You know what I never understood? The concept of "making an example" out of someone in the justice system. How can we give one individual a sentence that is exceptionally harsher than the norm and not have that sentence be considered unusual as in cruel and unusual? The whole point is that their sentence is unusual for the circumstance. How is this in any way a just and equal, and legal for that matter, application of the law?
It really depends on what you're "making an example of".
The words "making an example" are just a way of describing deterrence, which is a core function of the criminal justice system.
Deterrence is intrinsically neither good nor bad. It depends on what you're deterring. If it's arson, deterrence makes a lot of sense: it's fun and easy to set fires, and very easy to underestimate or disregard the harm those fires will do to others. If it's political tagging, deterrence makes much less sense. The justice system needs to extract a penalty for damaging people's property, but politically-motivated tags are a low-intensity problem.
Beyond deterrence, criminal penalties must account for the inefficiency of policing and the rewards to crime. A 1:1 damage/penalty system is intrinsically ineffective; it makes crime a rational decision.
It's easy to agree here that 3 years of probation for tagging in a deliberate attempt to get arrested to make a political point is abusive.
I don't know that the justice system as a whole has to account to anyone for handing out cruel and unusual punishments. I imagine in this case, they knew at the time of sentencing that the defendant was practically live tweeting his experience, and that a light sentence would be more likely to encourage others to disobey in a similar manner. It's not a justification, but 'making an example' is probably intended to serve as a deterrent to copycat criminals.
Sure, if you get caught, you compensate / reimburse the victim. If you don't get caught... well, sometimes you get lucky. But that's no different than how we do things now. Not everybody gets caught. It sucks, but it's reality.
But the idea that we're going to "extra punish" a handful of people here and there to "make an example out of them" is totally incompatible with any reasonable notion of "justice" .
I can't help but remember Aaron Schwartz when someone mentions "making an example". What can I do to try to discourage this practice of "making an example"?
This guy purposely wasted the time of the legal system, i.e., he wasted or tax dollars to prove a point. I think it's obvious why a judge would not be overly happy about it. I'm not surprised he got more than the usual punishment.
Oh come on, you think the taxpayer dollars are the biggest issue on the judge's mind? So he throws 10x the taxpayer dollars at the problem by putting him on probation for 3 years?
Have you ever met real people? Ever seen someone make decisions because they're pissed off? The guy basically took a shit all over the (immoral) way the justice system works, that's why he was singled out and made an example of.
Not sure how you got the inside scoop into the judge's thought process, but yeah, I assume he was pissed for exactly the reasons I listed; his time wasted, police time wasted, money wasted. Who knows, maybe the judge is just a big jerk who is happy with the unfairness in the justice system, but you don't know that any more than I do and there are plenty of good judges and cops out there.
You also don't know how this guy interacted with the police and the judge. He may have been a jerk himself. No one knows, but I do know that the legal system is not run by robots, and if your intention is to piss people off who have the power to screw with your life then, well... prepare to be screwed.
This is in no way a commentary on the substance of the article, nor am I defending the judge's decision. There's plenty of unfairness in the legal system (I've been on the receiving end a couple of times in my youth) and it's not right.
The point was that putting someone on probation is expensive. If the judge was upset about tax money being wasted, and their response to that was to waste more tax money, then the judge
...Again, for the I don't know how manyith time... it's not about what should be, it's about what is. If you want to live your life in la-la-land then don't be shocked when things don't go how you thought they would. Did anyone actually read what I said without adding in their own assumptions about why I would post it?
Let me put it this way; I'm your boss, and you go out of your way to screw with me and make me look bad. Would you not expect retaliation? Would you expect the same treatment as every other employee? If you do then you're naive. Judges and cops aren't robots, they're human. You piss them off and, as most people would, they are going to cause you as much pain as possible.
Like it or not, these people have a lot of power, for better or worse. If you want to make a stand and expose those who may be abusing their power then great, but don't expect that they will sit idly by while you do it.
All criminals "waste the time" of the criminal justice system, if that's your word for what I would call "justifying its existence".
Only a racist or classist asshole would single out one client of the justice system and accuse them of "wasting its time" because they seem like a different sort of person from the one the system is targeted towards.
Yes, but it's not the same as someone committing a crime solely to be processed and get a look at the inside of a cell.
If I'm a "racist or classist asshole" then you're a naive moron. You seem to have read too far in between the lines; I never once said that I agreed with the decision, only that it doesn't surprise me one bit.
Well, I disagree that it's not the same (from the point of view of how the imaginary perfect justice system in my head would operate) but I agree with you that the judge may have thought it wasn't the same.
I too worded my comment carefully: if the first sentence of your earlier post was to empathise with the mindset of the judge, then it seems to me that it is the judge whom I am calling a racist or classist asshole. I await my summons for contempt of court.
Then we disagree, that's fine, but I wasn't empathizing with the judge. I was pointing out that this guy should have expected to get smacked around for pulling a stunt like this.
Again, not saying that it was right or wrong, but the outcome should have been obvious.
I think you misunderstood my point. I was not defending the decision. What I'm saying is, if you commit a crime with the sole intent of being taken in to write an article which portrays these people in a bad light (right or wrong), then expect for them to be harsh on you. If you're surprised that they would punish you harshly then you're just naive.
Isn't the entire purpose of the justice department to give out fair unbiased rulings?
The cops being pricks is understandable, if a waste of everyones time, the judge being a prick is not. It is his only job to consider only the crime and the motives, and while his motives did warrant a stiffer penalty, they probably did not warrant that harsh of one.
I'm not sure what world you live in, but it certainly isn't this one. Judges are human. You go into court and decide to be a jerk to the judge? Guess what; you're walking away with a bigger penalty then you would have if you were nice. The judge did not go outside his authority as far as I am aware. He has discretion to go either way, and there are very good reasons for it(which is one reason that I hate mandatory minimums, but that's neither here nor there).
I'd be careful about assuming bias here. If a judge thinks that you deserve a larger penalty as a deterrent then that's not bias, he's doing his job. If he hands you the maximum penalty because you're his noisy neighbor then that's bias. I can't tell you what his motivations were.