8 ms·

In 2004, when Cassell sentenced Angelos, he wrote a lengthy opinion, comparing Angelos’s sentence (738 months) with the guideline sentences for the kingpin of t

• matwood 11y ago
  It is basically an end run around the 2nd amendment. Since the anti-gun lobby cannot outlaw them completely they tack on automatic sentence multipliers for any crime where a gun is found even if the gun was not directly used.
  • kevin_thibedeau 11y ago
    It also spits on the 8th amendment's provision against cruel and unusual punishment. A lifetime of incarceration for a non-violent offense isn't a fitting punishment nor a suitable use of government power.
    • duaneb 11y ago
      I have come to understand this brutal sentencing structure, or at least some of the reasoning. It appears to be the "other side" of the question "how many guilty men should go free for how many innocent men"? The strength of the punishment is proportional to how hard it is to convict with certainty. The aggressive sentencing is greatly exaggerated to form a disincentive for all the men we cannot convict. Justice strikes me of an area where humans tend to reason intuitively. It's also an area that is extremely difficult to measure in any quantitative way. I would be highly interested in understanding what drives existing criminals--my own intuition tells me these sentences are not very preventative, but allow for the illusion of making progress against crime, particularly violent crime. (These people are monsters! Thank god they're gone for life, or the dangerous part of their life.)
      • justinpombrio 11y ago
        My understanding is that this has been studied, and criminals are deterred almost entirely by the certainty of being caught, and almost not at all by the severity of punishment.
        • JoeAltmaier 11y ago
          Varies. Texas sentenced petty criminals to hoe potatoes in the desert sun. Petty crime recidivism plummeted in Texas.
        • mseebach 11y ago
          The problem with this line of argument is the assumption that deterrence is the only purpose of punishment. Justice (in the hard-to-quantify sense referenced by the GP) for the victim and community (and on a practical tangent, the deterrence of vigilante justice) is a pretty significant purpose of punishment.
      • marcoperaza 11y ago
        Let's not forget retribution. We intuitively feel that it is wrong for someone to live well after having caused someone else so much suffering.
        • Fjolsvith 11y ago
          We most certainly do not feel this way. An eye for an eye is not a life for an eye.
          • girvo 11y ago
            We might not, but a sizeable portion of the populace does
          • marcoperaza 11y ago
            I honestly doubt that you have no problem with a heinous murderer living comfortably in his mansion and never serving time in prison. I'm not talking about taking limbs and eyes here...
    • ascorbic 11y ago
      The fact it allows the death penalty shows that the 8th amendment is essentially meaningless. Glossip v. Gross showed that SCOTUS doesn't even care how the death penalty is carried out. If the state can kill you slowly and painfully, why do you expect it to prohibit anything else?
  • brandonmenc 11y ago
    I'm an NRA member, and not totally opposed to multipliers for carrying a gun while committing a crime. With great power comes great responsibility, and all that. Although I do think 55 years is excessive in this case.
    • pstuart 11y ago
      The gun(s) were not used in the commission of a crime.
      • brandonmenc 11y ago
        According to the witness, he was carrying during the sale. The testimony may not be reliable, but that's another discussion.
    • vacri 11y ago
      As an NRA member, shouldn't you be outraged that merely having a gun in your home should count against you in a trial?
      • brandonmenc 11y ago
        It depends on the crime and where it was committed. Should having a gun at home get you extra punishment on a speeding ticket? No. But carrying a gun while breaking and entering? Absolutely.
        • hga 11y ago
          However the common crime or sentencing enhancement of breaking and entering with a firearm has clear and important motivations, it's a signal the criminal is entirely willing to use lethal force against others while in the commission of that sort of crime. Those and the more direct sort of forcible felonies have an inherent element of violence in them. Merely selling drugs---a voluntary transaction---while armed is a different thing.
          • 11y ago
  • hackuser 11y ago
    > Since the anti-gun lobby cannot outlaw them completely they tack on automatic sentence multipliers I rarely hear anyone say they want to outlaw guns completely, but perhaps that was meant as hyperbole? In any case, do you have some evidence that the multipliers were a reaction to difficulties in regulating guns? Most Americans believe guns should be regulated more stringently; I would guess that they believe these laws are just, not a political trick. Also, at least sometimes American law more stringently punishes crimes committed with any weapon, guns or otherwise, than crimes committed without one.
    • gozur88 11y ago
      >Most Americans believe guns should be regulated more stringently... I don't see any evidence this is true on a national basis. The answer to this kind of question depends almost entirely on how you ask it. Most states seem to be moving in the other direction, loosening restrictions on where and when you can carry a gun legally.
      • hackuser 11y ago
        > I don't see any evidence this is true on a national basis. Here's a long list of survey results. It's not 100% in one direction or other, but the overall results are clear. http://www.pollingreport.com/guns.htm http://www.pollingreport.com/guns.htm > Most states seem to be moving in the other direction I agree, but that may reflect the efforts of special interests and not most Americans.
        • adventured 11y ago
          http://www.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/1645/guns.aspx In the early 1990s, ~70% believed gun laws should be more strict. Today it's ~55%. It's unchanged from ten years ago. It's extremely clear that American's aren't, and haven't been, in a hurry to further restrict guns in any major way.
