Posted on 02/18/2006 1:46:55 PM PST by freepatriot32
Here's a question for you: Can you get through 24 hours without breaking a law? Before you answer, consider:
In January, an Atlanta man was arrested and handcuffed for selling a subway token at face value. Donald Pirone observed another passenger having difficulty with a token vending machine, so he gave him a $1.75 token. After the man insisted on paying him, Pirone was cited by a transit officer for a misdemeanor, since state law prohibits selling tokens -- even at face value. A MARTA spokesperson denied that handcuffing a customer for helping another customer was excessive. "There are customer service phones for people who are having trouble getting tokens out of the machine," she said.
Meanwhile, in late 2005, an Ohio man spent three days in jail because he didn't put identification tags on his family's pet turtles and snakes. Terry Wilkins broke a state law requiring owners of native reptiles to tag them with a PIT (personal-integrated transponder). The tags, which are the size of a grain of rice and can be inserted under the animal's skin, contain a bar code readable by a scanner. Wilkins refused to tag the animals because he said PIT tags cause health problems in small reptiles.
It goes on. In Kentucky, Larry Casteel was arrested for not attending a parenting class for divorcing parents, as mandated by state law. He spent the night in jail. In New Jersey, police are giving tickets to people who leave their cars running for more than three minutes in store parking lots. Stopwatch-wielding police hit the offenders with a $200 fine for violating the state's anti-idling law. In northwest Georgia, 49 convenience store owners were arrested for selling legal products to customers. The owners -- mostly of Indian background -- sold cold medicine, baking soda, table salt, matches, and lantern fuel. Police said the ingredients could be used to make methamphetamine. In Burlington, Vermont, police are ticketing people for not removing keys from the ignition and locking their cars. Police said the state law prevents car thefts. Violators are fined $79.
So -- are you still sure you can get through a day without violating a law? If so, don't worry. Legislators are making more things illegal. In New York City, a city council member wants to make it a crime to ride a bike without a registration number tag. Violators would face up to 15 days imprisonment. In Illinois, a state senator wants to make it a crime not to have a carbon monoxide detector installed in your home. In Pennsylvania, a state senator filed a bill to allow police to fine drivers $75 if they don't clean snow off their car. In Virginia, a state legislator wants to make it illegal to show your underwear in public. Girls (or boys) with low-rider pants would get hit with a $50 fine if their thongs show.
Novelist Ayn Rand once wrote: "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws."
Have we reached that point? Is it impossible to live without breaking laws? Before you answer, better check to make sure that your pets have transponder tags, that you didn't leave the keys in your car, and that your underwear is not showing.
Sources:
MARTA token: http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=1390140 Pet TIPs: http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/13309603.htm Parenting class: http://www.reason.com/brickbats/bb-2005.shtml NJ anti-idling law: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060108/LIVING/601080331/1004/LIVING&theme=
VT locked cars: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060108/LIVING/601080331/1004/LIVING&theme= Convenience store: http://www.iacfpa.org/p_news/nit/iacpa-archieve/2005/08/19/civil2-19082995.html NY bikes: http://ridl.us/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=4889&sid=7bad222acdd8dc2f133555e0e62b5f34 CO2 detector: http://www.pioneerlocal.com/cgi-bin/ppo-story/localnews/current/ba/01-19-06-807026.html PA snow: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/08/874.asp VA underwear: http://www.timesdispatch.com/
If you think that the idea of nine appointed judges being able to thwart the will of the majority is bad, think about the idea of twelve randomly selected citizens being able to do the exact same thing.>>>>>>>>>
I understand the point but I would rather trust twelve randomly selected citizens, and no jury is ever truly "randomly" selected, than to trust nine appointed judges if five of them have been appointed by someone who selected the judges for their known inclination to legislate from the bench rather than following the constitution. Some of the scotus decisions are frightening and I hope that recent appointments by President Bush will change the trend.
Maybe it's time we selected jurors based on the ability to reason, not the ability to be led around.>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sounds great but the pool would be limited, you might be one of those called for jury duty every month!
OMG that is ridiculous. It looks like these municipalities are trying to make money the easiest way possible.>>>>>>>
Hit don't jist look that there way lady, I done told Doc that there is the way hit is, dang it!
Well said. Too Long for a tagline, but with some editing...
ping
ping
If a judge decides to drop a juror, there is absolutely nothing that either side can do about it. They don't get to know why the juror dropped, either. If the judge decides not to dismiss the juror, then there still won't be a contradictory hearing on the matter. The judge has already decided that the juror is staying.
As for being able to write or not write stuff, it depends on the court. Some judges allow it, some don't, some even provide pen and paper to the jurors.
Heh. You just described how jury selection works now, almost exactly. Only the numbers are different. The no-questions-asked strikes are called "peremptory challenges." You can also get a juror stricken if there's a compelling reason: this is called "challenge for cause."
