Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : The Boxing Ring Revived -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (5147)	3/5/2003 4:09:14 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7720

Supreme Court Upholds 'Three-Strikes' Sentencing Charles Lane Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, March 5, 2003; 1:08 PM The Supreme Court today upheld a California thief's 25-years-to-life sentence for stealing golf clubs, ruling that this application of the state's "three strikes" law, which mandates long prison sentences for repeat criminal offenders, was not a form of "cruel and unusual punishment." The result means that courts are essentially powerless to undo what is said to be the harshest such law in the nation and that opponents of the California law must turn to lobbying their state representatives and senators for change. "Criticism is appropriately directed to the [California] legislature, which has primary responsibility for making the difficult policy choice that underlie any sentencing scheme," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote. "We do not sit as a 'superlegislature' to second-guess these policy choices." There were five votes in favor of the outcome, but members of the majority offered three different rationales. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, found that the sentence meted out to Gary Ewing was not "grossly disproportionate," given that his latest offense came after a long career of crime that included burglary and robbery convictions. The three justices added that the California legislature had acted reasonably in enacting the law and was entitled to deference from the court. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, which bars cruel and unusual punishment, is meant to ban only certain methods of punishment. He said there is no objective way to measure the proportionality of prison sentences, as required by past Supreme Court decisions interpreting the amendment. Scalia said that the sentence should be affirmed simply in deference to the judgment of the California legislature. And Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with Scalia, but wrote that, even if the past Supreme Court cases offered a clear way to measure proportionality, he would not apply them since in his view the Eighth Amendment contains no notion of proportionality at all. The four dissenting justices, John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, joined in an opinion by Breyer in which he noted that many criminals guilty of murder and violent offenses in California have served much shorter prison sentences than Ewing will under the three-strikes law, and that Ewing's sentence was two to three times longer than other states would have imposed in similar circumstances. "The case before us is . . . one in which a court can say with reasonable confidence that the punishment is grossly disproportionate to the crime." The case is Ewing v. California, No. 01-6978.

To: Lane3 who wrote (5147)	3/5/2003 4:46:53 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7720

How the two were behaving may matter to you and me, but I'm not sure it matters legally. The entrance signs said, according to one report, "wearing of apparel... likely to provoke disturbances... is prohibited" They don't have to actually provoke disturbances, just be likely to. That's a judgment call, but isn't it the job of mall security to make that judgment call? And aren't they entitled to be more conservative rather than less, not having to wait until an actual disturbance occurred? I think you're probably right that they were at least strutting them -- after all, they went there, bought them at the mall, and instead of carrying them home as most of us do with new clothes we buy, put them on there and stayed in the mall. It seems clear that their intent was to make a statement. And few people waste time and money publicly making political statements that they know aren't going to provoke at least somebody. Otherwise, what's the point? And the simple reality is that they DID cause a disturbance. Somebody called mall security, mall security came, asked them to remove the shirts, the dad refused, the police were called, and he was arrested. In my opinion, that constitutes a disturbance. And its not whether the t-shirts are offensive, but whether they may promote a disturbance. I mean, a T-shirt saying Sign ny T-shirt and receive free front-row tickets to the Bruce Springsteen concert" might not be offensive, but it sure would create a disturbance!