What's that old saying? "One bad apple spoils the barrel" or something like that?It's things like this that make me believe the human race is stupid.Hey, watch out who you're accusing. It's not the whole human race. It's only a certain country. And not even that. It's the braindead idiots who are allowed to make laws for that country.
And they're certainly not human.
Are you calling me an apple, you horrible person? I'm going to cut you!
;-P
Justice shouldn't be driven by economic issues.
It has been repeatedly demonstrated that the U.S. prison system is all about profits, and has almost nothing at all to do with justice. That's what happens when you have for-profit prisons lobbying Washington for ever-more absurd laws -- our tax dollars are being siphoned into the pockets of the profit-center prison stockholders, through the mechanism of imprisoning an increasing number of basically harmless people (nonviolent drug offenders, people who click on the wrong web sites, etc.).
When 10% of your adult population at any given time is in prison -- more than any other nation on Earth -- and the growth of that percentage still shows little sign of abating, you know something isn't right.
10 %? Really?
At least it does make the unemployment stats look good. Smart indeed...
I hereby move that your legislature is re-classified as satire. Unless all those posts are lies. Not just some. All.
People keep getting away with doing heinous things so they write a law to stop it. It opens the door to this sort of idiocy, but before anything bad happens there are a number of things that have to happen
The prosecutor needs to want to file charges (hurdle crossed)
The judge has to allow it
The jury has to convict.
So before we lambast the legislature for putting in place something that will get a six year old branded for life, lets see if their faith in human judgement was warranted or not, ok?
10 %? Really?
Oops -- misplaced decimal: > 1.0% (still an obscenely large proportion, and still the world leader).
Charging a six year old with a felony for anything is dumb. This is no reason to be against sex offender registries. If the kid stole $1,000,000 dollars, was charged, and as a result became beloved across America (he probably would), it would still be dumb.
Then again, $12 million dollar lawsuit? Sign me up for the sex offender registry please! I’d do it for half that – not the sexually assault someone part, the be on the registry for life part.
No way I'd take that deal -- out of $12M, lawyers and court fees chew up, say, 75%, leaving $3M. On a windfall like that, Uncle Sam collects, say, 60%, leaving $1.2M. That's got to last the rest of your life, as you'll never hold down a job again, being on that registry. Say the kid would normally start working at 22, retire at 65, that's 43 years, divided into his $1.2M is $28K/year.
Even factoring in a return on investment, he'd be a LOT better off not taking that deal.
Fair enough Kirth and thejeff.
I had no idea (and am dubious) that $12 mil turns into 1.2.
As far as not being able to live anywhere or have a job. Put any random address in the sex offender locator. You will see that that is completely bogus.
Fair enough Kirth and thejeff.
I had no idea (and am dubious) that $12 mil turns into 1.2.
As far as not being able to live anywhere or have a job. Put any random address in the sex offender locator. You will see that that is completely bogus.
Um...no. They keep pretty close tabs on you. You can't generally rent an apartment or buy a house without a credit check, which means using your SSN, which means your sex offender registration pops up. If it was that easy to dodge the sex offender list there would be no point in having it.
The problem isn't the sex offender registry, it's the fact that registering is automatic for any number of crimes that are short of rape or pedophilia. And no one will change it or risk looking like they're pro-rape or pro-pedophilia.
Be nice if they updated the registry. It's been two months since my dad got paroled, and the a&&@$#% still isn't on the list, despite being a rapist.
If I say that the six year old is getting a bum deal does that make me a "rape apologist"?
This is exactly the problem being pointed out. The absurdity of prosecuting, zero-tolerance, anything from peeing in your backyard to kids goofing off as "sex crimes," has a tendency to gradually turn actual horrible, vicious, unconscionable crimes into something people are inclined to joke about -- as you've just done.
Given my choice, actual rape would call for a bullet to the head, but "indecent exposure" wouldn't even be illegal. Certainly, throwing everything under the sun into a "sex crimes" blender wouldn't be the law of the land. YMMV.
Again, demonisation isn't pretty. Sure, some acts are terrible things, and might well deserve all sorts of s$!~. However, once you have that punishment in place, and then claim that every call for things like innocence until proven guilty and so on is because you support things like rape, or because you don't take it seriously, THAT is when the system becomes a far worse horror. Why? Because it's society doing it to even innocent people.
And if you claim this is not representative, how about this case? A mentally handicapped six-year-old is supposed to suffer for the rest of his life because he made a bad decision? I thought mentally handicapped children of six were pretty much the definition of innocent. If your bloody legal system can't handle this properly, it's entirely a joke and deserves ridicule.
