Posted on 01/25/2012 3:07:26 PM PST by The KG9 Kid
A New Mexico man who said he was forced to pull his own tooth while in solitary confinement because he was denied access to a dentist has been awarded $22 million due to inhumane treatment by New Mexico's Dona Ana County Jail.
Stephen Slevin was arrested in August of 2005 for driving while intoxicated, then thrown in jail for two years. He was in solitary at Dona Ana County Jail for his entire sentence and basically forgotten about and never given a trial, he told NBC station KOB.com Tuesday night.
"'[Jail guards were] walking by me every day, watching me deteriorate," Slevin said. "Day after day after day, they did nothing, nothing at all, to get me any help."
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.msnbc.msn.com ...
Name for me some sort of criminal offense other than DWI where:
1) a person accused is guilty until proven innocent;
2) the accused is compelled to provide evidence and testify against themselves;
3) the accused is forced to submit to warrantless searches and seizures;
4) the accused is punished multiple times by different agencies;
5) assets and belongings of the accused are seized and sold by the offended governmental entity long before the accused stands before a judge;
6) there is no obligation for the offended government entity to preserve evidence for independent testing;
7) the arresting LEO is not obligated to tell the offender that they are under arrest;
8) law enforcement personnel not trained or certified in medical procedures can, in some jurisdictions, strap the accused down and extract bodily fluids for any or no reason, and finally;
9) in an ever-increasing number of jurisdictions, there is no right to a trial by jury.
There are numerous other things involving this hysteria being used as an excuse to stop everybody on the road, go through their stuff looking for contraband and motor vehicle violations, tailoring the cost of the many punishments to the offender's income, etc. but I don't want to bore everybody.
Go ahead, give me a single other "crime" where all of the above applies - I guess other than the ubiquitous and all-emcompassing crime of "terrorism".
This is exactly the problem - there are now SO many laws on the books that you can be targeted for anything. This is what tyranny is all about, the ability for those in power to target political opponents via legal means. In the face of that most people will just keep silent, afraid that any one of the thousands of laws can be used against you. Think EPA, think tax law, think any one of these thousand (literally) of regulations.
Defending yourself against a false charge will break you financially in lawyers fees. And anyone defending the police state is just plain naive - unaware of the new socialist America we now live in.
Also I believe there is a huge difference between violent and non-violent criminals. Putting non-violent people in with the violent types is just going to make the non-violent offender into the violent type. That is just crazy.
To make the point - I remember a kid in high school who got caught shoplifting (he was young and stupid, but otherwise a good kid). His father let the police put him in jail overnight. The next day they found out that he’d been raped by a violent inmate and had his arm broken. He went from a kid who had a chance to a violent nutjob. And the guards obviously let it happen. Is this what we want?
What happened to the country the founders imagined? If we defend a criminal government of elitist thugs like Obama, etc. we will be nothing more than cattle to those who control us. And we will have given our children a police state.
The legal difference between a felony and a misdemeanor IIRC is that you cannot be jailed for over a year on a misdemeanor.
Many many non-violent crimes are felonies these days.
How many in federal or state prison are there for actual violent crimes?
I am of the opinion that we have been played for fools by the globalists. They get us to set up all sorts of laws that basically suspend the constitution under the mask of patriotism. Often saying it is to fight drugs or terrorism. And in the end they spring the trap closed and those same laws are used to disarm and silence good solid conservatives.
They are playing chess, and we are playing checkers.
Sadly, I believe they are using our patriotism against us. I look at candidates in only one way now - those who stand for the sovereign power of the United States of America and it’s constitution, and who those who are for giving more power to a global “coalition” that destroys our borders, our rights and will bankrupt us - making us serfs to the IMF and other central banking interests.
It is dangerous to be naive in these dangerous times. We need to look through all of this political nonsense and not just come running when they wrap up their socialism in the red, white and blue.
