New Terror Laws Used Vs. Common Criminals

[tandeetaylor]

The intent to kill people and the intent to sell them drugs are two different things, and they should be punished accordingly (aside from any considerations about whether drugs should be legal). The punishment should fit the crime. Just because someone is a "scumbag" doesn't mean they should go to jail for the rest of their lives.

And the fear is real that these laws (plural) are being used in ways they were not intended for, and therefore they could be stretched and increased more. Don't think the police should have a right to wiretap your phone? Tough, you shouldn't have been saying things you shouldn't in the first place. Don't think the police should have right to barge into your home without any evidence of wrongdoing? Tough, you shouldn't have been doing anything illegal in the first place. Right?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by tandeetaylor
The intent to kill people and the intent to sell them drugs are two different things, and they should be punished accordingly (aside from any considerations about whether drugs should be legal). The punishment should fit the crime. Just because someone is a "scumbag" doesn't mean they should go to jail for the rest of their lives.

It's up to the elected legislatures to determine what they feel are the appropriate punishments, within the limits of the Eighth Amendment.

Don't think the police should have a right to wiretap your phone? Tough, you shouldn't have been saying things you shouldn't in the first place.

Well, they've been able to get a warrant signed by a judge or magistrate upon showing reasonable cause before PATRIOT. The only diffence now is that the warrant follows the individual suspected of committing a crime, not the obviously inanimate telephone number.

Don't think the police should have right to barge into your home without any evidence of wrongdoing? Tough, you shouldn't have been doing anything illegal in the first place. Right?

Show me the specific language and case law where police have a right to warrantless entry and search. All you have to do is ask them through the door if they have a warrant, and if no, tell them you have nothing to say and no they can't come in.

[David Floyd]

It's up to the elected legislatures to determine what they feel are the appropriate punishments, within the limits of the Eighth Amendment.

Obviously, but I think what she's saying (and I, by the way, agree) is that just because the legislature CAN set certain punishments for certain actions doesn't mean that they SHOULD do so.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
It obviously isn't, and the prosecutor is most likely testing whether he can get away with this on appeal, but if the state of North Carolina wants to lock up meth lab operators that's their business.

The statute is a chemical weapons statute - not a drug statute. The lesgislative purpose is thereby announced in the prohibition of weapons. Common sense is on call here ...

What the prosecutor in this case is doing is stretching the weak definition beyond the legislative intent. And he is probably doing this to assist his own political ambition by being tough on crime or whatever.

What a politician says is meaningless. The provisions contained within the law itself are controlling, subject to interpretation and action by the judiciary. If a politician tells you the sun is going to start rising in the west, do you believe it or expect that's the way it should be?

But, a politician can tell us the intent behind a bill. In fact, this bill is an anti-weapons statute as indicated by the fact that it addresses chemical weapons. No need to even comb legislative history, the intent (i.e. weapons) is enacted in the bill itself.

[rant] if prosecutors could be held accountable for attempting to stretch the law (a fine, some time in gen pop with the people they put there) would make these *******s thing twice about stretching the law to look tough [/rant]

[Imran Siddiqui]

if prosecutors could be held accountable for attempting to stretch the law (a fine, some time in gen pop with the people they put there) would make these *******s thing twice about stretching the law to look tough

So defense lawyers should be off the hook for attempting the stretch the law?

The statute is a chemical weapons statute - not a drug statute. The lesgislative purpose is thereby announced in the prohibition of weapons.

It doesn't matter what the 'intent' is. What matters is the text. If they wanted to make it simply a 'weapons statute', they should have specifically said so. If the text can apply to other things, then it applies to other things.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

if prosecutors could be held accountable for attempting to stretch the law (a fine, some time in gen pop with the people they put there) would make these *******s thing twice about stretching the law to look tough

So defense lawyers should be off the hook for attempting the stretch the law?

Defense lawyers don't bring cases. And given the harsh penalties for crimes, prosecutors should be staying fairly close to the text of statutes. Too often, moral wrongs and crimes get conflated. The criminal justice system should not be used as a system to enforce the moral norms of society.

The statute is a chemical weapons statute - not a drug statute. The lesgislative purpose is thereby announced in the prohibition of weapons.

It doesn't matter what the 'intent' is. What matters is the text. If they wanted to make it simply a 'weapons statute', they should have specifically said so. If the text can apply to other things, then it applies to other things.

NOW you're a textualist. (In all honesty, you must admit, this will depend entirely on the judge you go before. For example, Stevens loves intent and legislative history.)

But they did say they wanted a weapons statute - when they used the word 'weapon'. How much more specific does the legislature need to be? Unless you are throwing crystal meth in someone's eye - I fail to see how the weapons requirement can be met. Note that the word 'weapon' is used in the statute so either the legilature was creating a new word 'weapon' which looks a lot like the regular word 'weapon', or the purpose of the statutory definition is to clarify (although it fails to do so) the use of 'weapon'. But if clarification is the point of the definition then any clarification of the use of the word must remain within in the accepted definition. And since crystal meth is bought to get high - not to injure - this prosecutor has exceeded the meaning of the word 'weapon' even if he has remained within the rather awful clarification used in the statute.

Or are you saying 'weapon' in the statute does not mean weapon? If so, couldn't the legislature have made its purpose in enacting the statute clear by not using the word 'weapon' and instead using a word that would extend to crystal meth? Given that the text itself mentions 'weapon' does that not mean when employing the statute I should look for a weapon and then see if the clarifying definition admits the particular weapon? That is, shouldn't the existence of the word 'weapon' in the statute tell me that the purpose of the statute in fact is to be employed against weapons?

[Berzerker]

Well the feds and states ended up using asset forfeiture laws designed for drug "kingpins" on people who weren't kingpins, hell, they used them on farmers whose land was used by others to grow a few pot plants without the knowledge of the owner. The idiotic rationalisation was that politicians didn't want drug kingpins using the assets from their drug trade to hire lawyers. Excuse me, but doesn't that assume guilt before a conviction? How can people defend themselves when their money is stolen by prosecutors before the trial? The case of Donald Scott exemplifies the evils of how laws designed for one group of people end up being used on the rest of us, so it won't be long before prosecutors use these laws for non-terrorists if they aren't already.

The abuses of asset forfeiture laws led to a backlash and the re-instatement of stricter controls over what prosecutors could get away with, but plenty of people were victimised by a$$hole prosecutors before the backlash. How many times does this have to happen before people stop believing the nonsense that a proposed law will only apply to the really bad people? RICO was another set of laws designed to go after the Mafia and ended up being used on other people.

I heard of a case up in Minnesota about an 18 year old boy being convicted of pedophilism for having sex with his 17 year old girlfriend. The kid was put on one of those "sexual offender" lists and even the politician who wrote the stupid law said he never meant it to be used for high school sweathearts, etc...