Law and Justice

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I will get on it in a while (or maybe tommorow as I am leaving shortly to watch the Warcraft movie). Meanwhile, can I have a moderator move this to a separate Law and Justice thread? Who should I PM?
 
Úlfheðinn 说:
Yeah, that's true,  I guess my issue would be, why the hell would you add another questionable measure that will probably require 25+ years before it's actually transformed into something that provides results better than chance?
Well, the debate originally started because of Jhessail's complaint about the fact that sentence was lessened because of who the guy was (and yes, I think the sentence was a little too lenient) and Bromden's claim that it is only the crime itself that matters (punitur quia peccatum est + fiat iustitia pereat mundus / dura lex sed lex) and not the character and conditions of the perpetrator. I disagreed as I believe the sentence should account for the character and circumstances of the perpetrator, and my reasoning was that formally equal treatment of de facto unequal people would result in unequal (different; unjust) punishment.

I haven't claimed that the courts in real world should work according to this, and I stated the reasons why (legitimate expectations, inaplicability etc.). The purpose of me joining the debate was to demonstrate that one's character and conditions should be accounted for in the sentence. And that equality before the law is more of a catchphrase than a fact.

Using perpetrator's character is also not adding anything; it is already there. I can illustrate with our Penal Code (sorry for my wonky legal English):

§39 - Determining the category and severity of the punishment - In determining the category and severity of the punishment, the court will take into consideration the nature and gravity of the crime committed, to personal, family and property conditions of the perpetrator and his previous conduct and a possibility of his correction ... (things about cooperating) ... The court will also consider the impact and consequences that are to be expected from the punishment to the future life of the perpetrator.
Basically, two persons with different family backgrounds should be sentenced differently. The consequences of the punishment do matter.

§46 - Dropping the sentence - The court may refrain from punishing the perpetrator who regrets his actions ... (more conditions) ... and if there is a reasonable expectation that a trial hearings  are enough for his correction and the protection of the society.
Basically, if someone has never been to trial and situation itself is too shameful for him, this is enough to punish him.

§58 - Exceptional reduction of the custodial sentence - : if the court finds that - in regards to the circumstances of the case or to the conditions of the perpetrator - using the length of the sentence [imprisonment] as set by the law would be innaproprietly strict for the offender and that the correction of the offender can be achieved also by a sentence of a shorter duration, the court may lower the duration of sentence below the lower limit set by the law.
Basically, if a crime is punisheable by 4-10 years in prison, the court has the option to send the perpetrator to prison for only 1.5 years purely for who he is. And it is all legal.

Weaver 说:
How is it no matter as long as his own words are the only way to find out how he subjectively feels? How does this actually work in your head?
The question was not can the court find how much a person values his freedom?, but can freedom be evaluated?
 
Well, there's no word about the perp's wealth in those.
In 39, it can be read as if the perp has many obligations to family, property, etc, while being poor underclass scum (=people with less freedoms), should get punished less, because his life would suffer more from the consequences of the punishment, while rich guy's money could theoretically continue to work by itself while rich guy is waiting for his life sentence to end.
In 46, you mix up regret for the crime and shame from the trial. Also, this probably isn't used for severe and violent crimes, it's most likely intended for first timers who got scared enough for his stupid.
In 58, it's the same thing. One example fitting here was a guy who whacked his father in law on the head in anger, killing him. In the court it got clear that dear father in law, who was living with his daughter's family, was a toxic person, constantly sucking the life out of those who he lived with. The perp was a decent prole guy who was exposed to father in laws shenanigans for decades, before the ****bucket spilt and whacked FiL on the head with piece of firewood. In the trial, even his wife, the dead guy's daughter begged the judge to forgive him. He got off easy with two years, and he could even go out to work. I repeat, he was a poor-ass prole from the darkest depths of eastern Hungary (he wasn't a gipsy, though, that probably helped).
 
I have a feeling that you are much too politicised by it being the poor vs. the rich. It would have been the same with people with claustrophobia and people without it. Unless of course you assume that people different in wealth and possibilites but the same in other things are hurt the same by the same verdict; which I honestly think I have demonstrated to be wrong. I also suspect you assume that I think the mentioned wealth as the only condition when assessing the severity of the punishment.

