3 ms·

The American system of piling up charges sucks so hard because it's so easily abused, especially when you live in a country where anyone commits 3 felonies a da

The American system of piling up charges sucks so hard because it's so easily abused, especially when you live in a country where anyone commits 3 felonies a day [1] due to shitty and complex law. When things have gotten so bad, Americans should take example from other countries and only count the biggest charge when sentencing someone to prison. Minimum sentences + abusive plea bargains don't help the current system either (they do help vengeful government tax-paid employees, though, in destroying the life of anyone they wish). [1] - http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.aspx http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.asp...

maxerickson 12y ago
"3 felonies a day" is more of a marketing tagline for a book than it is any sort of meaningful fact. edit: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22530/does-the-average-american-unwittingly-commit-three-felonies-a-day http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22530/does-the-a...
- pixl97 12y ago
  And yet, if you've ever seen the charges the feds put against people it's not out of line. Lets say you commit one drug felony (transportation for example). Lets say you drive within 1000 feet of 3 schools and pass by a school bus going from point A to point B. Now you have 5 felony charges. What's worse is they will lie to you about the charges, for example if school zone violations are only an enhancement charge, they will put it as a separate charge forcing your lawyer to sift through the paperwork and find faults with them (agents don't get penalized for improper paperwork).
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    I can think the book is awful at the same time I think that sentencing in the US is probably a mess (I say probably because I'm not a careful observer of it). The book claims "How can the average American commit three arguable felonies in the course of a given day?". Yet your example of charge stacking is contingent on carrying a felonious amount of drugs, something the average (mean, median and mode!) American avoids doing. If you click to the website provided above, the first example is of someone "convicted for using plastic bags to transport lobsters". If you look up the case, they were convicted of criminal conspiracy and smuggling, with the horrible plastic bag charge being stacked on: http://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2000/November/647enrd.htm http://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2000/November/647enrd.... And the plastic bag charge isn't about the plastic bags, it's about Honduras having laws designed to protect their lobster fisheries from abusive exports (fisheries are harmed by over harvesting, but someone looking to make near term profits might not care about that, so regulation is sensible).
    - msandford 12y ago
      > Yet your example of charge stacking is contingent on carrying a felonious amount of drugs It's incredibly easy as the felony amounts have been made very small. Further, the police generally weigh the container the drugs were/are in so if you have a plastic container that weighs 1 ounce, prettymuch no matter the quantity of drugs inside it's a felony. Also, the estimated number or drug users is 23.9 million Americans as of 2012. While that might mean that the "average" American isn't a drug user, it does mean that there are more drug users than say Asians in the US and a very large percentage of the Black or Hispanic/Latino populations. By your logic, we shouldn't worry about those folks because they aren't the average american (mean, median, mode) and yet the civil rights movement arguably disagrees with you. Furthermore, when it comes to convictions the average American isn't a felon, won't ever go before the court, etc. And yet we offer these people protections (various Amendments to the Constitution, various Federal, State and local laws, Miranda rights, etc) even though they're not average as per your definition. Given that the justice system is setup the way it is, your casual dismissal of it seems strange. EDIT: links http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-trends http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-t... http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/demographic.html http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/demographic.html
      - maxerickson 12y ago
        My argument is that a particular statement is not backed up by the book it is used to sell. You've twisted that pretty far to end up with the opportunity to moralize at me. My logic isn't that we should ignore sentencing problems in the US, my logic is that bringing bullshit book marketing into the discussion is counter productive. I'd be interested in exactly which of my statements you view as a casual dismissal of the problems with the justice system. I said The book claims "How can the average American commit three arguable felonies in the course of a given day?". Yet your example of charge stacking is contingent on carrying a felonious amount of drugs, something the average (mean, median and mode!) American avoids doing., but that wasn't to dismiss anything about the sentencing in those situations, it was to point out that you probably don't want to argue the blurb from the book if you are having a discussion about drug sentencing.
- Spooky23 12y ago
  That link is a "worst of" for Stack Exchange. Most of the answers there are from people who admittedly didn't read the book, and are really bad. If you read the book, the source of the "3 felonies a day" claim, is mostly related to the "honest services" laws, which were narrowed in scope somewhat by the Supreme Court after the book was published. If a prosecutor were to very liberally apply the "honest services" law, typical white lies like calling in sick to work when you're not sick or screwing around on the internet can be elevated to felony status. Another key area supporting the claim is that participating in a transaction where a foreign law was broken is also a felony. I believe the (absurd/bizarre) prototype for this was somebody charged with a felony for possessing warm-water lobsters that were inappropriately packages according to the law of some central american country. (I believe they were in wax paper instead of plastic) The point was that ordinary people in the ordinary course of business and life can be subject to extraordinary punishments for vaguely defined crime. That means that you're freedom is subject to the whims of an all-powerful prosecutor, which is contrary to generally accepted notions of justice and democracy.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    They were convicted of conspiracy after 5 years of lobster smuggling, the transport laws were tacked on (and not necessarily ridiculous), see my other comment. The book reaches super hard to make the argument that we have too many laws. It would do better to simply make the argument that we have too many laws. It's also the case that the injustice in the US system is not aimed primarily at lobster smugglers and dumb lawyers (two of examples cited at the link). The point of linking that worst of stack exchange is that you don't even have to read the book to eviscerate the factertisement, so it's not really a great "fact" to introduce into a discussion. edit: corrected 10 years to 5 years.
    - Spooky23 12y ago
      The fluffy marketing distracts from the content if you don't read the book. Putting "you can go to jail for not providing honest services" isn't very catchy. The stack exchange link is a personification of "Don't judge a book by it's cover". The argument of the book is that we have too many vague laws, some of which are nearly meaningless to a lay person. If you're familiar with how the various computer crime statutes are enforced, I think it is difficult to question that assertion. The other aspect of the book to consider is that your typical middle class working person doesn't see the overreach in things like drug laws as something relevant to them. It's a wake-up call that the fundamental injustice that has been a way of life for the poor and minority community is expanding.

