Unintended consequences

[JJEH]

Ending this stupid war on drugs would go a long way toward making more resources available for real crimes.

Couldn't disagree more with you.

 

[johngalt]

Some interesting statistics:

There are 4500 statutory federal crimes
There are approximately 100,000 to 300,000 federal regulations (no one knows for sure) that may carry criminal penalties

1 in 115 Americans are in jail or prison
1 in 38 is under some form of supervision
1 in 3 have a criminal record

in 1950, there were 158 federal, state and juvenile prisons total.

Today there is 1719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, and 942 juvenile prisons.

 

[Golddollar]

Which is why as of December 31st 2020 I am officially out of the game.

I will continue to practice but will cherry pick cases and take only what I want to take. I suspect my stress level will go down greatly.

Congratulations on your decision. I'm coming up on 5 years in retirement, and it was the best move I could have made. After 38 years in practice, I made a clean break and retired completely. No more commuting, and I'm able to take better care of myself. I have medical opinion that if I hadn't retired when I did, I might not be here typing this.

It feels great to be able to go to a range on a Tuesday afternoon. Congratulations again.

 

[The Analyst]

BINGO!!! 100% spot on.

 

[Doug M.]

The balance is completely wrong now. I am a vigorous advocate of scrupulously guarding the Constitutional rights of the accused. Fine. What I oppose is the crazy idea that the well-being of offenders needs to be given any real consideration or placed on a par with that of victims. It's utterly insane. What I see here is that the Idiocracy of the I-5 corridor (Blaine to San Diego) is very heavily populated by people who have no idea about the real nature of violent crime.

Look at the reporting on the riots occurring in some large cities. They are not protests, not even close. They are riots, and the participants are rioters. In Seattle alone, there should probably be 200 arrests and 5-10 fatal shootings by LE every night. Instead, decent people are being victimized and not even close to protected by the system. Look at the Capitol Hill (Seattle neighborhood) occupation - that should have been stopped by any means necessary within a couple hours. At least 2 people died as a direct result of the tolerance of the criminality. We have significant indications of the same kind of criminal conduct being overtly advocated for and supported here. And all of this is the result of knowing fabrications about the death of George Floyd and others.

War on drugs? I am not a fan - but the damage done by impaired people is staggering. This state has had a terrible increase in impaired driving cases because of legal pot; the crime lab is so far behind that testing needed for those and other cases is months behind, when the standard should be a two week turnaround. Then we have the folks using concentrated stimulant drugs (meth and crack being the best examples) and synthetic stuff - the level of potential violence is outside the comprehension of people who have not seen/dealt with it.

We ought to celebrate bad things happening to bad people, but instead we have media outlets and insane moonbats claiming such is a problem. Neither LE or private citizens kill nearly as many violent criminals as they should. I am not sure how far off private citizens are, but LE only kills about 5% of the violent offenders who attack them, and yet we have outcry by the apologists for the criminally feral about completely inane uses of force.

 

[Cellar Hound]

Caj,

You’re doing the right thing.... Many of us roll hard throughout our career to hopefully achieve some success while having a positive influence on those around us. However, at some point you owe it to yourself to let someone else carry the weight. You’ve earned the right to choose what to do with your time. Enjoy it! Hopefully, I’m not far behind you.

Good luck!
CH

 

[Ziggy2525]

There's enough money. There's money for everything else. It's just that our system has become corrupted, like third world, banana republic corrupt. No one wants to fix anything and it's not going to be fixed, when it means killing the golden egg laying goose.

I’m not sure it’s corrupt, but it seems badly broken. It’s a process driven debate between a prosecutor and defense attorney where a random group of neophyte jurors decides which side debated the best. The defendant is a bystander in the process. Justice or injustice is just an incidental byproduct of the debate process. It’s not about innocence or guilt. It’s about which side has the better debater. That’s where money comes in. More money buys a better debater.

 

[LoboGunLeather]

Congratulations to the Cajun! Best wishes for a healthy and peaceful retirement.

With that remaining in mind, I will again say that our justice system is a pitiful joke on the majority of lawful taxpayers supporting that system. If I had a viable suggestion for changing that system I would shout it out to the world, but I have nothing to shout about other than the failures and frustrations we all must endure.

 

[sigp220.45]

Congratulations on your pending retirement/semi-retirement.

Unlike many of my LE colleagues, I have always liked the defense bar, especially the sadly underpaid, criminally overworked public defenders. The tougher the better.

Many times I’ve been working a case that was probably not going anywhere and was tempted to half-step it a little. Why collect all these beer cans when they’ll never go to the lab? Why tie up resources at the lab with all this stuff when this case will never get charged, because the victim and the bad guy are two sides of the same coin and this will get filed under WGAS?

