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Fun Fact O’ the Day
Friday, September 18th, 2009So a man can’t be punished for a crime once a jury acquits him of it, right?
Actually, wrong.
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This also sends the message to proseccuters to pile on unprovable charges. Covict him of marijuana possession and the bogus distribution and conspiracy charges will get the urban defendent put away for decades.
Welcome to Bizzaro World justice.
This only makes sense in Lawyer world. The judges that decided this I would say are more than likely lawyers and members of the bar. Anyone else would have common sense and say you can’t sentence for charges not proven. Let alone commit reversible error for not doing so. So can you get the death penalty if found not guilty of capital murder but guilty of a lesser charge?
#2
Those are dangerous questions citizen. You’d best leave your mind at ease and let the professionals deal with it.
J sub D makes a great point, which is why I think this decision is incorrect. If the jury finds the person not guilty of a charge, then it should not be considered in calculating a sentence because, otherwise, prosecutors could pile on bogus charges merely to increase the sentence. The problem is that the judges live in some fantasy world where prosecutors are interested only in truth and justice.
I knew they would find a way around jury nullification.
Ever since the advent of RICO and the various “fraud” “crimes” that the federal government has been creating, we have seen de facto the situation in which civil standards are being applied to criminal courts. The civil standard is preponderance of the evidence, while criminal standards are supposed to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Unfortunately, the so-called derivative crimes of the feds have, in reality, in which people can be convicted of ancillary crimes without being convicted of any underlying offenses. This obviously tilts the playing field toward the prosecution, and it results in unjust convictions.
That the SCOTUS refused to hear this tells me that the justices are perfectly happy with having a legal system in which people go to prison whether or not they have been convicted of anything.
What do you mean “find a way around jury nullication”, Jim? Seems to me the judge nullified the jury just fine.
This makes me want to find out what happened to a guy we (a jury I was on) found guilty for transporting money across state lines ($750K), but not guilty of drug conspiracy/trafficking charges. I hated to do even the money part, but there was no way I could convince the other 11 that all this was BS anyway. I and a couple others were able to get them to come around on the drug charges, though. He didn’t have any drugs – just the money – but the prosecutors (federal) were trying to say that he knew this was drug money and therefore he was also guilty of the consipiracy/trafficking crimes, too. So infuriating.
I wonder if he got sentenced on the money only, or all of it. It just makes me sick. I mean, what’s the point? Are we just trying to find reasons to jail everyone in America for something?
Does anyone really expect anything different?
The system is designed to produce convictions.
To the judges, who will soon replace juries entirely, this is a feature not a bug. Just a way to get around those bleeding heart jurors who refuse to convict on all charges. I mean if the police say he did it that’s good enough for the judge who are these untrained jurors to say otherwise?
/sarcasm
Why bother with a trial at all? (Time-consuming, expensive (suits have to be dry-cleaned), filing motions, “proving” the case against the defendant, etc., etc., etc.)
Lynch mobs are so much more efficient, and cost-effective (all it takes is a rope, a tree, and someone who can tie a noose…)
(Not to mention the entertainment factor for the spectators…)
To be fair, a finding of not guilty is not an affirmative declaration of innocence. That said, being punished for something the prosecution couldn’t prove you did seems to be a violation of due process.
There is a law against transporting money across state lines? What is the max that I can take with me? What if my bank is in Delaware and I use an ATM in North Carolina, am I breaking some law?
I can understand states not wanting “prohibited” or regulated items such as guns, drugs, alcohol, and tobacco because then one state loses out on the tax revenue of not having sold the goods in that state, but cash? Really?
sounds like the judge was punishing the accused for not taking a plea and wasting the courts time and the state’s monty going to trial. If the guy, innocent or guilty, would have just taken “the” plea, this wouldn’t have happened. His bad.
(sarcasm meter=red)
So long as people mistkaenly believe that the courts have authority at this level, travesties will happen. The judges believe themselves to be gods because of how the people believe.
Blackstone is nop longer taught probably because of this:
The judges ARE NOT in charge. The judge in that case should be removed from office by the people. We are in charge, not them. Stand up, draw a line, and grow a pair.
Ignorance is rampant because most people have been educated in the public system and can’t get out of their box.
Tiocfaidh ar la!
I think The System will not like the consequences of giving us no hope. “Those who make peaceful resolution impossible make violent resolution inevitable.”
If you’re going to go to jail, no matter what the evidence or jury says, then there’s really no reason to not shoot the cops who have come to arrest you.
#2–exactly. Thomas Sowell wrote once that judges have too much time on their hands and are too intelligent. A moderately smart person would say “well no shit, you cant be punished for something you were acquitted for” or “duh, taking property and giving it to a private developer is not a public use” or “idiot, the right to a jury trial in all criminal cases means you have a right to a jury trial in all criminal cases.” But SCOTUS has disagreed with all of these sentiments, because they have to agonize and play complicated word games and write convoluted opinions, rather than using common sense.