In the UK, a girl of 17 was put on a sex offender list due to having nude photos of HERSELF in the phone. HERSELF, for the love of human sanity!!!
Understand that there are many who WANT witch hunts, who love demonisation campaigns, who enjoy singling out groups of people and defining them as worthless. I assume it's some sort of power trip, and the reassurance that however miserable their own lives are, at least they aren't as bad as sex offenders. And understand that unless we want the state to treat people like that, guilty AND innocent alike, laws like what has been made on the sex crime arena must be sanity checked.
One final thing: We can all fantasize about revenge. Killing the criminal, eye for an eye, torturing them, stripping away their humanity, it's all good as long as it's your fantasy. Once you try to enact it, claiming things like "laws are for civilized people", you fail. As part of living in society, we defer our own rights to revenge to the state, and we do it precisely because WE are civilized. Nor is there a third option beyond "defer punishment to the state" or "becoming a criminal myself".
If I upset people here, that's regrettable. I can't say I am sorry, though.
A mentally handicapped six-year-old is supposed to suffer for the rest of his life because he made a bad decision?
A mentally handicapped six year old is not.. i repeat, is NOT, having anything done to him for the rest of his life because of a bad decision.
It. hasn't. Happened.
He has been CHARGED. He has not been CONVICTED.
The legislators are in a damned if you do damned if you don't situation. If they leave out a loophole or leave something to a judges discretion some idiot somewhere lets them walk, and then people are crying "oh why did they put that loophole there?"
The prosecutor is an idiot. He shouldn't be allowed to have a dog license, much less a license to practice law. You still have to have a trial before winding up on the list, and one person in 12 is probably smart enough to stop this from happening.
This sorry mess should have been thrown out immediately. It is entirely possible to do so, as far as I understand it, and this case even getting this far is an absolute disgrace. It is utterly, totally and incomprehensibly moronic. Letting this situation come up by making these laws shows that it's not just the prosecutor that should have rethought dog licenses.
The only redeeming part of this is that when (not if) he gets convicted, it will be another nail in the coffin for this bizarre law room. Change always happens when the results of the current dogma is too ludicrous to accept.
Letting this situation come up by making these laws shows that it's not just the prosecutor that should have rethought dog licenses.
Ok, so how do you write a law that stops this, but doesn't allow actual sex offenders through?
Ok, so how do you write a law that stops this, but doesn't allow actual sex offenders through?
You start with a clear sense of what things should be offenses and what shouldn't, then carefully define your terms. Phrases like "I know it when I see it" and "indecent by the standards of the community" should immediately send up red flags and warning bells.
You start with a clear sense of what things should be offenses and what shouldn't
And then people wriggle through the holes. Imagine trying to write the pathfinder rules so that an army of Ravingdorks CAN"T argue that that the laws say that what their client did was illegal.
The least bad solution is to make the law prohibitive and the prosecution sensible, because you CAN"T make the law permissive and effective.
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And then people wriggle through the holes. The least bad solution is to make the law prohibitive and the prosecution sensible, because you CAN"T make the law permissive and effective.
So, your stance is that because no airtight, divine perfection is possible, we should simply make everything in the world illegal and punishable by lifetime imprisonment, and leave justice thereafter to the blind trust that the prosecution will be "sensible"? That sounds to me like perfect being the enemy of good.
Sure, I'd love it if people were sensible, but it would be nice to establish some clear, non-insane guidelines. For a start, a simple statement that "legally-speaking, nudity shall not automatically be equated with sex" would be a good start, as it would eliminate about 50% of the really insane stuff cited above.
"legally-speaking, nudity shall not automatically be equated with sex"
Oh dear lord there's a psychopath on the loose!
You start with a clear sense of what things should be offenses and what shouldn'tAnd then people wriggle through the holes. Imagine trying to write the pathfinder rules so that an army of Ravingdorks CAN"T argue that that the laws say that what their client did was illegal.
The least bad solution is to make the law prohibitive and the prosecution sensible, because you CAN"T make the law permissive and effective.
Prosecution sensible? Which young adult fiction world are you living in? If nothing else, this case shows clearly that prosecution isn't just moronic, but completely off its f~~~ing rocker. Given this, your solution is monstrous and horrible, and instead you NEED TO ACCEPT that not every crime will be punished. It is how a free and open society works. A dictatorship has everything being illegal, and people hoping they will not be targeted. Is that what you want?
Calling for sanity in how we as a society deal with false accusations of rape (which is what I did) is NOT the same as making light of actual rape (which, as a survivor of childhood molestation, I would never do).If I say that the six year old is getting a bum deal does that make me a "rape apologist"?This is exactly the problem being pointed out. The absurdity of prosecuting, zero-tolerance, anything from peeing in your backyard to kids goofing off as "sex crimes," has a tendency to gradually turn actual horrible, vicious, unconscionable crimes into something people are inclined to joke about -- as you've just done.