As for § 39, I will translate an exerpt from commentaries to the penal code:

"Peronal, family and property (wealth) conditions of the perpetrator are also relevant to the assesment of the person, even though they are not directly connected to comitting the crime. Those conditions of the perpetetrator can however still influence the consideration of punishment. These are factors that characterise the perpetratior as an object of the punishment and factors for which the same punishment is differently severe for different offenders. What we consider is these conditions not in the moment of comitting the crime, but in the moment of imposing the punishment. It may include for example health conditions of the perpetrator, health condition of his family, whether the perpetrator takes care of a big family, pregnancy of the perpetrator, housing conditions of the perpetrator and his family, job of the perpetrator and his income, perpetrator's conduct of business and its economic results, status of the perpetrator in society, aggregate property condition of the perpetrator and huis family etc."
- ŠÁMAL, Pavel. Trestní zákoník: komentář. Praha: C.H. Beck, 2009. Velké komentáře. p. 438. ISBN 978-80-7400-109-3.

"...the other factors can include above all finding out if and how the perpetrator is employed, and how to individualize the punishment so that disruption of positive labour connections can be avoided; also the age and health of the perpetrator as they may present a possible obstacle in administering certain punishments or be a factor that may radically and perceptibly negatively influence administering certain punishments."
- DRAŠTÍK, Antonín. Trestní zákoník: komentář. Praha: Wolters Kluwer, 2015. Komentáře Wolters Kluwer. p. 312. ISBN 978-80-7478-790-4.

Now I will say what you probably want to say: yes, the property conditions are mentioned primarily because these principles also include monetary punishments and wealthy people should and do get more severe monetary punishment (equality before the law gone away again). This does not, however, mean that it should not be applied to custodary sentence as well. There is a mention of avoiding distrupting positive labour connections - which is pretty much the rich people should be punished with shorter sentences. If someone is a night security guard on a parking place, losing the job in the future hurts him disproportionately less than it hurts a CEO of a multinational company to lose his job because finding similarly-paying job is easier than finding that one of the CEO. The status in society is the same thing - you hurt an economics professor far more by jailing him than you hurt a gipsy who has half of his family in prison already.

§ 46 - no, I don't. All conditions are required - the regret as well as that trial hearings are enough for his correction. If you are to be corrected by something, it has to impose a harm on you, otherwise you are not motivated at all. The harm from the trial itself I putted under the words shame, as I think it includes all the possible outcomes - the shame, possible disruption of social connections, worsening in relations in the family, stress from the legal proceedings, threat of an actual punishment being imposed, etc. Yes, it is used for less serious offences; it is basically a milder form of a suspended sentence.

§ 58 - that has very little to do with what we are talking here. My line of reasoning is: the court decides that the severity of punishment in this case is 50pts, but because of the individuality of the perpetrator he is to perceive the severity of prison by 20 percents more than the ordinary bloke, we set the punishment at 50 / 1.2 = 41.2pts. Becuase the bloke will perceive it as 50pts.

Your example modifies the base 50pts value, because a just value, after accounting for the circumstances, is for example 42. Everything I have said so far is about the modifier that modifies the base value of punishment (aka. individualisation of punishment), not about the base value. In Jhessail's case, factors modifying the base value can, among other things, be: the bloke being drunk, the girl being drunk, what he did to her, her indications before she passed out or his motives for the deed. Factors modifying the modifer are for example: his current employment, his current school attendance, his possibilites in future.
 
BenKenobi 说:
If someone is a night security guard on a parking place, losing the job in the future hurts him disproportionately less than it hurts a CEO of a multinational company to lose his job because finding similarly-paying job is easier than finding that one of the CEO. The status in society is the same thing - you hurt an economics professor far more by jailing him than you hurt a gipsy who has half of his family in prison already.

Uhm, what? I don't know if you have ever been to an employment bureau, but let me tell you that there is a lot of unemployed night guards and gypsies there. No CEOs. Maybe one or two economics professor.

Once you are a CEO of a multinational company, you never fall to the bottom. Unless you go full Bernie Madoff or something.
 
Uh, okay. I assumed that 3 years sentence and a criminal record would affect more finding better jobs than the worse-paying. CEOs may have been to high to be an example.
 
