5 ms·

He didn't get 20 years, that's just the maximum permitted penalty for the crime he committed. The article title cites it as clickbait. It's rather irritating.

by ufmace 3y ago

He didn't get 20 years, that's just the maximum permitted penalty for the crime he committed. The article title cites it as clickbait. It's rather irritating. The law was made with a flexible range of punishments to permit the judge of any particular case to use discretion when determining an appropriate punishment. The maximum permitted is thus rather high. So now every article written about the subject lazily cites "up to 20 years", and thus everyone reading those articles gets the impression that he's actually likely to get 20 years for this incident.

byyyy 3y ago
The maximum permitted should be zero years. Any jail time for this dumb stunt is overboard. There just needs to be a huge ass fine and revocation of pilots license. I point my car at a wall and drive into it on purpose for views... And suddenly that's a possibility of jail time? That's crazy. There needs to be a minimum number of permitted years when death is involved with clear negligence. Sadly there isn't any our court systems use max permitted years to pick and choose who they can punish. Dumb kid who crashes his plane on purpose versus safety inspector who Actually killed hundreds of people? There is a clear disconnect here.
- ngcc_hk 3y ago
  There could be people … can start a fire … your wall will not. Also whilst there can be mitigated circumstance you cannot argued for 0 max. There is a crime, there could be danger … 0 max meant anyone officially can do this without consequences?
  - byyyy 3y ago
    No thats just Hollywood. In general a crashed car or small plane crumbles on impact. It doesn't explode in a ball of fire. A forest fire is very unlikely here. When you point your car at a wall and drive into that wall you ALSO cannot argue for 0 max danger of death for an innocent bystander. But the probability of a person dying is so low we know there is no danger for murder or death at all. It's just really stupid. Of course there needs to be consequences. A loss of pilots license and a huge ass fine. Jail time is crazy. You know how jail will ruin a person's entire life right? Even a month of jail time is in certain ways hangs on your record like a life sentence. It's too much.
    - vinaypai 3y ago
      You know having a plane crash onto them ran ruin a person's entire life, right?
      - byyyy 3y ago
        But what this have to do with a plane deliberately into an area known to be Devoid of people? Nothing. So why even say this? Makes no sense to me.
        jameshart 3y ago
        When you get out of a plane that’s still flying you stop having any say in where that plane goes. How certain was he of where it might land? What if he misjudged and the plane had kept going much further than he expected? He had nudged it into a dive… but then he got out, changing the center of gravity of the plane - how did he know that wouldn’t trim the plane’s nose up and send it gliding off well beyond his target?
        byyyy 3y ago
        All good points, except he deliberately crashed it at a specific location. He carried out an action with intention and that intention was fulfilled. You're going into hypotheticals about a possible mistake. I mean when you drive a car everyday you could make a mistake too. It's too fuzzy to go in this direction.
        jameshart 3y ago
        Right, but as a society we have taken the position that we don’t trust people to correctly aim unguided gliding missiles at safe bits of ground. We therefore require pilots to not get out of their plane mid flight. Even if this guy got his calculations right, we don’t hand out licenses to people that say ‘we trust you to do that safely’. This is not an unreasonable regulatory burden impinging on individual freedom.
  - troyvit 3y ago
    There are plenty of other consequences to levy besides incarceration. One aspect of his punishment might be to force him to produce several PSAs about the dangers of wagging the dog on his youtube account. Or you could waste the opportunity and throw the dude in jail, almost ensuring he's never a productive member of society again. That's the norm in the "land of the free"[1] [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/incarceration-rates-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/incarcera...
- pandemicsoul 3y ago
  This is an utterly bizarre take. Just because he didn't hurt anyone doesn't mean he couldn't have. He could have started a wildfire, his plane could have crashed into hikers, he could have hurt himself and required a publicly funded rescue effort. It's like you're trying to argue that we shouldn't have rule of law??? This kind of prosecution is in place to create a disincentive to doing things that could threaten life, public property, etc. And anyway, fines only penalize poor people. Someone who can afford to AIRLIFT A PLANE and disassemble it would not be disincentivized by a fine.
  - byyyy 3y ago
    Should someone who runs a car into an empty wall be charged with jail time? No. It's not bizarre at all. The bizarre part here is your stringing of logic to try to transform this into a crime related to murder. First off he crashed the plane deliberately into empty forest. There's no hikers in the place he crashed it, he knows that. Second small planes or cars don't explode in a ball of flames when they crash. That's just movie magic. What actually happens is the car or plane becomes metal debris. That's it. A fire and a crashed car or small plane are completely orthogonal concepts. Might as well arrest people who make bouncing balls because the bouncing ball might accidentally smack the trigger of a gun and kill someone. What's bizarre here is your post says I'm trying to completely eliminate rule of law when I never said that. Why lie straight to my face? What's the point? It's bizarre. You're the one twisting the rationale to fit your convenient narrative. Please be more logical with your reasoning. The punishment should fit the crime. A huge fine and revoke the pilots license. That's it. Ruining his life with jail time does not fit the crime at all. If he's rich, then increase the fine... that simple.
    - ChoGGi 3y ago
      > First off he crashed the plane deliberately into empty forest. There's no hikers in the place he crashed it, he knows that. How? He's in trouble for covering up, not so much what he did.
      - byyyy 3y ago
nirimda 3y ago
Yes it is better to say "he can be sentence to no more than 20 years if found guilty". The 20 years is just a limitation on the court's discretion: hindering a federal investigation is never so bad that a person should be sentenced to life in prison or death or a 32 year term. But it might bad enough that 16 weeks or 30 months or 19 years is appropriate depending on specific facts. And when the court does sentence a person for a certain offense, it should compare the specific facts of the case to the worst possible case, the one that would warrant 20 years, and if this is somewhat less than the worst possible case, then to sentence them to an appropriately shorter term.
lazyant 3y ago
For reference, in Spain, the maximum penalty iirc is 20 years (multiple murders, whatever). (Cunninghaning this one)

by ufmace 3y ago

byyyy 3y ago

The maximum permitted should be zero years. Any jail time for this dumb stunt is overboard. There just needs to be a huge ass fine and revocation of pilots license. I point my car at a wall and drive into it on purpose for views... And suddenly that's a possibility of jail time? That's crazy. There needs to be a minimum number of permitted years when death is involved with clear negligence. Sadly there isn't any our court systems use max permitted years to pick and choose who they can punish. Dumb kid who crashes his plane on purpose versus safety inspector who Actually killed hundreds of people? There is a clear disconnect here.

