Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Our Justice System is corrupted. Guilt or innocence is not important. What is important for the prosecutors is convictions. Here is an example: 

“We now have an incredible concentration of power in the hands of prosecutors,” said Richard E. Myers II, a former assistant United States attorney who is now an associate professor of law at the University of North Carolina. He said that so much influence now resides with prosecutors that “in the wrong hands, the criminal justice system can be held hostage.”

How does this work?  

Cases like Florida v. Shane Guthrie help explain why. After Mr. Guthrie, 24, was arrested here last year, accused of beating his girlfriend and threatening her with a knife, the prosecutor offered him a deal for two years in prison plus probation.

Mr. Guthrie rejected that, and a later offer of five years, because he believed that he was not guilty, his lawyer said. But the prosecutor’s response was severe: he filed a more serious charge that would mean life imprisonment if Mr. Guthrie is convicted later this year.

Because of a state law that increased punishments for people who had recently been in prison, like Mr. Guthrie, the sentence would be mandatory. So what he could have resolved for a two-year term could keep him locked up for 50 years or more.

Of course I have no idea if Guthrie is guilty or not. But let’s say for the sake of a discussion that he is innocent. He knows that if he pleads guilty he gets 2 years. If he fights the system, and loses, he gets 50. When you enter a court room the outcome is not known or knowable. I have been to court a few times and have never been able to predict the outcome.  A prison alumni is not going take the risk. He really has no choice, as guilt or innocence is not important. Even if he has a 90% chance of acquittal, he should take the deal. Looking at it purely from a game theory perspective you get this: 10% of 50 years is 5 years, or twice the plea agreement. 

Surely this is rare?

“How many times is a mandatory sentence used as a chip in order to coerce a plea? They don’t keep records,” said Senior Judge John L. Kane Jr. of United States District Court in Denver, who believes that prosecutors have grown more powerful than judges. But it is very common, he added. “That’s what the public doesn’t see, and where the statistics become meaningless.” 

I think we often do not care what happens to these people. Neither Mr. Guthrie nor his girlfriend are sympathetic figures. The jury may feel that they are safer with this kind of man in jail, and they may be right. Justice takes a back seat—I am not sure it is even in the same car anymore. 

I remember the one time I visited someone in prison. He was really the only person I ever knew who went. (Apart from a guy I would not visit who tried to make a fertilizer bomb.) Often the authorities make it difficult to visit someone by purposefully incarcerating him far away from his friends and family. The trip to see him was several hours. I forget why he was there, but I do remember the second time he was in prison. He got three years for driving without car insurance. 

Lew Rockwell tells us the fate of such people: 

What happens then? Your loved ones cry. They try to move close by to where you are holed up, typically several states away. They are bankrupted and ruined. And what of your coworkers, your friends, your social set? They might want to help. They might feel bad for you. But the fact is that you pleaded guilty, and you have not even a chance to tell your side of the story. For all anyone knows, you got exactly what you deserved. So they do the only thing they can do: they forget about you. 

Matthew 25 tells us about how we as Christian should act.  

⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

   ⁴⁴ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

   ⁴⁵ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

   ⁴⁶ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. 

I think that most Christians are lacking in this area. We tend to be the "put them in prison and throw away the key" types. 

 I used to reason that a man was innocent until proven guilty. Now, I am not so sure-with Babylon the Great guilt and innocence lose their meaning.

Kung Fu Fighting

This is the beginning of a three part series on our western justice system. Did you know that in Canada Britain it is a crime to sing "Kung Fu Fighting"? 

Mark Steyn on Free Speech at the IPA from Institute of Public Affairs on Vimeo.

Should this be illegal? 

Is It True What They Say About Ann?

Is Ann Coulter Anti-Semitic?

A few years ago, Ann Coulter shocked (what a surprise!) her interviewer, TV host Donny Deutsch. She suggested that Jews should become Christian, that to do so was to perfect themselves. Deutsch was not at all pleased and accused Coulter of being an Anti-Semite.

For the full details follow the link--

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,301216,00.html

The whole point of the New Testament is that “Jesus is the way.”

John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Thus for a Christian, there is no access to God apart from Jesus. How can pointing that out be such a terrible thing? My guess is that Deutsch may not understand the exclusive claims made by Jesus and the New Testament. Why wouldn't a follower of a religion advocate that religion?

Most religions make mutually exclusive statements. If Christianity is "true" then Buddhism cannot be. I think one thing that may be going on has to do with the “afterlife.” If, as most Christians claim to believe, when non-Christians die they go immediately to be tortured forever in an ever-burning Hell, then one could see that this exclusiveness is a bit of a problem—logically speaking. But if the dead sleep until the Judgment, and that Judgment implies an opportunity for salvation, then it looks a little different.

Pam Dewey in her blog, nondante, discusses this issue with reference to the ultimate fate of Ann Frank. 

Pam has also written an ebook on hell. Is it true what they say about Hell?

Hell no, Ann is not Anti-Semitic.

The Ant and the Grasshopper

I shamless stole this from WendyMcelroy.com. 

OLD VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MODERN VERSION:
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green... ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, We shall overcome. Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray for the grasshopper's sake.

President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight. Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize and ramshackle, the once prosperous and peaceful, neighborhood.

I've sent this to you because I believe that you are an ant!

Religious Questions Part II

I wish that reporters who do not have any training or aptitude for religion would not blog or write about it. Continuing in yesterday's blog here is a question that Keller wants to ask Bachman:

You have said that watching the film series “How Should We Then Live?” by the evangelist Francis Schaeffer was a life-altering event for you. That series stresses the “inerrancy” — the literal truth — of the Bible. Do you believe the Bible consists of literal truths, or that it is to be taken more metaphorically?

This is blatant equivocation. He is using the word “literal” in two different ways at once. And he does not understand “inerrancy.”

Inerrancy is the idea that the Bible as written in the original manuscripts is without error. It has nothing to do with the method of interpretation of any particular scripture as to whether it is poetry, proverb, or prose. You can believe in inerrancy, as I do not BTW, and advocate a metaphorical interpretation of scripture, depending on context. In fact dominionists (a position that Keller seems to want to tar and feather every Christian politician with, at least the Republican ones,) often do not use a literal hermeneutic. Dominionists are often preterists who view the book of Revelation as not a literal vision, but a symbolic vision, as I do myself, although I am not a full preterist. 

Keller's question is unanswerable because it contains false assumptions. I believe the Bible is accurate and truthful, but I have no problem with the Bible sometimes using metaphor, simile, and poetry to make its point. These two issues are not related. Keller should get educated on religious matters or stick to other topics.

****** 

As I thought Keller has an agenda. This quote shows how he thinks about religion:

If a candidate for president said he believed that space aliens dwell among us, would that affect your willingness to vote for him? Personally, I might not disqualify him out of hand; one out of three Americans believe we have had Visitors and, hey, who knows? But I would certainly want to ask a few questions. Like, where does he get his information? Does he talk to the aliens? Do they have an economic plan?

Yet when it comes to the religious beliefs of our would-be presidents, we are a little squeamish about probing too aggressively.

Comparing belief in the Bible to belief in space aliens shows his true thoughts, the elimination of religion and religious people from the public square.