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November 26, 2006
Lots of Sunday sentencing headlines
Google news this morning brings up a number of interesting sentencing items:
- From the Houston Chronicle here, "Our lock 'em up justice is a loser"
- From the Kansas City Star here, "Tough on crime? It's hard on coffers"
- From the Miami Herald here, "Tracking down sexual predators just in time"
- From the Sacramento Bee here, "Editorial: Time to consider sentencing reform in prisons"
- From the Toronto Sun here, "Porn star may face stiff sentencing from tough Nevada judge if he's deported back to the U.S. on sex-related offences"
- From the Yakima Herald-Republic here, "Are longer sentences the answer to car theft rates?"
November 26, 2006 at 10:10 AM | Permalink
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Comments
My godness, how do you read so much by 10:00 AM on Sunday morning?
Posted by: Steve | Nov 26, 2006 10:21:09 AM
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/4344708.html
Please see this article for more background on what Judge McSpadden thinks about this problem, and the opposition's (idiotic, disingenuous) point of view.
Harris County prosecutors move for no bond whenever they legally can, and every Harris County judge (who is a former HC prosecutor) defers to them. If they ask for no bond, your client will stay in pretrial detention, further crowding the Harris Co. Jail, pending trial. All habitual offenders looking at 25 to life will be no bonded as a matter of course. Anyone with a prior sex offense will be no bonded as a matter of course (can't put a sex offender back on the streets, even if she's only accused of possession of a little marijuana). In my personal opinion, this is due to the judges being elected in Texas. Electing judges means judges will be held accountable (by their opponents in the next election) for things for which they are not responsible, like what a defendant who appeared before them may do.
Posted by: Bruce | Nov 26, 2006 10:50:24 AM
Who else quit reading and had to walk off the rage and disgust after reading this from "Tracking down sexual predators just in time"?
With just four investigators, the CyberCrime Unit can't possibly probe the thousands of child pornographers on the Internet operating in Florida, but it tries to go after the worst of the worst.
BABIES AND TODDLERS
Horkan has an intense dislike for people who use babies and toddlers in pornography.
''Child pornography is not largely 16-year-olds. It is largely little girls or boys, toddlers. Tiny babies are being molested. They are actually being penetrated,'' she said.
``Most people would vomit to see the stuff they have.''
Yes, they may literally vomit, but who else, after cooling off some, returned to the story and read this a further eight paragraphs down the page?
About 90 percent of the sexual solicitations happened to children 13 and older.
So is Alan Naj really the worst of the worst? The implication is strong. The fallacy of the part equals the whole is very effective and carries a powerful emotional punch right in the gut. But a second, more careful reading finds something else disturbing: Reporters embedded with the police are often misleading, as they were when they surrendered to the government while embedded with the troops. How many readers, in their rage and disgust, will stop to realize toddlers are not on the Internet at all and cannot be solicited? Conflating the two crimes, though both are serious public safety concerns, is not a sound basis for rational law. Such is the stuff of "moral panics" and irrational law, and irrational law is never best for public safety.
Posted by: George | Nov 26, 2006 3:24:15 PM
