I have taken, as of late, an acute interest in Oregon criminal law. One of the interesting things about Oregon is that it has sentencing guidelines which are mandatory. While under federal law, there are sentencing guidelines, those are merely guidelines; in Oregon they are mandatory. Another interesting thing is that they only apply to felonies; misdemeanors are still left basically to the judges discretion, limited only by the maximum time possible for a misdemeanor, 365 days in jail.
There are some serious issues with the sentencing guidelines. For starters, under the guidelines, a crime category 1 or 2, is punishable by a maximum of 90 days. This is a felony which is punished much less harshly than a misdemeanor. Furthermore, there is a fraud being perpetrated on the people of Oregon. There is an administrative rule which states that all sentences under the guidelines are divided by 3. That means when the sentencing guidelines say 90 days, it really means 30 days. Why not change the guidelines to reflect this change? This allows the state to maintain its catch and release program while still looking like its tough on crime. Politics at its finest.
The reason the times are shorter for some felonies then they are for misdemeanors is that there is mandatory probation, time where the person is supervised, and if they screw up again, the maximum sentence can be imposed, which is normally up to about 5 years. At least that is how it used to work. Oregon passed House Bill 3805 this year, which makes the maximum possible jail sentence for a probation violation 60 days. That means, if you commit a crime category 1 or 2 felony the maximum jail sentences you can do, even if you screw up probation, is 70 days. Max. Compare that to Failure to Carry and Present a License (having a drivers license but not having it on your person) which is a C misdemeanor, the lowest form of misdemeanors. That crime is punishable by up to 90 days in jail. The insanity is apparent.
This post isn't about whether people should be spending more or less time in jail. What drives me crazy is when politicians play games like this; they pretend they are doing one thing, but actually do the other. If you are going to change the law, change it. Don't lie to the people, pretending to do one thing, while actually doing another.
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3 comments:
The whole legal game is a joke. The judge, the prosecutor, the public defender, and the policeman who arrests the suspect all work for the same entity: the State. Throw in a positivist, statute-worshipping jury, and can you really expect justice to be done?
I'm sure that you've already seen what a joke so many legal cases are, Ryan 3L. How the future of a man's existence hangs not upon the nature of the act or the actor's culpability, but on some obscure passage in some ruling by some egotistical, stuffed-shirt men in fancy black robes. A man's destiny depends not upon his having committed an actual crime of violence or fraud against another person and being soberly proven to have done so. It depends on word games played by lawyers and prosecutors. It depends on sophistry. It depends on showmanship. It depends on the arbitrariness of stare decisis in some finding or holding in some archaic case.
Here is a set of guidelines that would work well in a privately (read, peacefully)-funded legal system: if you have proven yourself to be an obvious, dire threat to the life or limb of other individuals, you are executed. Were you proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have forcibly (not statutorially) raped someone? Well, if you can use lethal force against a rapist, guess what? Execution. The average rapist serves 7 years. That is pure and unadulterated horsemanure. Execute them. Not to enforce God's law. He can take care of that. You execute such people for the same reason you put down a rabid dog: such a monster poses a grave threat to peaceable individuals in society.
If you commit an act that actually violates the property rights of another person, you will remunerate the victim.
You like getting hammered on alcohol, stoned on pot, high on coke, or strung out on heroin? Good for you. Go for it. Do not harm anyone else in the process. If you harm another person, see the above.
Simple logic, and not the arbitrary caprices of powerful men, actually guiding the justice system. A quaint notion in this legally-positivistic age.
Get the State out of the legal system, and things will improve dramatically.
As George Washington said, "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force." Why should judges, prosecutors, policemen be "reasonable" when they have little natural incentive to be so, unlike individuals in free society? They have legitimized (not legitimate) force on their side.
How about restitution or...
restitution?
I don't believe the grubmint has any authority to execute anyone, because we the people do not have the authority to execute anyone, therefore we cannot *delegate* that authority to the grubmint.
And our grubmint is one of *delegated* powers only.
Oh, you said *self defense*? That would be an act of war, since it would be an attempt to kill all of "we the people", so congress would have to take care of that.
Milton F,
I didn't say anything about the gunvermin executing anyone.
As you rightly point out, it is true that if you yourself do not have a right to do something, you may not bestow that right upon a third party. That's why the State itself is a ridiculous, criminal enterprise. You don't have the right to systematically take money from someone else by force or threat of force, therefore, you can't bestow that right on someone else. You can't give what you don't have. For this reason, the State is illegitimate in its very roots and nature. It's the mental illness that says, "Well, I don't have the right to take your money at gunpoint, but mystically and magically, a bunch of us together somehow have that right." Go ahead and apply that concept to rape, and see what you get.
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