Yeah, Penn was exactly the case I was thinking about. Thanks for joining in!
Yeah, I saw your earlier post on that. I would tend to concur that the circumstances surrounding it are weird, especially in terms of the way the Supreme Court works today. However, The initial Supreme Courts understood the precarious position upon which they stood. There were some proceedings that occurred in the very early years that have not been repeated since. I think this is mainly because they saw (wisely IMO) that certain basic principles needed to be set down initially. For instance, the decision to incorporate the English Common Law into our jurisprudence was brilliant. There was much snickering about Arlen Spector referring to Scottish law in his vote on Clinton's impeachment, but the fact is, the precidents that exist in Scottish common law extend to our own. (Arlen's vote was nonetheless idiotic.) I think the case in question is exactly one of those incidents. Unfortunately, I don't have access at the moment to resources that would pin it down further.
Regardless of its accuracy, I still feel very strongly that the principles behind jury nullification are very important to the continued health of our Republic. That's not to say that I agree with what apparently happened in the OJ trial, where it appeared (to me anyway) that the fact that he was a black celebrity let him get away with murder. I think all rational folk can agree that murder a crime and should be dealt with strongly. Other crimes, primarily victimless ones are more grey than black and white, and I feel are fair game to a concerned citizenry to make sure they aren't injudiciously (no pun intended) employed against the people. Someone earlier on the thread said he could not vote to convict in the context of a "gun crime". I'd have to wholeheartedly agree with him, as I think all anti-gun laws are an anathema to a free Republic of free men.
We can disagree one way or the other, but nonetheless, I've enjoyed reading this thread immensely.
Well, it made sense to use English Common Law because we were used to using it. Hell, up until the Revolution, we still considered ourselves Englishmen. And in fact, the whole "no taxation without representation" thing referred to the Crown denying us our rights as Englishmen. The Revolution wasn't a rejection of all things British; it was an attempt to make us what we were supposed to be all along. Britain 2.0, if you will.
Regardless of its accuracy, I still feel very strongly that the principles behind jury nullification are very important to the continued health of our Republic. That's not to say that I agree with what apparently happened in the OJ trial, where it appeared (to me anyway) that the fact that he was a black celebrity let him get away with murder.
My studies of that case reveal that nothing actually went wrong. The prosecution was sloppy and Johnny Cochrane was a good lawyer. He ran a textbook case-in-chief defense: he prodded the prosecution's case with his shucking knife, poke poke poke, looking for a weak point. When he found one, he jammed his knife in as hard as he could and twisted. The proverbial oyster popped right open.
I think all rational folk can agree that murder a crime and should be dealt with strongly. Other crimes, primarily victimless ones are more grey than black and white, and I feel are fair game to a concerned citizenry to make sure they aren't injudiciously (no pun intended) employed against the people. Someone earlier on the thread said he could not vote to convict in the context of a "gun crime". I'd have to wholeheartedly agree with him, as I think all anti-gun laws are an anathema to a free Republic of free men.
If a jury disagrees with a law on principle, they can simply find the defendant not guilty of committing it. Enabling them to annihilate a law altogether subverts the principle of representative government. Making and eliminating laws is the legislature's job, with some tinkering by the judiciary, thanks to the whole "Constitutional government" thing.
We can disagree one way or the other, but nonetheless, I've enjoyed reading this thread immensely.
Hooray! This is how political speech is supposed to be.
I thought under the current system people were allowed to use their peremptory challenges on individual jurors, rather than on groups.
If one starts with a pool of 18 jurors and gives three peremptory challenges to each counsel, I would suggest the composition of the jury will look less like the community at large than if there are eight half-juries and each counsel strikes three of them. Even though in the latter case, counsel would be striking a larger percentage of the jury pool, the composition of each half-juries would likely be closer to the norm than the stance of any individual juror.
For example, suppose that the jury pool was 15% black. In a pool of 18 jurors, there's a 72% chance that there would be three or fewer blacks in the pool, thus allowing their complete elimination. By contrast, because 62% of the 6-person half-juries would have at least one black, there would be about a 64% chance that at least four of the them would have at least one black; three peremptory challenges would not suffice for eliminating all of them.
Even though in the former case each lawyer strikes 1/6 of the pool is eliminated while in the latter case each lawyer strikes 3/8, the latter approach would allow much less alteration of jury composition.
I agree. My belief is simple. No Victim No Crime.
Have we reached that point?
Yes. We have.
The author completely ignores the plethora of nanny-state federal regulations we are violating every day. Ever read the fine print on the labels of cleaning products?
It is a violation of federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling.
Wanna bet you haven't broken that one recently?
Other examples are plentiful.
But you are the man!
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