But I did it anyway, because the thought of getting made a fool of on the stand in the event this **** of a case DID go somewhere was so awful I never took the chance.

Funny thing - after a while my cases mostly all pled, because when the defense side got discovery my stuff was straight. Not all of course, but I enjoyed testifying, even on cross, because I didn’t have anything to hide.

On the fed side, you still get points off the sentencing guidelines for “acceptance of responsibility” i.e. pleading guilty.

So thank you, Gary. All verdicts are good if the system works. I was lucky enough to work in a largely functional system. I know Louisiana well, and have served up my first-born to the loving arms of the NOPD. It makes me sad to think he may not get the chance to meet you in court.

I’m looking forward to relaxed tales of taking Old Blue to boat dock for a day of fishing.

 

[llowry61]

Ending this stupid war on drugs would go a long way toward making more resources available for real crimes.

When asked how Europe does things, well methadone clinics etc. and treating drug addiction as a health issue not a criminal one is a start. I have long been a believer that we should legalize the drugs, tax them and use the money to try to clean up the mess created by them just like alcohol. Prohibition is a great case study in legislating morality. We are allowing cartel funding and treating the symptom not the problem. Maybe those from the other side of the pond will weigh in.

 

[Racer X]

The incentive is that a plea deal usually holds less prison time that what they could face if they would be convicted by a jury. Also, 9x out of 10 the sentences (if they have more than 1 charge) will run concurrent as opposed to consecutive if going to trial and getting convicted by 12 people. This is how the DA in OK where I was working operated.

The def has a right to a fair trial, so if they are innocent or if the state didn't do its job then by all means, go to trial.

No rights should be violated because the country is running out of money.

Concurrent sentences are a load of ****. When someone commits a string of crimes, if they know that it means 300 years in prison, they might think twice. And when proven guilty, they won't be doing it again. A revolving door on a prison really doesn't instill fear in criminals.

I grew up with my uncle as a police officer, ending his career as a detective, so understanding consequences of poor behavior was ingrained in all us kids. That's mostly lost now, as the consequences are mostly gone, or seriously diminished.

 

[GaryS]

Something that can't go on won't go on. The snap back will be vicious.
You're better off out of it.

 

[johngalt]

Oh, and congrats on your retirement!

 

[ancient-one]

The balance is completely wrong now. I am a vigorous advocate of scrupulously guarding the Constitutional rights of the accused. Fine. What is oppose is the crazy idea that the well-being of offenders needs to be given any real consideration or placed on a par with that of victims. It's utterly insane. What I see here is that the Idiocracy of the I-5 corridor (Blaine to San Diego) is very heavily populated by people who have no idea about the real nature of violent crime.

Look at the reporting on the riots occurring in some large cities. They are not protests, not even close. They are riots, and the participants are rioters. In Seattle alone, there should probably be 200 arrests and 5-10 fatal shootings by LE every night. Instead, decent people are being victimized and not even close to protected by the system. Look at the Capitol Hill (Seattle neighborhood) occupation - that should have been stopped by any means necessary within a couple hours. At least 2 people died as a direct result of the tolerance of the criminality. We have significant indications of the same kind of criminal conduct being overtly advocated for and supported here. And all of this is the result of knowing fabrications about the death of George Floyd and others.

War on drugs? I am not a fan - but the damage done by impaired people is staggering. This state has had a terrible increase in impaired driving cases because of legal pot; the crime lab is so far behind that testing needed for those and other cases is months behind, when the standard should be a two week turnaround. Then we have the folks using concentrated stimulant drugs (meth and crack being the best examples) and synthetic stuff - the level of potential violence is outside the comprehension of people who have not seen/dealt with it.

We ought to celebrate bad things happening to bad people, but instead we have media outlets and insane moonbats claiming such is a problem. Neither LE or private citizens kill nearly as many violent criminals as they should. I am not sure how far off private citizens are, but LE only kills about 5% of the violent offenders who attack them, and yet we have outcry by the apologists for the criminally feral about completely inane uses of force.

Couldn't have been said better. The do gooder's have that type of **** on our ballot as a State Question and it will probably pass. I sure that there are a few instances of unfair sentencing. Fix them on an individual basis.

If I am robbed by the same guy five times and the previous robberies are not allowed to be taken into consideration when he is sentenced, something is damned wrong with our sense of justice and the people, who by their vote allowed it to happen.

 

[Kenna]

an eye for an eye !!!

 

[Deceasedeye]

Supply and demand. Most people are law abiding citizens, the legal system cannot thrive on law abiding citizens. The legal system thrives on the miscreants, being fewer in number the miscreants must be recycled rapidly in order to warrant and sustain the system. Take the miscreants out of the equation and the legal system dies on the vine. Take a look at your town, same names, same faces, same usual suspects ALL the time, you rarely see a first conviction. They are in in out for years and that is what oils the machine!