they
have to look at the potential
damage of selling 2kg of crack vs.
2kg of coke. If the potential
damage is the same, then yes they
should be punished the same. If
the crack is going to do more harm
to the community than the coke then
it should be punished more harshly.
Does one actually have the
potential to do more harm than the
other? I don't know. But the
judges dealing with these things
seem to think so.
\- drunk driving in a yugo vs a
humvee are treated differently?
yes, if the humvee drink driver
kills somebody and the yugo
driver just dents a mailbox,
that should be treatement
that should be treated
differently but saything there
are schedule I and schedule II
cars for DUI, is kinda odd.
\_ cars aren't drugs. car
possession is not (yet) a
crime. for a car wreck we
punish the effect. for drug
possession we punish based on
potential effect.
\- in the case of drunk
driving you can go
after them without a
car wreck happening.
it's being in posession
of a car while driving
because that might lead
to a car wreck, a pot-
ential effect.
\_ And for that potential
effect, the punishment
is extremely high. It
presumes that "this is
not your first time
doing it, so we'll
throw the book at you" |
| 5/23 |
|
| news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070604/bs_nm/enron_sentencing_dc Hannon, 46, also received a $125,000 fine from US District Judge Vanessa Gilmore in Houston, a clerk for the judge said. Hannon, who was COO of Enron Broadband Services from January 2000 to June 2001, pleaded guilty in August 2004 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors at the bankrupt company. The former Internet executive, who testified for the prosecution at the criminal trial of his former bosses Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling in March 2006, had faced up to five years in prison. Hannon initially was indicted on charges of conspiracy, money laundering and insider trading, In March 2003, Hannon and six other managers were charged in a 221-count indictment of hiding poor results in the broadband unit, which was once touted as one of Enron's brightest prospects. Hannon's lawyer was not immediately available for comment on the sentence. Enron, once the seventh-largest US company, collapsed into bankruptcy in December 2001 after its use of off-balance-sheet financing to prop up its results and hide massive debts was revealed. Lay and Skilling were convicted in May 2006 for their roles in the fraud that triggered the collapse of Enron. Skilling is serving a 24-year sentence in prison in Minnesota. Lay died of a heart attack in July 2006 and never served time in prison. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. |