#7–”Are we just trying to find reasons to jail everyone in America for something?”
Now you’re catching on, dude.
J sub D,
I wish I could give you several thumbs up on that comment.
If only we could get the public at large to care or even comprehend what hell is going on. Maybe Kanye West needs to go interrupt SCOTUS when they are deliberating.
*vomits*
Tim Lynch @ Cato posted about this a few years ago.
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2006/11/03/winning-but-losing/
[...] (via The Agitator) [...]
@#6:
Add conspiracy to that list as well. That’s a Fed fave. I once heard of a 19 girl getting sentenced to 20 years for “conspiracy to manufacture meth” because she lived with the cook. She didn’t cook, but refused to rollover so they charged her with conspiracy. 19 years old and her life’s essentially over before it started.
re: #8 (drug trafficking case) — This is just one of the many reasons I do everything I can to get DQ’d from jury selection. I don’t want BS like this weighing heavily on my mind after (or even during for that matter) a case. Is that selfish and immature? Yes, yes it is–but what else is someone who has no faith in the system to do? Fuck my “civic duty”.
#13 pam,
You are exactly right. My wife got a 14 year sentence in TX for aggravated robbery. Her co-defendant got 7. (He committed the aggravated act.) The difference: she exercised her right to a trial, he rolled over.
I’m not sure I’d chalk it up to absence of common sense. I assume, for instance, that judges regularly consider all manner of extralegal factors when determining sentencing. So if they’re free to give you a short sentence because you seem like a decent person who just fucked up once, it’s not completely unreasonable that they might also be free to give you a longer sentence because you seem like a criminal who just narrowly evaded conviction for a host of other crimes. I don’t think I’d agree with that decision in most cases, but I do think that when you’re dealing with a decision which already occurs far outside of the recognizable legal framework, it’s not particularly meaningful to say “but the jury acquitted!” I mean, the jury didn’t render a verdict at all on the question of whether you’re affable or contrite or an important member of the community or speak proper english or dress professionally or have 3 kids you need to take care of or swear it won’t happen again, but it’s conceivable that the judge would be influenced by any or all of those when determining the sentence.
@Matt D:
Sure, judges can consider a lot of things, which justifies giving them a range for each type of conviction. But in the aforementioned case, the judge went well beyond the typical range for powder cocaine convictions and into the range of crack cocaine (which is ridiculously several times higher) solely due to facts not found by a jury – on a fact that the jury not only didn’t find, but acquitted the defendant on.
This is a direct contradiction to a relatively recent Supreme Court decision which stated that federal mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines are voluntary, on the basis that they obligated the judge to consider facts not found by a jury. The sentencing guidelines violated the defendant’s Constitutional right to a jury trial, which these cases seem to do as well.
Matt D–I agree with your point that a judge should be free to sentence within a specified range, and use discretion based on the factors you mentioned. But it’s a completely different ball game when someone is sentenced for a crime for which they were never convicted.
Matt D–I agree with your point that a judge should be free to sentence within a specified range, and use discretion based on the factors you mentioned. But it’s a completely different ball game when someone is sentenced for a crime for which they were never convicted.
I’m not sure it’s so different. A judge may give you a longer sentence because they find you personally offensive. You were never convicted of that, but there it is.
Anyway, my point isn’t to defend the practice, but to note that the fact of an acquittal isn’t necessarily meaningful when you’re talking about a decision that’s already left to personal discretion rather than legal guidelines.
This is a direct contradiction to a relatively recent Supreme Court decision which stated that federal mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines are voluntary, on the basis that they obligated the judge to consider facts not found by a jury. The sentencing guidelines violated the defendant’s Constitutional right to a jury trial, which these cases seem to do as well.
I’m honestly not sure what to make of that decision. That the guidelines are voluntary would seem to indicate that judges are still free to follow them, after all. IOW, they still have discretion re. sentencing and can still hand out rather absurd sentences if they want–they just aren’t any longer required to do so.
It needs to be said over and over until it becomes conventional wisdom… Ours is not a justice system. It’s just a legal system.
More reading: http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/acquitting_time/
I have not followed up on the case at the end of the article yet. Should be interesting to see where the 6th came down.
You can be tried for the same crime in state and federal courts and double jeopardy does not apply. You can also be tried for the same crime in criminal and civil courts because of the difference of burdon of proof. (Hence, OJ being acquited in criminal court and ‘convicted’ in civil court).
#12
Yeah, I can’t remember exactly what the law was – it’s been a couple years. But what I can’t forget is the look of shock and disappointment on the prosecutors’ faces when we found him not guilty of all but the one charge. I relish that memory.