I don’t want to see the day when the globalists say checkmate, and we never saw it coming.
He apparently suffered from depression and was not given medication and withdrew further (plus extended solitary confinement is mentally debilitating - I once worked in corrections). Finally he was sent to a state mental health facility for an assessment and the story came out.
This guy will never be the same.
My error. I should always check a poster’s handle before responding. Sometimes I fire too quickly
‘Non violent’ crime includes felonious robbery....should they be allowed a free pass.
Three quarters of a million are jailed under the term violent crimes....nearly three times those jailed under felonious drug crimes
How many are in there for violent misdemeanors? Almost everyone there is a felon of one sort or another - I just wanted to point out that the number stated wasn't the one asked for - violent vs nonviolent crime.
I am more from the “hang em’ and hang em’ high” school as far as my opinion on crime. But 2 years nonjudicial confinement for a DUI arrest is abhorrent to our liberty that should be recognized by our law as it is acknowledged in our Constitution.
I gave you the break down.....~750,000 violent ~ 250,000 non violent with ~237,000 listed as drug related. That is what the count of incarcerated criminals in 2009 was in the US. That does not included anyone in a local jail....only those in prison
Thanks!
As a defense attorney I can tell you that a lot of people are in prison for illegally carrying a firearm or simple drug possession.
There are just too many laws.
We need to keep it simple and lock up people for dangerous crimes like robbery, sexual assault, etc.
And what about bank robberies? Or grand theft?
I don’t consider drug offenses to be crimes.
I consider them to be resistance and civil disobedience to the police state and busybody legislation.
While 80-90% of murderers and bank robbers are rightly caught, if everyone who smoked a joint were caught, the prisons would have 10 times as many. Therefore drug laws are merely an unnecessary annoyance.
/thread hijack
Agreed. This story is an outrage. Even 22 million won't put this man back together again.
Gladly spend two years in solitary not knowing you were ever going to get out let alone any financial settlement? When you have to pull your own teeth you are probably thinking they are going to let you die in there. Sounds like he spent two years in hell.
(the sound of crickets - a long time after the post.)
I guess you will be voting for Ron Paul with the rest of the bots
Nope. I’m also a paleo-neo-con :-)
I believe the federal government has a role in the world.
It just doesn’t have a role in our bloodstreams. Neither did the Founding Fathers.
The crusades against drugs and prostitution began in the 1880s after Reconstruction and the churches looked for other causes besides anti-slavery. They got nowhere because they did not have the numbers and government was not empowered to do what they wanted. But around 1912, the Progressives who wanted but also lacked the numbers to take “reform” and regulation beyond the Constitution united with the churches and combined their issues to push through Prohibition and later the New Deal that turned the Constitution on its head. Both sides had a desire and goal of controlling those who did not agree and together they have been a majority ever since. Splitting them is essential to restoring Liberty. Where there is liberty, people do wrong. But you need to learn that where it is to themselves it is not government’s business. Being unproductive is not the government’s business. But now you have the left using government power to promote it and the right using government power to discourage it and both using a lot of resources accomplishing nothing.
And if drug and alcohol use never effected anyone but the user it would be wonderful. Just like the speeder or the robber or any other criminal, their actions impinge on other peoples rights and liberty.....
You mean “affect”, not “effect”.
And if “affecting” something is the criteria for regulation, then you have justified totalitarianism because everything “affects” everything else.
The slippery slope of the Interstate Commerce Clause to encompass everything that “affects” interstate commerce, as claimed by the Supreme Court in Wickard v Filburn (1942), is exactly what has led to all federal regulation, as well as the “War on Drugs”, the war on smoking, the war on fat and on and on.
You cannot subscribe to the regulation of secondary “effects” and be a “conservative” of any kind.
When these are left to states, you have the freedom to pick your poison by where you live without being obliged to leave the country or, indeed, be chased by American law enforcement in other countries for things you do that are legal there and have our government pressure them to change their laws.
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