3 ms·

There is such a thing as cruel and unusual punishment. Getting 100 years for that "crime" of essentially violating a regulation is preposterous.

by rplst8 9y ago

rplst8 9y ago
P.S. it's a tortious offence at best.
- tryingagainbro 9y ago
  Not if they caused death and disease due to the extra bad gases that they released--probably can be proven statistically. If you grab a gun and kill someone you get at probably life. So, fine them a a company and jail those responsible starting at the top.
  - jimrandomh 9y ago
    That is not how the distinction between tortious and criminal offenses works.
williamscales 9y ago
There is such a thing as personal responsibility. If the potential sentence is announced beforehand, what's the problem? It's not that hard to avoid commiting fraud.
tryingagainbro 9y ago
How about 25+ years for defrauding millions of buyers and making our cities full(er) of smog. How many new cases of asthma, sinus infections, cancers...can be traced to this fraud?
- DannyBee 9y ago
  "How about 25+ years for defrauding millions of buyers". Citation needed that it was 25+ years, since, 25 years ago, i don't even believe there were meaningful regulations in the US they would have been violating. I believe the first meaningful regulations by the EPA were in 2007, and by california in 2001. See, e.g., https://www.dieselnet.com/standards/us/hd.php#pre04 https://www.dieselnet.com/standards/us/hd.php#pre04 "How many new cases of asthma, sinus infections, cancers...can be traced to this fraud?" I'll go with: "Probably a very small number" The vast majority of car pollution is produced by older cars on the road[1], and that's true even when considering the real emissions numbers of these cars. If you would like to provide objective evidence that this isn't the case, i'd love to see it. [1] Unfortunately, most people cite the EPA averages, which doesn't help. The average is of all cars on the road (they even say this), and unfortunately, the emissions standards are each orders of magnitude better than the last, so the average is not a good way to see what's up. IE Every car in california sold since 2004 is at least an LEV. Cars operating prior to that are basically huge polluters. Cars that are marked ULEV are 50% better than current average year models (so they started at 1/2 the emissions, and must stay at 1/2 the emissions of each model year to stay a ULEV). Cars marked SULEV are 90% better (IE 1/10th the emissions), ditto. You can see that as cars get newer, and emissions standards tougher, using the average to say "what cars on the road produce" is mostly nonsense, but that's what happens!
  - revelation 9y ago
    Huh? The history of defeat devices and corresponding legislation is much older: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defeat_device https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defeat_device
whyenot 9y ago
How many years of life did he take with his offense? My suspicion is that it was quite a bit more than 100 years.

There is such a thing as cruel and unusual punishment. Getting 100 years for that "crime" of essentially violating a regulation is preposterous.

by rplst8 9y ago

There is such a thing as cruel and unusual punishment. Getting 100 years for that "crime" of essentially violating a regulation is preposterous.

rplst8 9y ago

P.S. it's a tortious offence at best.

tryingagainbro 9y ago
Not if they caused death and disease due to the extra bad gases that they released--probably can be proven statistically. If you grab a gun and kill someone you get at probably life. So, fine them a a company and jail those responsible starting at the top.
- jimrandomh 9y ago
  That is not how the distinction between tortious and criminal offenses works.

williamscales 9y ago

There is such a thing as personal responsibility. If the potential sentence is announced beforehand, what's the problem? It's not that hard to avoid commiting fraud.

tryingagainbro 9y ago

How about 25+ years for defrauding millions of buyers and making our cities full(er) of smog. How many new cases of asthma, sinus infections, cancers...can be traced to this fraud?

DannyBee 9y ago
"How about 25+ years for defrauding millions of buyers". Citation needed that it was 25+ years, since, 25 years ago, i don't even believe there were meaningful regulations in the US they would have been violating. I believe the first meaningful regulations by the EPA were in 2007, and by california in 2001. See, e.g., https://www.dieselnet.com/standards/us/hd.php#pre04 https://www.dieselnet.com/standards/us/hd.php#pre04 "How many new cases of asthma, sinus infections, cancers...can be traced to this fraud?" I'll go with: "Probably a very small number" The vast majority of car pollution is produced by older cars on the road[1], and that's true even when considering the real emissions numbers of these cars. If you would like to provide objective evidence that this isn't the case, i'd love to see it. [1] Unfortunately, most people cite the EPA averages, which doesn't help. The average is of all cars on the road (they even say this), and unfortunately, the emissions standards are each orders of magnitude better than the last, so the average is not a good way to see what's up. IE Every car in california sold since 2004 is at least an LEV. Cars operating prior to that are basically huge polluters. Cars that are marked ULEV are 50% better than current average year models (so they started at 1/2 the emissions, and must stay at 1/2 the emissions of each model year to stay a ULEV). Cars marked SULEV are 90% better (IE 1/10th the emissions), ditto. You can see that as cars get newer, and emissions standards tougher, using the average to say "what cars on the road produce" is mostly nonsense, but that's what happens!
- revelation 9y ago
  Huh? The history of defeat devices and corresponding legislation is much older: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defeat_device https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defeat_device

whyenot 9y ago

How many years of life did he take with his offense? My suspicion is that it was quite a bit more than 100 years.