Please tell me you are kidding.
This was a 9-0 decision so the conservative justices joined in.......
Can someone somehow explain the legal reasoning behind this. How this critter is not guilty of stealing someones SS number? Thanks!
I just cannot see it!
Did Scalia write the majority opinion?
Freudian slip or plain dumb?
Stolen Identity factory?
The Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that an illegal immigrant who used stolen documents to work is not guilty of identity theft because he didn’t know the information belonged to another person.
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“he didn’t know the information belonged to another person”
Okaaaaay
More details from the NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/us/05immig.html?_r=0
The question in the case was whether workers who use fake identification numbers to commit some other crimes must know they belong to a real person to be subject to a two-year sentence extension for “aggravated identity theft.”
The answer, the Supreme Court said, is yes.
Prosecutors had used the threat of that punishment to persuade illegal workers to plead guilty to lesser charges of document fraud.
“The court’s ruling preserves basic ideals of fairness for some of our society’s most vulnerable workers,” said Chuck Roth, litigation director at the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago. “An immigrant who uses a false Social Security number to get a job doesn’t intend to harm anyone, and it makes no sense to spend our tax dollars to imprison them for two years.”
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said in a concurring opinion that a central flaw in the interpretation of the law urged by the government was that it made criminal liability turn on chance. Consider, Justice Alito said, a defendant who chooses a Social Security number at random.
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An old decision with current ramifications.
And one wonders why the reputation of the law, lawyers, and supreme court jesters...er...judges has sunk to such a low that even sewage has to descend to attain the same level.
The fix is in.
In its 18-page decision the court says that the crime of identity theft is limited to those who actually know they stole someone else’s information.
Good decision.
http://www.wnd.com/2009/02/89839/
Flores-Figueroa claims he is not at fault because he “had no intention of stealing anyone’s identity” when he purchased numbers from a person in Chicago who sells sham IDs.
So, with Kevin Russell of Howe & Russell representing him, the illegal alien took his case to the Supreme Court.
On Wednesday, in Flores-Figueroa v. United States, the court will hear arguments on whether an illegal alien who fraudulently uses identification can be charged under the statute without proof that he knew the ID was stolen.
An estimated 8 million U.S. citizens become victims of identity theft every year. The case could protect illegal aliens from prosecution if the Supreme Court rules they cannot be charged under the federal statute unless prosecutors can prove they knew their fraudulent IDs belonged to American citizens.
Acting Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler wrote in the brief that the federal statute is meant to “provide enhanced protection” for victims of identity theft.
“The harm the victim suffers when her identity is so misused bears no necessary relationship to the perpetrator’s awareness of her existence,” he wrote.
Los Angeles attorney Stephen Masterson supported Kneedler’s position, stating that the question of whether an illegal alien knows he
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2009/02/89839/#BAEydkEU8hX6qHZ3.99
This has to be the most stupid ruling yet. The perp KNEW that the ID didn’t belong to him. What else do you need to prove?
First of all, what the heck 'Illinois steal plant'?
Secondly, he 'bought' an SSN, but did not know it belonged to somebody else. WHO BUYS AN SSN? Another WTF moment.
The ruling limits the crime of 'identity theft' to somebody knowingly steal another's identity is a good one. (Don't flame me!) Otherwise, it opens up a $%^& can down the road.
The headline is misleading. This is an issue of whether certain crimes require intent. If you use “John Smith” as your fake ID name, have you stolen the identity of the thousands of real “John Smiths” who live in America? The Supreme Court said no.
America is addicted to slave labor. In Europe, no such easy cheap labor is available, so innovations in automation have advanced there, such as robot/machine fruit picking, which is becoming widespread. Illegal immigration stifles innovation here at home.
A lot of posters are arguing factual questions here. The Supreme Court does not argue facts. The facts were stipulated to in the briefs. And here, the stipulated fact was that the criminal did NOT know he was using a real person’s ID.
Where the heck did they think the info came from, the ID fairy? Oh, wait ... Breyer ...
So according to this, the SC believes that this guy didn’t understand that the SS# he bought really belonged to someone else, after having used a previous fake name and SS#.
I have a bridge to sell them.
Next, who the hell writes our freaking laws so that you must prove that the thief knew it belonged to someone else? You cannot purchase a legitimate SS# here, you are assigned one.
Shoot, next thing you know, this dude is going to be elected to the Presidency.
STEAL plant?
Freudian slip?