If a boy and girl in high school meet and have sex, do you charged both with rape? Neither can consent. And according to the media lately, they "assaulted" each other.
What about if she passes out first after they both do a ton of drugs? What if she has a lot of sex with guys while on drugs? What if the prosecution is being pushed by her parents?
None of that is relevant in today's world. Rape is rape. If you cross the line of consent/nonconsent, you lose big time. A life in prison or as a sex offender, which is, as far as I can tell, just as bad.
Is there going to be a day when people snap out of it and stop screaming for blood because bobby fucked sally while sally was asleep? If these are reactionary times, reacting to years of treating rape victims like shit, do we ever get to a day where reason takes hold again?
Reading the news lately, that day doesn't seem like it's going to show up any time soon.
I hate rape cases. I hate victim witness advocates. I hate prosecutors that have bought into the rape is rape crowd's bullshit. I hate that lewd and lascivious contact with a minor ever occurs to anyone as a logical alternative charge to rape. Why don't we have a sleep fucking statute? How is it that not one state has adopted a rape statute that deals with the mens rea of the perp instead of the victim? Why can't we rewrite all our battery statutes- I mean fuck folks, just intentionally touching another person should not be a crime. Isn't there supposed to be a prohibition on crimes by omission?
America- I'm glad you've started caring about your daughters. But good fucking god, go easier on your sons.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Sunday, October 6, 2013
"Well, I probably would have just kicked him the one time, but Detective Reid said, 'Again.'"
When there doesn't seem to be anything going on in our quiet community, the police just go find the fellows with the proper rap sheet and hang out with them, eventually often encouraging them to break laws and then "hurray!" they get to arrest somebody.
The behavior of these officers is stupifying- are they just protecting themselves? Or are they like Donny Brasco, and start to enjoy it? Or do they just figure it's a small price to pay to wait till the group does something worth stopping- say keeping a ton of drugs or guns off the streets.
The question for me is- what does it mean for the client, now arrested because a cop dragged a helpless man from a car and encouraged him to hit him?
Entrapment has been so watered down as to be almost impossible to use, We have to generally show that our client was not inclined to commit such a crime without the government's assistance. What the hell that even means is up to, not the jury, but the judge, who think he's in the position to prejudge everything you want to give the jury because of his power to decide if there is evidence supporting the instruction you requested. Is that the case? Fuck no. But every judge in probably every state thinks that's what they get to do. It's particularly infuriating because they KNOW they can't do that if you request them to find an acquittal. So, they basically assume they have more power over you because of the law on giving instructions than they have to decide not to give a case to a jury.
And in Idaho, two of our Supreme Court justices just said they were ready to get rid of it completely. You'll want to check out Barton. Part of their thought was that entrapment is not part of the common law that came from England and we never had it as a statutory defense, so they don't see where it came from and why they should recognize it. But I just can't see how any people in creating a limited government could possibly have provided the government with the power to cause and commit crimes with the hopes of arresting anyone that joins in.
So be warned, people of Idaho- your judicial branch is about to give the green light to your government to start trying to get you to commit crimes because the crime rate in this state is at a devastating 3rd lowest in the nation. So if we're to maintain our being 8th in the nation for imprisonment and first for people on probation, the police have a lot of work to do. Or, you do. And if you don't think you're ready to commit a crime, the police are ready to help you out with that.
The behavior of these officers is stupifying- are they just protecting themselves? Or are they like Donny Brasco, and start to enjoy it? Or do they just figure it's a small price to pay to wait till the group does something worth stopping- say keeping a ton of drugs or guns off the streets.
The question for me is- what does it mean for the client, now arrested because a cop dragged a helpless man from a car and encouraged him to hit him?
Entrapment has been so watered down as to be almost impossible to use, We have to generally show that our client was not inclined to commit such a crime without the government's assistance. What the hell that even means is up to, not the jury, but the judge, who think he's in the position to prejudge everything you want to give the jury because of his power to decide if there is evidence supporting the instruction you requested. Is that the case? Fuck no. But every judge in probably every state thinks that's what they get to do. It's particularly infuriating because they KNOW they can't do that if you request them to find an acquittal. So, they basically assume they have more power over you because of the law on giving instructions than they have to decide not to give a case to a jury.
And in Idaho, two of our Supreme Court justices just said they were ready to get rid of it completely. You'll want to check out Barton. Part of their thought was that entrapment is not part of the common law that came from England and we never had it as a statutory defense, so they don't see where it came from and why they should recognize it. But I just can't see how any people in creating a limited government could possibly have provided the government with the power to cause and commit crimes with the hopes of arresting anyone that joins in.