Given my choice, actual rape would call for a bullet to the head, but "indecent exposure" wouldn't even be illegal. Certainly, throwing everything under the sun into a "sex crimes" blender wouldn't be the law of the land. YMMV.
THIS. So much this.
Prosecution sensible? Which young adult fiction world are you living in?
The one where people still get a trial before getting put on a watchlist, which is the mechanism that prevents one lone nutcase prosecutor from deciding that anyone with a playboy is guilty of rape.
If nothing else, this case shows clearly that prosecution isn't just moronic, but completely off its f!%@ing rocker.
It shows that that one particular prosecutor is off their rocker and belongs on a long couch. She's not alone
Given this, your solution is monstrous and horrible, and instead you NEED TO ACCEPT that not every crime will be punished. It is how a free and open society works. A dictatorship has everything being illegal, and people hoping they will not be targeted. Is that what you want?
Rocket down the slippery slope much? Look, a finger penetrated a rear end. That rear end was under age. You can't just say that the finger belonged to a minor or you have 17 year old raping 8 year olds and getting away with it. Do you want some sort of bizzare algebra formula for their respective ages hard coded into the law?
The law doesn't exist in a vacuum.
you NEED TO ACCEPT that not every crime will be punished.
That's how you get people taking the law into their own hands.
Edit: also, his mental "handicap" is being ADHD. Which 90% of the time just means he's male and 8.
If this prosecutor needs a mental examination, prosecution can not be relied on to be sensible. Even if you wish to. Simple as that. And if people take the law into their own hands, they get punished too. Eventually people get the idea.
Be that as it may, the boy was six. If he also has ADHD, then it is really difficult for him to focus, think about his actions, empathise with others, and consider consequences. It is hard to understand for self-proclaimed experts in psychiatry like you, but ADHD is no laughing matter. Consider yourself an inconsiderate and intolerant know-nothing for putting down that last comment about it. Way to go.
The one where people still get a trial before getting put on a watchlist, which is the mechanism that prevents one lone nutcase prosecutor from deciding that anyone with a playboy is guilty of rape.
A trial, in many cases including a 6 year old, will likely do much psychological harm, if not harm of reputation. No, there need to be better guidelines in place as to what should be prosecuted to begin with.
Rocket down the slippery slope much? Look, a finger penetrated a rear end. That rear end was under age. You can't just say that the finger belonged to a minor or you have 17 year old raping 8 year olds and getting away with it. Do you want some sort of bizzare algebra formula for their respective ages hard coded into the law?
You accuse someone of buying into a slippery slope fallacy and then suggest your own. Either we prosecute naked infants for running around their own houses, or people will be raping babies from here to the pecos with impunity.
You can absolutely have a formula, they do in other laws. We can start by qualifying individuals as infants (<3 years), children (4-12), teenagers (13-17) and adults (18+). Different laws apply to different groups to varying degrees. You can also allow leeway for prosecutorial discretion and leave it up to the "victim"'s parents to press charges, much like in statutory rape. You can limit the sex offender registry to FELONIOUS sex crimes, where sex with a minor (18 year old boyfriend, 16 year old girlfriend) and public exposure are misdemeanors. You can create a process by which a minor's sex offense registry can be appealed upon reaching adulthood-not automatic like a juvenile record but have an appeal process.
That's how you get people taking the law into their own hands.
And this is also absurd. So rather than risk people taking the law into their hands, we should just lock everyone up to be sure. Why even have a trial?
If this prosecutor needs a mental examination, prosecution can not be relied on to be sensible.
The prosecutor is not the sum total of the system.
But you said that the system was okay since the prosecution was sensible. Ergo: Error. System f$#%ed.
Either we prosecute naked infants for running around their own houses
Not at all. You can leave a loose definition that will technically cover incidents like the one above and rely on people NOT to convict or you can let people wriggle through the cracks. The supreme court couldn't manage to define porn so i don't have much hope for a state legislature coming up with airtight language.
But you said that the system was okay since the prosecution was sensible.
No. I didn't.
The system has several built in fail safes:
1. The judge can dismiss a case.
2. The jury can find the defendant not guilty.
3. The prosecutor can choose to not peruse the case.
4. Appeals are possible on top of the above.
I am not saying that the system is perfect -- far from, however I am saying it has several layers at which some point a human should be able to stop stupidity from happening.
The fact that stupidity continues to happen is a failure of the humans involved not the system itself.
[The supreme court couldn't manage to define porn so i don't have much hope for a state legislature coming up with airtight language.