ngcc_hk 3y ago
There could be people … can start a fire … your wall will not. Also whilst there can be mitigated circumstance you cannot argued for 0 max. There is a crime, there could be danger … 0 max meant anyone officially can do this without consequences?
- byyyy 3y ago
  No thats just Hollywood. In general a crashed car or small plane crumbles on impact. It doesn't explode in a ball of fire. A forest fire is very unlikely here. When you point your car at a wall and drive into that wall you ALSO cannot argue for 0 max danger of death for an innocent bystander. But the probability of a person dying is so low we know there is no danger for murder or death at all. It's just really stupid. Of course there needs to be consequences. A loss of pilots license and a huge ass fine. Jail time is crazy. You know how jail will ruin a person's entire life right? Even a month of jail time is in certain ways hangs on your record like a life sentence. It's too much.
  - vinaypai 3y ago
    You know having a plane crash onto them ran ruin a person's entire life, right?
    - byyyy 3y ago
      But what this have to do with a plane deliberately into an area known to be Devoid of people? Nothing. So why even say this? Makes no sense to me.
      - jameshart 3y ago
        When you get out of a plane that’s still flying you stop having any say in where that plane goes. How certain was he of where it might land? What if he misjudged and the plane had kept going much further than he expected? He had nudged it into a dive… but then he got out, changing the center of gravity of the plane - how did he know that wouldn’t trim the plane’s nose up and send it gliding off well beyond his target?
        byyyy 3y ago
        All good points, except he deliberately crashed it at a specific location. He carried out an action with intention and that intention was fulfilled. You're going into hypotheticals about a possible mistake. I mean when you drive a car everyday you could make a mistake too. It's too fuzzy to go in this direction.
        jameshart 3y ago
        Right, but as a society we have taken the position that we don’t trust people to correctly aim unguided gliding missiles at safe bits of ground. We therefore require pilots to not get out of their plane mid flight. Even if this guy got his calculations right, we don’t hand out licenses to people that say ‘we trust you to do that safely’. This is not an unreasonable regulatory burden impinging on individual freedom.
- troyvit 3y ago
  There are plenty of other consequences to levy besides incarceration. One aspect of his punishment might be to force him to produce several PSAs about the dangers of wagging the dog on his youtube account. Or you could waste the opportunity and throw the dude in jail, almost ensuring he's never a productive member of society again. That's the norm in the "land of the free"[1] [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/incarceration-rates-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/incarcera...
pandemicsoul 3y ago
This is an utterly bizarre take. Just because he didn't hurt anyone doesn't mean he couldn't have. He could have started a wildfire, his plane could have crashed into hikers, he could have hurt himself and required a publicly funded rescue effort. It's like you're trying to argue that we shouldn't have rule of law??? This kind of prosecution is in place to create a disincentive to doing things that could threaten life, public property, etc. And anyway, fines only penalize poor people. Someone who can afford to AIRLIFT A PLANE and disassemble it would not be disincentivized by a fine.
- byyyy 3y ago
  Should someone who runs a car into an empty wall be charged with jail time? No. It's not bizarre at all. The bizarre part here is your stringing of logic to try to transform this into a crime related to murder. First off he crashed the plane deliberately into empty forest. There's no hikers in the place he crashed it, he knows that. Second small planes or cars don't explode in a ball of flames when they crash. That's just movie magic. What actually happens is the car or plane becomes metal debris. That's it. A fire and a crashed car or small plane are completely orthogonal concepts. Might as well arrest people who make bouncing balls because the bouncing ball might accidentally smack the trigger of a gun and kill someone. What's bizarre here is your post says I'm trying to completely eliminate rule of law when I never said that. Why lie straight to my face? What's the point? It's bizarre. You're the one twisting the rationale to fit your convenient narrative. Please be more logical with your reasoning. The punishment should fit the crime. A huge fine and revoke the pilots license. That's it. Ruining his life with jail time does not fit the crime at all. If he's rich, then increase the fine... that simple.
  - ChoGGi 3y ago
    > First off he crashed the plane deliberately into empty forest. There's no hikers in the place he crashed it, he knows that. How? He's in trouble for covering up, not so much what he did.
    - byyyy 3y ago

nirimda 3y ago

Yes it is better to say "he can be sentence to no more than 20 years if found guilty". The 20 years is just a limitation on the court's discretion: hindering a federal investigation is never so bad that a person should be sentenced to life in prison or death or a 32 year term. But it might bad enough that 16 weeks or 30 months or 19 years is appropriate depending on specific facts. And when the court does sentence a person for a certain offense, it should compare the specific facts of the case to the worst possible case, the one that would warrant 20 years, and if this is somewhat less than the worst possible case, then to sentence them to an appropriately shorter term.

lazyant 3y ago

For reference, in Spain, the maximum penalty iirc is 20 years (multiple murders, whatever). (Cunninghaning this one)