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The Legal System on Crack

I heard about this on the radio this morning.

To quickly recap the story, a man in NJ is standing trail for theft in which the prosecution is asking for a sentence of 5 - 10 years. While this in itself isn’t very newsworthy, what the man stole was.

The man is accused of stealing 58 cents from a car.

Yes, you read that right. He stole $0.58, which isn’t even enough money to buy a copy of the New York Times. It’s not enough to buy an apple pie at McDonald’s or a bottle of water at a convenience store.

To me, this seems like a ridiculous thing to even talk about. The hosts of a local radio station here in the Bay Area were talking about the topic and they both had different views on the situation.

Julie, who brought up the topic felt that this was the stupidest thing in the world and that she felt that the punishment should fit the crime. Drunk drivers get off with a slap on the wrist, while a man should spend 10 years of his life in a prison for stealing 58 cents.

Gene however felt that the law is the law. It doesn’t matter if the amount he stole was 58 cents or if it was $58,000. The fact of the matter was that the man broke the law, committed a crime and should be punished accordingly. Justice is blind and that if an exception is made in this case then it sets a dangerous precedent for future cases. At what amount do you say, “ok, that should be a felony”?

As I think about this case, my opinion on it changes constantly. Sometimes I think that yes, the punishment should fit the crime and that this is something that we’ve been abiding to for as long as we’ve had a legal system. After all, the death penalty isn’t used against shoplifters. Crime sentencing is something that is for all practical purposes, subjective. The judge is the one in the end who decides what the punishment should be.

But then, I have to agree with Gene. The amount of money that was stolen is really insignificant. If a man runs into a bank and attempts to rob it and comes out with only a few dollars, then should he be scolded and sent home? The man in NJ didn’t know how much money was in the car when he broke into it. It is the intent, not the result which should be examined. Attempted murder in the US is a very serious crime after all.

But one thing is clear to me. Whatever the end result of this case, one thing is undeniable. The taxpayers of NJ are the ones who will lose out in the end. As of now, the state has spent $16,000 keeping this man in custody along with prosecuting him. If he is sent to prison for the maximum 10 years, then the total bill will be somewhere in the realm of $260,000.

I hope this change I made to the comments will work.

Temporary Removal

I’m removing the BlogVoices links from the page for now until they get their act together. It was cause my page to take forever to load.

If Only…

How many times have we heard ourselves uttering that phrase?

I’m sure that the answer I would solicit from most people would be an astounding “many”. Regret is something that has plagued the human consciousness throughout the ages. It is within human nature to wonder what the result would have been if he/she had made a different decision. Would things be better? Would they be worse? Did I make the right decision? If so, when will I see the benefit of this. If not, what was the right decision? There are all questions which I know I’ve face throughout my life.

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am someone who sometimes lives in the past. I know I’m not alone in this act. Waves of nostalgia pass me over from time to time. Last night for example, I was cleaning out my hard drive on my PC at home and I came across an old bookmark file that I used way back in 1997/1998. Going through that list and seeing what interests I had, brought back memories of the events of that time. I would periodically go through my high school and college yearbooks and reminisce about the happy and sad memories I made.

As for the questions, I know I’ve said it many times. Would my life be different if I told that girl that I really did like her back in 6th grade? Or if Lori hadn’t moved away when we were in 2nd grade? Would my circle of friends have been very much different if I had learn to forgive my then best friend in 11th grade? What if I had decided that I would take my college applications seriously and have gotten into my first choice school? How different would I have been if I didn’t go to CMU? If I didn’t have Dave as my roommate and met all these wonderful people who lived near Pittsburgh? Would I have made more of a concerted effort to know more people at school?

Or would nothing be different at all?

I could spend a lifetime examining these questions. However, the result of that endeavor would not be very fruitful. There is no way to determine how different things would have been if a decision had been made in the opposite direction. There are some things in our lives that are out of our control. Friendships hinge on decisions made by both parties. College selection is mostly determined by whoever decides to review an application.

But these questions are no limited to simply big life decisions. Deciding whether or not to spend an extra 5 minutes making a complicated breakfast could be the biggest decision in your life. For if you chose not to do so, you might have been caught in a horrible traffic accident possibly ending your life. After all, it’s the simple things in life which make life wonderful.

Please don’t go out and question every single decision that you make. Your life would not be one of happiness. Stress and doubt will rule every move you make and that is something which will lead to sadness and loneliness.

I am a big believer in fate and destiny. Things happen for a reason. You may not know what the reason is at the time, but everything has a role in the grand scheme of things. This does not mean that we are helpless in determining the course of our life. Our fate is not determined at birth. Rather, I believe that it is something that is which evolves over time changing with our circumstances and the environment. There is a purpose to everything we do. Never forget that.