A definition wouldn't be hard to nail down. I believe the Supreme Court simply did not want a clear definition made, so as to leave the door open for ever-expanding felonies for things that used to be legal. Like any industry, prisons need to keep growing to keep profitable.
[The supreme court couldn't manage to define porn so i don't have much hope for a state legislature coming up with airtight language.A definition wouldn't be hard to nail down. I believe the Supreme Court simply did not want a clear definition made, so as to leave the door open for ever-expanding felonies for things that used to be legal. Like any industry, prisons need to keep growing to keep profitable.
Huh. And here i though I had the pessimistic answer.
I can' see how bribing the court like that would work. I mean, what do the justices get out of it?
I can' see how bribing the court like that would work. I mean, what do the justices get out of it?
A guy like Scalia doesn't need a monetary incentive to outlaw pornography. And a guy like Roberts doesn't need a monetary incentive to work towards establishing a legacy of "inspiring unprecedented cooperation among justices, and between the SCotUS and congress," etc.
Well, is it deliberate malfeasance or is it incompetence/ the cold hard facts of reality?
Can you define pornography?
Send examples to.....
The system has several built in fail safes:
1. The judge can dismiss a case.
2. The jury can find the defendant not guilty.
3. The prosecutor can choose to not peruse the case.
4. Appeals are possible on top of the above.I am not saying that the system is perfect -- far from, however I am saying it has several layers at which some point a human should be able to stop stupidity from happening.
No it's not. Again, those are the same fail safes in place for ANY crime. The problem is that any crime that is defined federally as a sex crime carries with it automatic registry as a sex offender. None of the above fail safes apply to this because it is automatic if convicted; even if the conviction is warranted sex offender status may not be and there is no leeway for the judge.
If you can think of a situation where an individual deserves to be punished in some sense for a crime, but that punishment should not last their entire life and be disproportionate to the crime, then the sex offender laws are cruel and unusual.
Even in this case there should be some legal remedy for the parents of the victim, the parents of the boy should probably have to put him in counseling or therapy or be more careful who he has play dates with. It is totally reasonable for the law to be involved in some degree, even if it isn't prosecuted criminally, but I think we can all agree life time irrevocable sex offender registry for this kid would be absurd.
Personally I think a civil suit should be enough in this case, or out of court agreement. I don't think charges should have been pressed on the federal level. However allowing for some level of something wouldn't hurt my feelings too badly.
Personally I think a civil suit should be enough in this case, or out of court agreement. I don't think charges should have been pressed on the federal level. However allowing for some level of something wouldn't hurt my feelings too badly.
I don't think they were, unless I'm totally misunderstanding the case. The federal sex offender registry doesn't have to happen as part of a federal crime or prosecution.
He's specifically being prosecuted for First Degree Sexual Assault. The boys parents have filed a federal civil rights suit over the methods and means of said prosecution. I don't see any outcome from either case as of yet. If convicted he'll have some serious problems from the conviction.
As you pointed out if convicted he's automatically labelled and must register as a sex offender.
I could see a civil suit if the boy's parents didn't take steps to help keep the boy from doing such things again. Remember you can sue for action instead of money.
I would add something more to discussing this case, but I am afraid I do not have many more synonyms for stupid. Shame.
You start with a clear sense of what things should be offenses and what shouldn'tAnd then people wriggle through the holes. Imagine trying to write the pathfinder rules so that an army of Ravingdorks CAN"T argue that that the laws say that what their client did was illegal.
The least bad solution is to make the law prohibitive and the prosecution sensible, because you CAN"T make the law permissive and effective.
Here is where you claim that the system works with your principles as long as prosecution is sensible. Anything else you would care to deny claiming?
You start with a clear sense of what things should be offenses and what shouldn'tAnd then people wriggle through the holes. Imagine trying to write the pathfinder rules so that an army of Ravingdorks CAN"T argue that that the laws say that what their client did was illegal.
The least bad solution is to make the law prohibitive and the prosecution sensible, because you CAN"T make the law permissive and effective.
Here is where you claim that the system works with your principles as long as prosecution is sensible. Anything else you would care to deny claiming?I didn't say that it works. I said its the least bad situation possible.
You cannot write an all encompassing, specific law. Its simply not going to happen. You either have to let it go, or rely on the multi tiered justice system: prosecutor, judge, jury, appeal to put the brakes on the crazy train at some point.
You cannot write an all encompassing, specific law. Its simply not going to happen.
You cannot invent a perfectly efficient engine. It's simply not going to happen. So you should design really, horribly, outrageously inefficient engines, and then just accept that using a lot more fuel and providing a lot more maintenance than is really necessary is actually the best possible solution.