A lot of many employers want to see a copy of the criminal record even for totally menial positions. At least in CR

The underclasses obviously don't care, but neither do the rich, they have enough connections to make any criminal record irrelevant (unless explicitly required by law), so I think it's more like a Bell curve. But anyway, I get where you're going with this, but assessing subjective utility or harm is basically impossible in practice and resorting to assumptions that sort of work when applied to big numbers would lead to a lot of injustice in individual cases.

It's relatively easy with monetary punishment, because numbers are numbers, but hard time....there are so many factors at play, the parties could easily hide or fake them and the judges are not mind readers.
 
Never been asked for my criminal record during job interviews or going into employment. Maybe they do it behind my back? Or maybe the welfare state doesn't let them discriminate, who knows.
 
I know that they sometimes require criminal records from part-time student job (like, literally being an assembly worker in a factory - Modern Times style) and I think being a barman at ****ty music festivals requires one of you. But yeah, I have never been asked either. But maybe that is because every job I get I get through some kind of protectionism and nepotism.
 
Beny: I don't think an employer can (legally) see your criminal record. That would be kind of orwellesque, but then again Orwell was British.

In my experience, employers want to see a copy if the job entails handling cash or inventory unsupervised. Which can be anything from a cashier or outdoor manual labor to CFO.
 
Apparently, there is a rallying cry for reinstitution of the death penalty in Turkey; to punish the coupers and all those evil people who must pay the high price etc.

The dearest leader, among other similarly strange things, exlaimed: "But of course it will take a parliamentary decision for that to take action in the form of a constitutional measure so leaders will have to get together and discuss it and if they accept to discuss it then I as president will approve any decision that comes out of the parliament." The other great one is: "Why should I keep them and feed them in prisons, for years to come?"

And this, children, is literally how not to democracy. The first quote is nothing but a farce of democracy. Criminalising something ex post by adopting retroactive statute in a country that once pretended it wants to be a part of the EU is quite a joke. And no matter how democratically you adopt said statute, you are still just a failed nation. Even German justification of prosecution of former-DDR border guards - while being unfair at best - was employing some extensive mental / legal gymnastics to make it look okayish. Turkey is not even trying. What a bummer.
 
Do you think that perhaps the derisive attitude Turkey faced when it was proposed that they be allowed into the EU made Erdogan just say, "**** it, I'll just do things my own way then."

It occurred to me that many people respond to this saying 'now they'll never be allowed in!' when people were saying that the first time.
 
Double-post -
Austupaio 说:
"**** it, I'll just do things my own way then."



Interesting article from the University of Cambridge regarding the growing use of body cameras in both U.S. and U.K. police agencies.

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/use-of-body-worn-cameras-sees-complaints-against-police-virtually-vanish-study-finds
 
Some tales of socialist justice. I took the cases that are absurd and kinda funny so not those that were just sad (16 years old girl getting 12 years in prison for membership in girl scours). Also, this is everyday¨s justice, not political trials. Taken from a book that an emigrated judge wrote in the US after he fled in the 60s.

Soldiers of a remote military unit south-west of Prague had came with an uncommon way of fighting boredorm - they created an organisation based on organisation of ancient Roman legions; with order and ranks - whose historical accuracy could be succesfully doubted. I did not know their commander - Centurius Maximus, in civil life a pharmacist - but I did know Mr. P from Pilsen. During nights, these soldiers were riding horses borrowed from local farmers, were carrying torches and that was all. Now I ask the reader to think for a while and legally define a crime of nighttime cavalry. The correct answer - Romans of Karlštejn were found guilty of "supporting fascism and similar movements" according to §83 of the penal code. P. got five years in prison and the Centurius Maximus twelve.

In the Pilsen region, the record of the biggest theft (stealing of a socialist property - basically, if you stole something that belonged to the state, you were not charged with theft, but with theft of a socialist property; which had stricter punishments and some differences to "common" theft) belongs to certain Mr. Konvalinka. This man worked in a state's company Benzina and was handling repairs and maintenance of petrol stations in the region. he seized the opportunity and made an agreement with several people in charge of petrol stations and rigged the mechanism that was calculating extracted fuel so that the customer had to pay more than he really needed to and they would split the profit (Mr. Konvalinka and the director of the fuel station). After some time, the fraud was exposed and Mr. Konvalinka was charged and sentenced with stealing a socialist property and connected obligation to compensate losses to the state. Lets repeat this socialist algebra - perpetrator A steals from citizen B and is sentenced to pay damages to state C. Only state C is left with an entitlement to aks for damages. B receives nothing because C is already compensated.