          • vacri 11y ago
  • rosser 11y ago
    Oh, FFS. 924(c) was enacted in 1968. I don't think the "anti-gun lobby" (as disingenuous and argument-poisoning a phrasing as "death tax" or "pro life", if you ask me) was much of a thing then, and even to the extent it did exist, it certainly wasn't anything like the thing that the "Mah cold, dead hands!" crowd reflexively vilifies today.
    • guelo 11y ago
      I just looked it up. In 1970 924(c) was 1 year mandatory and 2 year for subsequent using or carrying a gun during a felony. In 1984 they changed it to 5 years for carrying a gun during a "crime of violence". 20 for subsequent. In 1986 they added " during a drug trafficking crime ". In 1998 in addition to use or carry they added "possesses" "in furtherance of any such crime." And they increased the subsequent minimum from 20 to 25. Note that these were all Republican congresses so i agree that the anti gun theory doesn't really hold that well, it was mostly just "tough on crime" hysteria. The 1986 drug stuff was in response to some basketball player, Len Bias, that died of an overdose.
      • hga 11y ago
        Note that these were all Republican congresses Ummm, the House was held by the Democrats for all the dates you mention except 1998, the Senate for the first two https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_States_Congresses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_Stat...). And you're wildly mistaken that party affiliations mapped that closely to official positions on guns till the 1990s, and to this day it's much easier to be an anti-gun Republicans like those now pretty much only found in NY or Illinois than, say, an anti-abortion Democrat.
      • gonzo 11y ago
        > The 1986 drug stuff was in response to some basketball player, Len Bias, that died of an overdose. Some of us were already adults when that occurred. Fuck you, Nancy Reagan.
    • hga 11y ago
      Here's a brief outline of the "anti-gun lobby's" successes in the US: Prior to the Civil War: bans on concealed carry ostensibly to discourage dueling. Post-Civil War: bans mostly in the South on carry, or types of weapons allowed to be carried, to keep blacks disarmed. Early 20ths Century: More widespread bans on carry, and restrictions on handgun ownership, prompted by the waves of non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants. New York's Sullivan Law, named after a gangster politician who disarmed his southern and eastern European rivals with it, is still the law of the land there. The National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 was the first national level gun control law, which as a "compromise" didn't effectively ban the transfer of handguns. Lots more where this came from with of course enforcement beyond the initially targeted populations, by the early '60s it was a big thing that Washington State passed a shall issue concealed carry licencing law. Big push in the '50s and '60s to restrict gun ownership, especially of handguns (I've read many contemporaneous issues of the NRA's American Rifleman membership magazine that covered the Congressional hearings etc. on this, generally lead by the criminal Senator Thomas Dodd, ah, I see he also got LSD banned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Dodd#Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_J._Dodd#Congress). The Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968 completely changed the way guns were sold in the US, opened the door for massive abuses by the BATF that were well on their way to extinguishing the country's gun culture when party reversed in 1986, etc. etc. etc. The anti-gun lobby was very much a thing that very year, the GCA pretty much marked the beginning of their greatest successes in the country. If we "reflexively" vilify the gun grabbers today, it's because it's been such a thing, and so strong for all of our adult lives for the majority of us (those of us less than 65 years old, including all Baby Boomers born starting in 1950, those of us less than 100 years old if you include that Federal effort to effectively ban handgun ownership with a $3,500 transfer tax in 2015 dollars).
• gozur88 11y ago
  Like almost everything the government does that's stupid on its face, mandatory minimums were a reaction to a different problem. Voters were angry because there were wide disparities in sentencing, and it seemed some judges were wont to give out light sentences no matter how heinous the crime. It's probably not unreasonable to say "If you kill someone, you should serve at least this amount of time regardless of circumstances." It's also not unreasonable to think large disparities in sentencing are fundamentally unfair. The amount of jail time you get is supposed to depend on what you did and not which judge presided over your sentencing. But along the way mandatory minimums became a way for politicians to project the "tough on crime" image. You'd have a news article about a guy who just got out of jail killing an eight year old in a botched drug deal, then the next day Senator Simpleton is there at a press conference announcing a new bill to add 25 years to everybody caught with a gun at a drug deal. It's virtually impossible for any politician to stand up at that time and say "That seems like an awfully long sentence for being in possession of a firearm."
  • rocky1138 11y ago
    I vote that Senator Simpleton become a new Netflix series.
    • IIAOPSW 11y ago
      Would you settle for him being a character in House of Cards?
  • vacri 11y ago
    I'm in the state of Victoria in Australia. While we don't have the truly ludicrous sentencing that the US does, we have our own share of tabloid-driven "lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key" vocal idiots who don't think of the whole picture. Every sentence is met in the public eye with "that's too short!" Anyway, the law institute of Victoria did a study where they asked members of the public what an appropriate sentence would be for real cases (without telling them the actual sentence). The kicker was this: the survey included much more detail on how the crime occurred. It wasn't just a throwaway line in a paper, but gave context. Turned out that the respondents suggested sentences that were actually shorter than were given in court. The whole "tough on crime, because votes" is a hideous thing, because most voters don't think about the big picture.
• deleted 11y ago
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