Picture of everything wrong with the US justice system

[OliverTwist72]

That's quite the juxtaposition of articles with no back story. People are just going to read it and say OMG THE RICH GET OFF EASY, which I think is what you want. Legally speaking, a class A felony in Alabama carries a minimum 10 year sentence.

It seems he was having trouble finding food/shelter/water which is why he said he was staying at the detox center. "Police said Brown told them he needed money to stay in a downtown detox center, had nowhere to stay and was hungry -- so he walked up the street and robbed the bank." The judge was probably just doing him a favor.

http://www.womensviewsonnews.org/2010/12/one-in-five-homeless-women-turn-to-prostitution/

About one in five said they had avoided bail or committed an imprisonable offence as a means to resolve their housing problems, while 18 percent admitted spending time in accident and emergency departments for the same reason.

It's more common than you think, the mistake Roy Brown made was that what he thought was a petty crime was most certainly not. Faking that you have a weapon to commit a robbery is still armed robbery.

As far as Paul Allen goes: http://matzav.com/ex-mortgage-ceo-sentenced-to-just-40-months-in-prison-for-3b-fraud

"By the time Allen became CEO in 2003, the fraud was already under way...All six received credit on their sentences for cooperating with investigators and testifying at Farkas? trial...

?Mr. Allen?s sentence reflects his ultimate cooperation with this investigation, but also sends the message that unless executives expose and stop fraud when they first learn of it, they will be punished,? said Neil MacBride, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Farkas is to be sentenced next week, and prosecutors have indicated they will seek a significantly longer sentence for Farkas than for his co-conspirators.

So he wasn't really the big fish. The big fish Lee Farkas will most likely get a life imprisonment term. You see this all the time, people ratting on one another to get out of heavier sentences.

 

[Gigano]

Well, the homeless guy did make a threat against a living person, so it's not merely taking the 100$ he was sentenced for.

But yes, overall money does seem to talk to a degree that should certainly be unheard of in the criminal justice system of any modern first world nation. 3½ years for 3 billion dollar fraud is ridiculously low even by the usually much more lenient European standards! Last major white collar criminal we had around here got 8 years for fraud amounting to some 0,2 billion dollars.

 

[Eliam_Dar]

Wow, that is unjust. One of the things I always admired form the US was the judicial system, and the jury system. But that is just unfair. I had to know more about the details of each case, but honestly, a guy who commited a fraud for 3b dollars is probably affecting a company, making people loose their jobs or even worse. A thief that took 100 dollars and later returned it only affected one person for a limited time.

 

[skizoman333]

First, I would just like to say I do not believe what I am about to say... but someone needs to argue the other side.

Rich people are more valuable to society than the poor. Rich people have money, and it is their use of that money which provides economic activity, investment, business and employment.

Because of course we need the rich to buy our trinkets so that we might eat. god bless the rich. and the richer they get, the more trinkets they buy giving us more to eat. and if they stop buying someone elses trinkets well thats too bad

 

[Nerdstar]

That's quite the juxtaposition of articles with no back story. People are just going to read it and say OMG THE RICH GET OFF EASY, which I think is what you want. Legally speaking, a class A felony in Alabama carries a minimum 10 year sentence.

It seems he was having trouble finding food/shelter/water which is why he said he was staying at the detox center. "Police said Brown told them he needed money to stay in a downtown detox center, had nowhere to stay and was hungry -- so he walked up the street and robbed the bank." The judge was probably just doing him a favor.

http://www.womensviewsonnews.org/2010/12/one-in-five-homeless-women-turn-to-prostitution/

About one in five said they had avoided bail or committed an imprisonable offence as a means to resolve their housing problems, while 18 percent admitted spending time in accident and emergency departments for the same reason.

It's more common than you think, the mistake Roy Brown made was that what he thought was a petty crime was most certainly not. Faking that you have a weapon to commit a robbery is still armed robbery.

As far as Paul Allen goes: http://matzav.com/ex-mortgage-ceo-sentenced-to-just-40-months-in-prison-for-3b-fraud

"By the time Allen became CEO in 2003, the fraud was already under way...All six received credit on their sentences for cooperating with investigators and testifying at Farkas? trial...

?Mr. Allen?s sentence reflects his ultimate cooperation with this investigation, but also sends the message that unless executives expose and stop fraud when they first learn of it, they will be punished,? said Neil MacBride, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Farkas is to be sentenced next week, and prosecutors have indicated they will seek a significantly longer sentence for Farkas than for his co-conspirators.

