I think it is wrong for government to punish people "for creating division and hate". Of course he should be punished for making a false police report, and wasting police resources to investigate this. Some of that is the fault of the news media, wouldn't you say?
Yup and that's why it's very important for people like Sandman and Rittenhouse to sue the **** out of them. It's unreasonable for news networks to get it right 100 percent of the time but when they get it wrong due to willful negligence, they should be held accountable. And opinions should be left for small "opinion based" columns and not the front page.
I don't see why killing multiple people should be a greater crime than killing one person. That quite literally is what you are trying to say.
Really now. 3 or more people get together to commit a crime. Then what exactly is it supposed to include?
It doesn't matter if you think it's unfair. It's the law. It's the D.A.'s job to charge the defendant, the jury's job to adjudicate, and your job or your role to change the law as a voter if it's bad.
I disagree. It's one thing if the law was clearly intended to be applied in that sort of situation. It's a completely different thing to take a law that was meant for something else and try to apply it in an unusual way to something which is questionable, which no one ever clearly conceptualized in their mind should be illegal before. Maybe what you don't understand is prosecutors could go after almost anyone, using the letter of the law. No one is "innocent". This type of thing is absolutely evil. As far as I'm concerned people who want to engage in that game are just as guilty as Jesse Smollett. Someone who is true and honest can see this. But a lot of people are evil liars and lie to themselves. (And yes, I am implying this about people who can see what I'm saying but still don't think that it's wrong) Of course everyone has just accepted this as normal.
That is factually incorrect as well as hyperbolic. There are some overly aggressive prosecutors, of course, but all prosecutors at one time or another decline to prosecute people arrested by police Or they might dismiss a case if their witnesses start flaking out during pretrial preparation. I see this all the time in sex crimes. A guy feels a 13 year old's boobs one day, her butthole 10 minutes later, and her vagina that night. That's three different counts kf sexual assault per the law even if it's "just" one continuing assault. The jury is free to find him not guilty if he is not guilty or if he is being charged twice for the same thing (in their opinion). That may be why they acquitted Jussie on court 5. Anyway what do you want us to do about it? This is not a very righteous cause you are pursuing, and sentences all run concurrently, so it's not like they're running up the score on poor Jussie Smollett or the molester I mention.
My point was that when lawmakers approved these laws, they had no idea that five different criminal statutes would simultaneously apply to the same crime. That's just something they didn't think about. Call it stupidity or lack of foresight. If this ends up having any effect on the punishment, then I would say there is clearly a problem. That usually and will probably happen, but there's no guarantee. What's even the point? This whole thing is absurd and ridiculous. Furthermore, if someone else wants to look on a criminal's record and see what they have done, multiple charges for the same exact crime just makes things overly complicated.
But it doesn't have any effect on punishment. They don't do this to be mean, they do it to make sure he is convicted of something. If he lies to 3 police officers and they only charge one offense, and the one charged is for lying to an officer who later dies of covid, before trial, they can't use the other two lies at trial unless they go back to the grand jury and reindict (amend the indictment).
I understand that, but in some cases it could. It can often have an effect on what the judge decides. In some cases the law might not even leave the judge a choice.
Maybe the prosecutor should be able to charge the criminal with A or B, rather than only being able to charge A and B. That way the jury could choose between charges and pick the most appropriate one, rather than feeling like they should find the defendant guilty of both.
But those are sentencing issues. The judge can see, especially if he presided over the trial, whether the offenses all arose out of one episode versis shows an especially egregious pattern. The judges don't impose consecutive sentences for offenses like Jussie's because it creates work on appeal plus he runs the risk of having the cases overturned. Anyway this is ALL on Jussie.
I agree with you. I feel the same about hate crimes. This is such a strange case. Some sort of Münchausen syndrome.
Well, as far as that goes, the prosecutor is free to charge him with nothing at all. I don't at least say that cases are never overcharged. That does happen. That's what happened in Rittenhouse's cases.
There is are segments on both the Left and Right that want vengeance. In that sense this is an unusual case, but I see some parallels here to the Julian Assange case. (In that case, warhawk conservatives blamed him for "betrayal" by releasing information that could turn public opinion against war, and endanger national security, while warhawk Democrats blame him for "betrayal" for supposedly trying to sabotage the Presidential election by releasing damaging information about Hillary, costing her the election)
I understand what you mean, but that cannot happen unless the defendant in the opinion of the jury really did commit more than one offense, in which case, he is in no position to complain. Robbig two stores is different from robbing one store, even if the robberies are only 30nseconds apart (side by side Bodegas or something.) I can't imagine that offending my own sense of justice. (I respect your right to feel differently.) Now if he steals a banana and an apple in one robbery, I agree that's just one robbery, not two. What triggered all this? The Jussie Smollett case?
That is not true at all. A jury can and often does convict a person of more than one criminal count for the same exact thing.
Hate is no worse an aggravating circumstance than jealousy, rage, or greed. I agree. But just hating someone isn't a crime.
That's not my experience. I don't know what else to tell you. Wait ... what do you mean "the same exact thing"? You mean just copy and paste the same offense with same manner and means and time and put 500 charges for one act of shoplifting? You can't mean that.