So be warned, people of Idaho- your judicial branch is about to give the green light to your government to start trying to get you to commit crimes because the crime rate in this state is at a devastating 3rd lowest in the nation. So if we're to maintain our being 8th in the nation for imprisonment and first for people on probation, the police have a lot of work to do. Or, you do. And if you don't think you're ready to commit a crime, the police are ready to help you out with that.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Idaho Executioners
Stuck in Boise the other day I picked up a copy of a book called Hanged.
The book is about all 23 men legally hanged in Idaho. Starts out in 1863 or so and ends in the 50s. Doesn't sound like a lot compared with Texas or Ohio but then our population is generally next to nothing so who knows what that means.
The stories are fascinating. The author tells them like they're fact, which of course they're not. They're just the story as accepted by the state for the purpose of killing a man. But even with all that, the best part is always the aftermath.
Judge so-and-so (who, naturally, has a name of a judge I know because god forbid we get new blood in our judiciary) says, "YOU WILL DIE, and may god have mercy yada yada"
Except for this Native American guy killed in the 1870s. That judge was evidently not interested in mercy.
Mercy is the big story here. So for each guy, no matter how bad, there's always this group of people saying, "hey, dude, don't kill him."
And there's the executioner. It's always the sheriff! Who also is warden. Who also has a close personal relationship with the man who he has to kill. And so in a few of these stories the Sheriff is so shook up by the killing that I actually felt worse for him than the dying guy.
It got me thinking anyway. The death penalty, even then, wasn't applied very evenly. Kind of upsetting really. And so you live in this world where a large proportion of the people know you if they want to kill you, and folks are thinking, hell, this guy shouldn't have to hang. And killing seems wrong, so it's kind of infrequent, and weighs heavy on everyone, except the governor, who always comes off as a total asshole.
Compare this with today, where even with the increased number we kill the only people that really get to know them are a few jailers, lawyers, and judges. The media does the rest, and it is as fickle as they come, mostly condemning and bloodthirsty as the worst Roman crowd.
Does the death penalty really have the same meaning now? Doesn't the death penalty rely on the dignity of human beings, and once that's gone, doesn't the message essentially get lost? You know what they never said in these old cases? Eye for an eye. In fact, they seem specifically against that idea. Rather, they are concerned about the message, the "here's the line!" Today, it's just about people wanting to kill each other. So frustrated in our own little lives, so ready to lash out and destroy, we can't show mercy anymore. And there's no politician forced to get to know us before he kills us, to point out how badly out of control we've become.
The book is about all 23 men legally hanged in Idaho. Starts out in 1863 or so and ends in the 50s. Doesn't sound like a lot compared with Texas or Ohio but then our population is generally next to nothing so who knows what that means.
The stories are fascinating. The author tells them like they're fact, which of course they're not. They're just the story as accepted by the state for the purpose of killing a man. But even with all that, the best part is always the aftermath.
Judge so-and-so (who, naturally, has a name of a judge I know because god forbid we get new blood in our judiciary) says, "YOU WILL DIE, and may god have mercy yada yada"
Except for this Native American guy killed in the 1870s. That judge was evidently not interested in mercy.
Mercy is the big story here. So for each guy, no matter how bad, there's always this group of people saying, "hey, dude, don't kill him."
And there's the executioner. It's always the sheriff! Who also is warden. Who also has a close personal relationship with the man who he has to kill. And so in a few of these stories the Sheriff is so shook up by the killing that I actually felt worse for him than the dying guy.
It got me thinking anyway. The death penalty, even then, wasn't applied very evenly. Kind of upsetting really. And so you live in this world where a large proportion of the people know you if they want to kill you, and folks are thinking, hell, this guy shouldn't have to hang. And killing seems wrong, so it's kind of infrequent, and weighs heavy on everyone, except the governor, who always comes off as a total asshole.
Compare this with today, where even with the increased number we kill the only people that really get to know them are a few jailers, lawyers, and judges. The media does the rest, and it is as fickle as they come, mostly condemning and bloodthirsty as the worst Roman crowd.
Does the death penalty really have the same meaning now? Doesn't the death penalty rely on the dignity of human beings, and once that's gone, doesn't the message essentially get lost? You know what they never said in these old cases? Eye for an eye. In fact, they seem specifically against that idea. Rather, they are concerned about the message, the "here's the line!" Today, it's just about people wanting to kill each other. So frustrated in our own little lives, so ready to lash out and destroy, we can't show mercy anymore. And there's no politician forced to get to know us before he kills us, to point out how badly out of control we've become.
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