#22
I actually don’t try to avoid jury duty because I like to think of myself as one of the few reasonable voices unwilling to be spoonfed the prosecution’s theories and charges. At the beginning of deliberation, there were only two or three of us who thought the drug charge was BS, and we brought everyone else around in just a couple hours. I know it’s a small victory and probably meaningless in the big picture, but it felt good.
#30 is right. I have no problem with separating civil and criminal courts. I do have a big problem with double jeopardy not applying at all levels. I think it is contrary to what the framers put in the constitution, and if the people feels that strongly about it there is a well laid out process for changing the constitution.
America has shown it can tilt the playing field (see drug laws or DUI) irrevocably in the favor of the Prosecution.
But I wonder, to what end? More convitions? More prisoners?
We already have a massive incarceration problem. So who benefits here?
Prosecutors? Defense lawyers who are more needed? In the end the taxpayers pay for the
prisoners. Lights, food, recreation, meds. So despite the appearance of law and order isn’t this trend akin to a snake swallowing its own tail?
#12
My bet is that the charge was money laundering. Not taking money across state lines. Otherwise internet purchases wouldn’t be legal in most cases. There is a law that if you take more than a certain amount of cash out of the country you have to declare it. So it could be something in regards to that too.
It used to be said, “Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.”
Not so sure anymore. Perlhaqr wins the thread.
I guess it comes back to a question I have a hard time grappling with as a libertarian:
Is holding hope for significant legal reform any different than holding hope that government may reform itself? Is this really any different than going to the voting booth where your vote is likely to not really have any meaningful effect? Are we not subscribing to the “Myth of the Rational Legal System.” (sorry Mr. Kaplan.)
The crux of government, and law to a degree, is it truly benefits only those who willingly participate while the burden of the costs are carried by those who do not receive any material benefit even if they are the supposed beneficiary. Laws that stray beyond the scope of person and property are nothing but the idle desires of one man imposing his ethics on another by a force we are dutifully bound to with nothing more than an irrational hope that one day we might find a social contract that respects individualism.
I think this puts the lie to Blackstone’s old “better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer” bit. The truth is that people have been chipping away at that concept for years, because they hate the idea of a guilty party getting away with something. The laws have been slowly changed to be “if not guilty of what you’re accused of, at least guilty of something”, all in the name of getting to people who’ve committed difficult to prove crimes. Being able to sentence people for crimes they’ve not been proven guilty of is just the icing on the cake.
J: The proper answer is to get on the jury, and flat out refuse to convict.
“I don’t care what the law says. That’s not a crime. Not guilty, and we can stay here until Hell freezes over or Lawyers and Judges deserve Heaven. Though that second one might take a while.”
[...] from The Agitator, a little bit of legal trivia . . . even if the jury finds you not guilty, the judge can still [...]
I know that this could never happen in a real world run by lawyers, ex-lawyers and people who have too many lawyers, but given the impotence of logic and reason in forestalling their power grab the most effective way to make them think twice before convicting innocents would be to have a later finding in their favour automatically trigger a criminal investigation against the prosecutor.
There’s a huge paper trail around any trial, so there would be more than enough hard evidence to go through. If it appears that the prosecutor acted in good faith they should be acquitted (though ideally still put away for 18 years under the weird ruling described above) but if they’re found to have wilfully manipulated evidence to misguide the jury then they serve a custodial sentence.
Of course, if we used the current lawbook as a blueprint then the mere fact of being a prosecutor would be de facto proof of guilt, but that’s a different story.
The following definitions are from Esar’s Comic Dictionary, which was published in 1943:
conviction. 1. A belief that you hold or that holds you. 2. Many a man has the courage of his friends’ convictions. 3. Judges without conviction are the most generous in handing it out.
judge. 1. When a judge makes a mistake, it becomes the law of the land. 2. Judges and criminals are the only persons who take the law into their own hands. 3. Judges hand out sentences on the theory that it is more blessed to give than to receive.
judgment. What this country needs is not more judges, but more judgment.
jury. 1. Twelve men chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. 2. A group of twelve people of average ignorance. 3. The only thing that doesn’t work right when it’s fixed. 4. A group of persons that should have the courage of its convictions.
justice. 1. Something that is too good for some people and not good enough for the rest. 2. It is well that justice is blind; she would not like most things done in her name if she could see.
Folks,
That Slate article is over a year old. The Supreme Court recently clarified the issue in Yeager, finding that if you were previously acquitted on a crime, and it had overlapping elements with other charges, you couldn’t be retried for those either.
http://www.scotuswiki.com/index.php?title=Yeager_v._United_States
As SCOTUSwiki puts it succinctly, “In Yeager’s case, therefore, the Court held that the jury’s inability to reach a verdict on the insider trading counts in the indictment was simply a “nonevent,” entitled to no weight in the collateral estoppel analysis.”