[amelius]

> Manchester was sentenced to a staggering 45 years in prison for robbing the two McDonald’s, primarily due to kidnapping charges for each employee.

If judges interpret the law so strictly, why don't we replace them by computers?

[dsr_]

Kidnapping is defined for Federal purposes in https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1201

"Whoever unlawfully seizes, confines, inveigles, decoys, kidnaps, abducts, or carries away and holds for ransom or reward or otherwise any person..."

Locking people in a walk-in is pretty clearly "confines".

For North Carolina's purpose: https://www.ncleg.net/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySec...

"Any person who shall unlawfully confine, restrain, or remove from one place to another, any other person 16 years of age or over without the consent of such person, ... shall be guilty of kidnapping if such confinement, restraint or removal is for the purpose of:

(1) Holding such other person for a ransom or as a hostage or using such other person as a shield; or

(2) Facilitating the commission of any felony or facilitating flight of any person following the commission of a felony; or"

So, confinement which facilitates the commision of a felony and fleeing thereafter.

Second: because we don't have human-equivalent AI, and if we did, why would you think that they would do better?

[tacocataco]

If only the police had to follow the laws they enforce.

[amelius]

I don't think it is necessary to reiterate the law here. And you missed the important part, where the sum-operator is invoked for the sentences corresponding to every individual offense.

[lupusreal]

He's a repeat offender numerous times over, and later became an arsonist as well. Clearly the judge read the situation correctly.

Any why shouldn't each offense be punished? Each victim deserves justice, not just the first few.

[amelius]

Well, one reason could be that being kidnapped alone is much more scary than being kidnapped with all your colleagues.

Anyway, don't you think that 45 years of prison for locking up people for about an hour (when the police arrived) is ridiculous compared to e.g. the sentence for murder which is far less. It is literally ridiculous.

[lupusreal]

45 years in prison for doing it multiple times to numerous people, and for threatening people with a gun, armed robbery, etc. If you read deeper into the article you'll find that his politeness act was only superficial (saying please and thank you while pointing a gun at somebody fails to impress me, tbqh); he pistol whipped somebody, not to mention ending his marriage with domestic violence before starting his crime spree. This guy committed a huge number of crimes and so his sentence was fitting.

And yes, the average sentence for murder is ridiculously short; most if not all murderers should never be released. The only exceptions I can think of require pretty extreme mitigating circumstances, like Gary Plauche. On the other hand, a repeat offender murderer will almost certainly never get out. The justice system is rightly much harsher on people who do whatever they did more than once.

[kelnos]

> Each victim deserves justice, not just the first few.

Justice should be about punishments proportionate to the crime, getting dangerous/likely-to-reoffend people out of society for a time, and hopefully eventually rehabilitation.

Justice shouldn't be about the victims. Victims should have no say or sway over a criminal's sentence. Certainly someone who has hurt more people likely deserves a worse sentence (if for no other reason than they're probably more likely to continue to hurt people otherwise), but that's not strictly "justice for the victims".

Of course, that's the (my) ideal... our actual justice systems rarely live up to it.

[Kerb_]

... you don't think kidnapping multiple people should let you get charged with multiple kidnappings? Or are you hoping for a kidnap 4 get the 5th charge waived type of deal?

It's not like they're charging them with resisting arrest for every cop he ran from or something.

[sokoloff]

It seems to me that the judge acted appropriately here. The employees were subjected to all necessary elements of the kidnapping statute.

[spacecadet]

You miss the point. We use intelligent humans because they are selected through a process of biased manipulation and uphold the powers of those whom selected it. A democratically controlled computer system that black and white follows the rules- would likely make this approach to control, less wieldy.