So he wasn't really the big fish. The big fish Lee Farkas will most likely get a life imprisonment term. You see this all the time, people ratting on one another to get out of heavier sentences.

thank you for showing us this, when i first saw the article my first thought was oh great a look at how unfair the justice system is/ the rich get it easy thread followed by the mandatory helping of Internet rage, but then i thought there might be mitigating circumstances so i decided to keep reading and lo and behold i pound your post

 

[matrix guardian]

A certain song comes to mind that captures the same semtiment. Bob Dylan's "The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll"

the song starts at around 1:18

 

[FalloutJack]

Think of it this way. That homeless guy now has a home and consistant food for 15 years.
That buisness guy now has a <6 year time period to get stabbed. (Sure the homeless guy does too, but hes probably just as likely to get stabbed being homeless too)

There's a certain logic to that, though I feel that the rich boy should still get more added to his sentence in this case.

 

[bdcjacko]

I found this photo earlier and googled the cases just to make sure they were real. And they were.

So, really? How can there be that much discrepancy between the two cases?

Kinda funny he gets to use his probably fraud-stricken money to defend him. This is just what he got caught for, who knows what else he wasn't caught doing. Gets a 40 month sentence, which, beside being nothing, will probably be at a country-club jail.

How does nothing get done with such blatant evidence like this?

*looks at ground and shakes head*

You realize these are different states and they have different justice systems and Louisiana's is the most different legal system than any other state? So your argument is moot for the "US justice system" Louisiana's is indeed crazy.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

That is pretty wrong I admit, but I can think of much bigger problems. Like how a system that proclaims everyone has the potential to succeed and that murder is wrong will hammer these points home by abandoning all hope of reform for some criminals by very publicly murdering them.

The death penalty will never be justified. I don't care what the person in question has done, killing them has no point other than simple revenge that undermines everything western society and western justice stand for. An evolved society is responsible for being better than the people it prosecutes so before we even think about anything else capital punishment should be abolished worldwide.

That's my two cents.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Justice is a complex thing. You cant throw out two stories and declare it broken. The ideal of a system that judges each case individually and does not take prejudices into the matter seems guaranteed to generate some odd and controversial results. I dunno maybe you know more then that but this seems like flimsy evidence to start calling for revolution and just stinks of "lost faith in humanity whine whine whine" that gets throw around too much on the internet.

 

[Valkyrie101]

That is pretty wrong I admit, but I can think of much bigger problems. Like how a system that proclaims everyone has the potential to succeed and that murder is wrong will hammer these points home by abandoning all hope of reform for some criminals by very publicly murdering them.

Does life imprisonment not also exclude any chance of reform? And if you honestly think that paedophiles and terrorists and serial killers can change, try inviting one over for coffee sometime.

The death penalty will never be justified. I don't care what the person in question has done, killing them has no point other than simple revenge that undermines everything western society and western justice stand for. An evolved society is responsible for being better than the people it prosecutes so before we even think about anything else capital punishment should be abolished worldwide.

That's my two cents.

Simple revenge, in these cases, is a pretty good motive. If your son or daughter were raped and murdered (example) you would agree. You've also failed to highlight a clear distinction between justice and revenge, since we're supposed to see one.

And society is automatically better, because it isn't the belligerent party. The criminal goes out and commits a horrific offence, society then reacts with what at most amounts to an infliction of equal harm. Being in that position, i.e. not having done anything wrong to begin with, means an automatic moral high ground unless the response is vastly disproportionate. Killing a killer clearly isn't.

 

[TheLaofKazi]

First, I would just like to say I do not believe what I am about to say... but someone needs to argue the other side.

Rich people are more valuable to society than the poor. Rich people have money, and it is their use of that money which provides economic activity, investment, business and employment. The homeless man provides nothing to society, and will consume the same resources he did on the street as he will in the prison, and will create nothing just as he did before being jailed.

Also, white collar crimes are non-violent, while the man committed violent, armed theft (the requirements of robbery, dumbed down, of course). There is a greater cost to society in robbery, even of a small amount, than large amounts of money stolen in a non-violent way. Robbery can lead to much worse crimes, including murder, while white collar crime is not similarly likely to do so.

Finally, there are greater safeguards against white collar crime already in place than safeguards against robbery. White collar criminals are already deterred by economic regulations, investor protections and increased transparency in the economic system. The victims of white collar crime are often guilty of allowing the criminals to get away with their theft because the victims either believe the dishonesty will make them rich, or because they are careless with their money. There are no similar safeguards against robbery, especially with police enforcement dwindling due to budget cuts.