With this in mind, I have no choice but to explain another speciality of Czechoslovak socialist justice. Lets say that it is winter and roads are icy. You are driving your own car, you get into a slide and you cause an accident. If the damaged car is in personal possession, an insurance company will handle the case. If you, however, hit a socialist car, you are eagerly awaited by § 246 of the penal code in following wording: "whoever causes not tiny damage to a national (ie. socialist) property or a property of people's cooperative (a sort of collective entity that should be about a lot of people willingly collaborating together to be more effective), will be arrested for up to one year. Two drivers - one employed by ONV and the other on OV KSČ (which means that the cars were of the state) had an accident and were found guilty according to § 246 with the court noting that: "it should have been known to them that both vehicles were part of national property."

§ 246 had also quite funny element. In new Czechoslovak socialist penal code, a previous (ie. Austrian) criminalistaion of sodomy (in this case it means sex with animals) was dropped. But there is an exception to the rule - in 1958 the police was investigating a young man who was turned in for having sex with cows. The guy was sane, was a bright student but he loved cows. The judge faced a dilemma - sodomy is not a crime, but one of the greatest tasks of the court system is to protect socialist property - and thus also socialist cows. The accused did admit having sex with both collective cows and private cows. The man was sentenced according to § 246 for sodomy with socialist cows; owners of private cows were only reminded that they can seek damages in a civil procedure.

A worker exlaimed to the court: "they beat me, and beat me and told me that they will not stop until I confess. I had no choice but to sign. Really, I would have signed that I killed my own mother in that moment." The judge replied: "well, well. In all those years I have never heard anything like that. You are lucky that I am a gentle and calm person. I wont treat you as you deserve after you blemished our people's police. If it really is true, tell me their names." And since the secret police is secret and does not wear nameplates, the accused did not know a single name. This was sufficient as a proof of wrongness of his accusations.
 
Local judge rules supporting incredibly loose standards for shooting dogs during searches, including searches of non-violent persons with no criminal histories, or even criminal suspicion.

https://reason.com/blog/2016/12/22/sixth-circuit-court-police-can-shoot-dog

As an animal lover and someone who would like to be respected rather than loathed as any sort of authority figure, this decision and the toadying of the police department involved praising the judge defending them infuriates me.

The issue of police and other law enforcement agencies, such as the ATF, unnecessarily slaughtering pets, mainly dogs but cats too, in even the most mundane situations has been brought up a lot these last two or three years, with mixed results. I can only hope that this asinine decision is overruled in a higher circuit and soon.

Pepper spray is more humane to the animal, more constitutionally justifiable to the victim of the warrant (that may or may not be constitutional in the first place), and finally proven more effective. Even in the case that resulted in this decision they had to track down the dog they shot first through multiple rooms and shoot it several times.

Shooting animals is not an effective means of neutralization, this is why any ranger, wilderness guide, hunter or hiker who knows his **** will tell you to carry bear spray before you carry a gun.

In short, I think it's ****ing retarded, it pisses me off and I wonder if anyone sees the sense in this. If only Urgrevling was here! :razz:
 
I want to make a snarky, funny comment about muh police gun rights but I'm too exasperated, angry and disappointed to think of anything amusing enough to not be crass. And some folks act offended and confused when others say they don't like/trust the police.
 
Exactly why I was furious enough to rant about it here. I just said to my wife that it's **** like this that means people hate and distrust anyone who wears any sort of badge.

I'm not sure who I'm more disappointed with, the judge for this horrible ruling or the local agency for kissing his ass over it.
 
Austupaio 说:
and someone who would like to be respected rather than loathed as any sort of authority figure
Become a teacher for down syndrome kids then.

Also, who the **** shoots a cat because they consider it a threat? I'm not sure that anyone who feels threatened by a cat should carry weapons and badges or even live outside a psychiatry ward.
 
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