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Can anyone give a reasonable argument for why mail fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years? That seems ludicrous in the extreme. Why does mail fraud incu
by redthrowaway 14y ago
Can anyone give a reasonable argument for why mail fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years? That seems ludicrous in the extreme. Why does mail fraud incur a greater penalty than rape, kidnapping, and most forms of murder?
- Tipzntrix 14y agoIANAL, but don't those have a maximum of life (25 years)? To threaten defendants, they also stack each single charge one on top of each other to make 5 cases look like a maximum of 125 years too.
- rmah 14y agoMaybe compared to what Europe sentences murderers. But in NY State, 2nd degree murder is 25 to life and 1st degree is life.
- tptacek 14y agoBecause mail fraud cases address a very large spectrum of actual crimes. The typical sentence for a mail fraud case is 21 months; there exists a very large number of aggravating factors that increase mail fraud sentences, including the scale of the operation (if you mass-mail to perpetrate fraud, you'll do more time), the sophistication of the victims (if you try to defraud fixed-income seniors, you'll do more time), sophisticated attempts to conceal your activities to avoid investigators, if you react to investigation by trying to move your whole operation out of US jurisdiction, if you damage the solvency of a bank, things like that. People fixate on the maximum sentences when they should focus instead on the minimums (here, 10 months). Just by nature of what "mail fraud" investigations represent, you're bound to get wild swings from case to case.
- seacond 14y agoMaybe they fixate on maximums because those are what are used plea bargaining? Would you leave the possibility of 20 years in a federal prison (no matter how remote) to chance?