Future robbers are not easily deterred from committing their crimes. For this reason, harsh penalties must be common. White collar criminals have much more to lose just by virtue of having been convicted, thus they are more easily deterred by smaller sentences. Since the deterrence will not increase much due to the already high cost of short incarcerations, the cost to society of imprisoning the white collar criminal is unjustifiable.

OK, time to go wash myself off... but at the same time, you know that some of the above is correct, at least in the eyes of the US judiciary.

That company's fraud and theft has probably screwed over tons of Americans and left many of them homeless on the streets. You can't argue that stealing $100 and a fake armed robbery is more harmful then that. I would argue that corporate greed and dishonesty causes far more damage to society then individual criminals because their actions have much more widespread effects, and as a result, often cause those individual crimes.

I respect you for playing the devil's advocate though.

 

[OliverTwist72]

thank you for showing us this, when i first saw the article my first thought was oh great a look at how unfair the justice system is/ the rich get it easy thread followed by the mandatory helping of Internet rage, but then i thought there might be mitigating circumstances so i decided to keep reading and lo and behold i pound your post

Yea unfortunately I doubt many people are going to read my post and still react this way. Oh well c'est la...internet

 

[Treblaine]

Somehow I feel we are missing something here. Did the stock broker guy rat on his friends for a better deal? Did the homeless guy have prior convictions?

One has to consider that on the books Armed Robbery fundamentally has a harsher sentence than Ponzi schemes regardless of the size of money deprived. Armed robbery is based on the threat of lethal force that does not distinguished whether the capability is real or not and many have minimum sentencing conditions.

Do you know how Ponzi schemes work? They work by taking new investor's money to pay the dividends of earlier investors, it is also called a pyramid scheme. It basically works that for every "generation" of investor you need to get about 2x as many investors the next generation. And you do that by pointing them to previous investors who hinestly say "Yeah I invested $100k in Mr Smith and I got a $200'000 dividend!"

The major rule here is:

"You cannot use money from new investors to pay off old investors"

The disaster of Ponzi schemes is when they get so wide at the base and you can't get any more investors the ONLY people who are screwed are those on the bottom widest part of the pyramid. It's actually pretty good to be the first people in a Ponzi scheme, just don't arrive too late. ANY BUSINESS can turn into a Ponzi scheme if the guy running the business uses new investments to pay off old investors rather than investing in the business like, say, because the business is utterly failing but you can't admit that to your investors.

I know "$3 billion fraud" sounds like massive-daylight-robbery, but a better description would be hideously-bad-business-management.

But the fundamental point is the guy in the middle goes not run away with the $3 billion, MOST OF THAT GOES TO INVESTORS! The guy in the middle is left utterly bankrupt, they probably couldn't get a credit card for the rest of their life. 40 months is a reasonable sentence if they didn't embezzle any money from the business, though they did screw over a lot of investors though ALL INVESTORS know they are taking risks with their money. The crime here is the defendant lied.

I've also heard of this a lot with homeless people who see themselves as better off in jail than on the streets, at least in prison they get three square meals and a bed to sleep in. It's not that they necessarily want to go to prison, they just know it would be in many ways be an improvement.

This is the product of politicians who get so alarmed by an epidemic of armed robbery they are under a lot of pressure to enact laws that put these "gangbangers" away for a long time. Mr Brown had to have known that when he robbed a bank of all places then turned himself in to the police.

EDIT: turns out Mr Allen wasn't even the mastermind, the fraud started before he even took position and he has co-operated with the investigation helping the conviction of others. 3 and a half years is a long time for merely failing to stop a crime, a crime which has no violent element.

 

[Sizzle Montyjing]

I can't even believe people are trying to defend this.
Someone STOLE (In my eyes same thing, or worse) 3 billion dollars and another guy steals $100.
The latter gets nearly 5 times up to what the other guy got, and he did it out of neccesity.

I feel sick.

 

[Treblaine]

thank you for showing us this, when i first saw the article my first thought was oh great a look at how unfair the justice system is/ the rich get it easy thread followed by the mandatory helping of Internet rage, but then i thought there might be mitigating circumstances so i decided to keep reading and lo and behold i pound your post

You could edit your original post by adding an Addendum linking to Krychek08's comment

Could save a lot of people wondering...

 

[LuckyClover95]

This is terrible, I hate the injustice

 

[PureChaos]

Think of it this way. That homeless guy now has a home and consistant food for 15 years.

Great. You ever been in prison?

apparently some prisoners have passed up opportunities to escape because they have such an easy life in prison, but that may be UK prisons rather than US prisons. not sure