maxerickson 12y ago

"3 felonies a day" is more of a marketing tagline for a book than it is any sort of meaningful fact. edit: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22530/does-the-average-american-unwittingly-commit-three-felonies-a-day http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/22530/does-the-a...

pixl97 12y ago
And yet, if you've ever seen the charges the feds put against people it's not out of line. Lets say you commit one drug felony (transportation for example). Lets say you drive within 1000 feet of 3 schools and pass by a school bus going from point A to point B. Now you have 5 felony charges. What's worse is they will lie to you about the charges, for example if school zone violations are only an enhancement charge, they will put it as a separate charge forcing your lawyer to sift through the paperwork and find faults with them (agents don't get penalized for improper paperwork).
- maxerickson 12y ago
  I can think the book is awful at the same time I think that sentencing in the US is probably a mess (I say probably because I'm not a careful observer of it). The book claims "How can the average American commit three arguable felonies in the course of a given day?". Yet your example of charge stacking is contingent on carrying a felonious amount of drugs, something the average (mean, median and mode!) American avoids doing. If you click to the website provided above, the first example is of someone "convicted for using plastic bags to transport lobsters". If you look up the case, they were convicted of criminal conspiracy and smuggling, with the horrible plastic bag charge being stacked on: http://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2000/November/647enrd.htm http://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2000/November/647enrd.... And the plastic bag charge isn't about the plastic bags, it's about Honduras having laws designed to protect their lobster fisheries from abusive exports (fisheries are harmed by over harvesting, but someone looking to make near term profits might not care about that, so regulation is sensible).
  - msandford 12y ago
    > Yet your example of charge stacking is contingent on carrying a felonious amount of drugs It's incredibly easy as the felony amounts have been made very small. Further, the police generally weigh the container the drugs were/are in so if you have a plastic container that weighs 1 ounce, prettymuch no matter the quantity of drugs inside it's a felony. Also, the estimated number or drug users is 23.9 million Americans as of 2012. While that might mean that the "average" American isn't a drug user, it does mean that there are more drug users than say Asians in the US and a very large percentage of the Black or Hispanic/Latino populations. By your logic, we shouldn't worry about those folks because they aren't the average american (mean, median, mode) and yet the civil rights movement arguably disagrees with you. Furthermore, when it comes to convictions the average American isn't a felon, won't ever go before the court, etc. And yet we offer these people protections (various Amendments to the Constitution, various Federal, State and local laws, Miranda rights, etc) even though they're not average as per your definition. Given that the justice system is setup the way it is, your casual dismissal of it seems strange. EDIT: links http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-trends http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-t... http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/demographic.html http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/demographic.html
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      My argument is that a particular statement is not backed up by the book it is used to sell. You've twisted that pretty far to end up with the opportunity to moralize at me. My logic isn't that we should ignore sentencing problems in the US, my logic is that bringing bullshit book marketing into the discussion is counter productive. I'd be interested in exactly which of my statements you view as a casual dismissal of the problems with the justice system. I said The book claims "How can the average American commit three arguable felonies in the course of a given day?". Yet your example of charge stacking is contingent on carrying a felonious amount of drugs, something the average (mean, median and mode!) American avoids doing., but that wasn't to dismiss anything about the sentencing in those situations, it was to point out that you probably don't want to argue the blurb from the book if you are having a discussion about drug sentencing.
Spooky23 12y ago
That link is a "worst of" for Stack Exchange. Most of the answers there are from people who admittedly didn't read the book, and are really bad. If you read the book, the source of the "3 felonies a day" claim, is mostly related to the "honest services" laws, which were narrowed in scope somewhat by the Supreme Court after the book was published. If a prosecutor were to very liberally apply the "honest services" law, typical white lies like calling in sick to work when you're not sick or screwing around on the internet can be elevated to felony status. Another key area supporting the claim is that participating in a transaction where a foreign law was broken is also a felony. I believe the (absurd/bizarre) prototype for this was somebody charged with a felony for possessing warm-water lobsters that were inappropriately packages according to the law of some central american country. (I believe they were in wax paper instead of plastic) The point was that ordinary people in the ordinary course of business and life can be subject to extraordinary punishments for vaguely defined crime. That means that you're freedom is subject to the whims of an all-powerful prosecutor, which is contrary to generally accepted notions of justice and democracy.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  They were convicted of conspiracy after 5 years of lobster smuggling, the transport laws were tacked on (and not necessarily ridiculous), see my other comment. The book reaches super hard to make the argument that we have too many laws. It would do better to simply make the argument that we have too many laws. It's also the case that the injustice in the US system is not aimed primarily at lobster smugglers and dumb lawyers (two of examples cited at the link). The point of linking that worst of stack exchange is that you don't even have to read the book to eviscerate the factertisement, so it's not really a great "fact" to introduce into a discussion. edit: corrected 10 years to 5 years.
  - Spooky23 12y ago
    The fluffy marketing distracts from the content if you don't read the book. Putting "you can go to jail for not providing honest services" isn't very catchy. The stack exchange link is a personification of "Don't judge a book by it's cover". The argument of the book is that we have too many vague laws, some of which are nearly meaningless to a lay person. If you're familiar with how the various computer crime statutes are enforced, I think it is difficult to question that assertion. The other aspect of the book to consider is that your typical middle class working person doesn't see the overreach in things like drug laws as something relevant to them. It's a wake-up call that the fundamental injustice that has been a way of life for the poor and minority community is expanding.