Crisis

Once again, California was hit with rolling blackouts.

This came as a surprise to virtually everyone. When I woke up yesterday morning, there were no indications that CalISO was issuing any power alerts. It seemed like your typical March day, with the weather peaking around 75 degrees and the skies empty of clouds and the sun shining brilliantly. Then came the bad news.

It was around 12:30pm when I saw that there was a Stage 3 Power Emergency issued. (A Stage 3 Power Emergency means that the power reserves have dipped below 1.5%). A short time later, I receive a PhoneMail message stating that the building I am working in is on one of the scheduled blackout blocks. The power never did go out here, so we were lucky in that sense.

It seems like over the last few months, the only thing that people have been constantly talking about is the power. No longer do the lunchroom discussions focus on the housing market, the dot-com shakedown or the traffic in the area. Without fail, there is always some article in the newspaper talking about how this summer California is going to be in serious problems unless something is done quickly.

For a while, it seemed like the rolling blackout problem was only present here in Northern California. I’ve always wondered why it is that Southern California seemed immune to this “solution”. I knew that Los Angeles has their own power municipality, so they didn’t have to rely on the state power grid. But what about San Diego, Orange County and all of the other areas on Southern California? Well, I still don’t know the answer to that, but yesterday they did experience rolling blackouts for the first time. After all, yesterday’s emergency was really their fault.

Well, actually it was and it wasn’t their fault. The sudden drain on the grid was due to the unseasonably warm temperatures that were felt down in SoCal. People cranked up their air conditioners and added a burden to the already low supply. Couple that with a transformer fire, plant shutdowns due to maintainance and repair and it was the formula for disaster. So, the blame could really be placed on Mother Nature. Or should it be diverted elsewhere? It seems like everyone wants to blame it on someone other than themselves. After all, how could the light I left on in my house break the system?

No matter how hard I try, I can’t escape it. It is the front page story today in the Mercury News. It has even received national attention. My friends always seem surprised to see that I’m still online and always preface a conversation with, “you still have power?” Even our buddies on the other side of the pond are watching what happens here very carefully. After all, this could happen to anyone.

Some people say that there is always a silver lining to all adversity. Some people, as mentioned in the CNN article, hope that this sends a message stating to stay away from California. I personally don’t see that happening.

So today, California hopes avoid more blackouts. At least this was what was said earlier this morning. Now the headline reads something like California orders blackouts… Wonderful. So again, I must assume that the power will be cut to this building at some point this morning/afternoon. This post has been saved many, many times in case suddenly everything goes black.

But there is one good thing though. If the power goes out, it’ll give me an excuse to run around outside, pretend that I’m 8 years old again and enjoy the wonderful weather.

Where Does Free Speech End?

I came across this article this morning in my morning news gathering session.

When I first saw the headline for the article, my first reaction was, “you’ve got to be kidding me.” It wasn’t necessarily the consequence of the headline which read, “Supreme Court OKs school T-shirt ban.” I was more surprised that the Supreme Court actually heard the case. It seemed pretty clear cut to me.

The student through his lawyers claimed that the school violated his First Amendment right to free speech and that they had no right to ban the shirt. I can understand why the student felt like he had the right to wear whatever he wanted to class, but if you think about it, that’s never really been the case.

Throughout our society, owner of establishments have always reserved the right to refuse service to anyone. There are signs indicating this policy normally prominently displayed on the front window or door. For generations, consumers have rarely, if ever complained about the usual “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service” policy most restaurants employ. Allowing people to enter their buisnesses without those articles of clothing would be disruptive. And so, a school can be thought of as such an establishment.

For as long as I can remember, schools have always had special priviledges under the eyes of the law. When children enter a school, they essentially waive a lot of their constitutional rights. Search and seizure for example, is a right that citizens have with regards to their homes and buisnesses, but it something that does not exist within the premisis of a school. Since a school owns a locker, it has the right to search it if there is probable cause.

It seems like everyone these days are filing lawsuits that puzzle anyone with any semblence of common sense. This incident occurred over 3 years ago and nothing harmful really came out of it. What’s the point? In line with this thought is something I heard this morning on the radio about the Bisette family filing a wrongful death lawsuit against the Kennedy’s for the death of their two daughters. It made me sick. I don’t know what possible motive besides greed would fuel such lawsuit. Hopefully it’s just a rumor that will be spread by the tabloids without any truth behind it.

On the lighter side, I got this message this morning trying to read a webpage. I hope I didn’t set anything on fire.

error ‘8000ffff’

Catastrophic failure

/lesson/default.asp, line 8