Politics '11: Keeping up with the Xornses

[NotMiki]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that I doubt the "misconduct" part moves the change much.  From what I've seen from labor arbitrations, ALJs tend to have their own cultural idea of what the proper balance between employer and employed is and aren't going to budge much based on new law.  Unless the term "misconduct" comes with some very specific definitions attached, look for judges to enforce their old standards and brush off bad behavior on the part of employees that they wouldn't formerly have acted on as behavior that doesn't rise to the level of misconduct.

[Fenrir]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/13407908
... Fuck.

[NotMiki]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/nyregion/imf-chief-is-held-without-bail.html?_r=1&hp

...and the guy is being held without bail.  It's going to be hard for him to hold a campaign from U.S. federal jail as a "flight risk."  Now, you might wonder why someone so high-profile would ever be deemed a flight risk.  I mean, it's not like he's going to leave the public eye.  Well, the answer is that he's French, and France has no extradition treaty with the US or anyone else for that matter.  France is one of a few countries that won't extradite their own citizens for any purpose, so if this guy got to France and never left the country again, the US couldn't punish him even if he were found guilty.

...might be time for France to rethink their protectionist extradition policy.  (Germany, Russia, China, and Japan also do the same thing.)

[Fenrir]

His carrier is pretty much ruined anyway. I don't think anyone will want to have anything to do with him anymore, even though he was seen as the most competent potential candidate and was very likely to be the next president. (hell, I was likely going to vote for him)

[superaielman]

Fenrir: Could be worse, Le Pen's daughter could have a serious chance of winning now! (And if she does, my apologies)

[Fenrir]

Thankfully, no. (Else I'm seriously leaving for Canada)
I have to admi the whole scandal is hilarious though. So absurd, it could have only happened in real life.

[metroid composite]

So...going a while back in these topics, we had an interesting debate about gender uniforms, and LGBT nondiscrimination clauses for employers; whether it's fair to force a business to hire, say, a butch lesbian, when she might drive away customers who just aren't comfortable being around such a person.

Enter GameSpot:

http://kotaku.com/5803703/welcome-carolyn-michelle-to-games-reviewing-youre-doing-just-fine

And yeah, there's been some internet nerd rage; GameSpot seems to be holding to their position in spite of said nerdrage.  It's awesome.

[metroid composite]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/05/23/scotus.california.prisons/index.html

I'm sure everyone has heard of this already, but Supreme Court forces California Prison system depopulation.

[SnowFire]

I dunno what they stuck in Scalia & Alito's coffee.  This isn't unprecedented and has done before at a state level (I remember Freakonomics whining about this phenomenon too), and furthermore, it is completely and utterly obvious that one solution which would make Scalia happy is to build more prisons.  No money?  That's not the Constitution's problem.  From the excerpts, they're hyping Scalia taking a very outcomes-based approach in the opinion, the exact thing he's supposed to be tut-tutting those librul activists for, rather than applying the clear language of the Constitution.  As usual.

[NotMiki]

Agreed, mostly, but my sense was that Scalia had no proposed solution and would rather have left violation of 'cruel and unusual punishment' as a right without a remedy (I'll check this later.  haven't read the case yet).  Alito makes a big deal out of how it's not necessarily going to be the prisoners whose rights are being violated who are going to be released.  Um, so what?  If the prison population goes down, the prisoners whose rights are violated due to the overcrowding will have their remedy, and that's all they're entitled to.  Kennedy in his opinion said building more prisons would be an acceptable solution to the overcrowding problem, but he acknowledged what everyone already knows: ain't gonna happen with CA's financial trouble.  This is a consolidation of 2 class actions, one of which is 20 years old.  CA had all the time in the world to fix this problem, and it didn't.

CA pioneered the draconian '3 strikes' rule that puts 3-time felons away for 25 to life, no matter the severity of the crime.  Scalia upheld the constitutionality of that rule, said it was not cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a man whose third felony was shoplifting a golf club, nor was it unconstitutional to sentence a man to 50 to life for shoplifting videotapes.  Those men was put in CA state prison 15 years ago, and remains there today unless they've died in the interim.  Maybe they should be in the front of the line for release.

[metroid composite]

CA pioneered the draconian '3 strikes' rule that puts 3-time felons away for 25 to life, no matter the severity of the crime.  Scalia upheld the constitutionality of that rule, said it was not cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a man whose third felony was shoplifting a golf club, nor was it unconstitutional to sentence a man to 50 to life for shoplifting videotapes.  Those men was put in CA state prison 15 years ago, and remains there today unless they've died in the interim.  Maybe they should be in the front of the line for release.

You know, they should be, but it sounds like CA is going to try hard to not release anybody (they're planning to offload felons to county Jails or other states).

[Pyro]

Pah. Obviously the solution is to execute 30000 of them.

[Shale]

There comes before us, now and then, a case whose proper outcome is so clearly indicated by tradition and common sense, that its decision ought to shape the law, rather than vice versa.

Strict constructionism, ladies and gentlemen.

[NotMiki]

And yet it seems Kennedy agrees with this principle.  That's why he attached some pictures of the prison conditions to his decision that Scalia so despises.  Seems the undisputed fact that prisoners in CA die at about a clip of once a week from lack of basic medical care and that California has let this get worse in the decade since the last court order commanding them to do better led him to his own common sense outcome.

[Shale]

I haven't read the decision straight through, but I thought those were just to underscore the "hey, guys, this is seriously cruel and unusual" point. Especially the cages.

[NotMiki]

Sounds like common sense to me.

Don't bother with the opinion, it's really rather dull.  The heart of the matter is this: California acknowledges its prisons violate the ban on cruel and unusual punishment.  A three judge panel, after many years of failed attempts by the state of California to alleviate overcrowding, ordered a reduction in the percentage over capacity of prisoners in the CA system to 137.5% over capacity.  California proposes to build more prisons and transfer prisoners out of state as a remedy, and says that because it has a workable plan the courts have no authority to order a reduction in capacity.  Normally, under federal law, California would be right.  The courts would be obligated to give them the time to see their plan through.  But the panel ordered a reduction anyway because California's plan was identical to California's previous plans which hadn't worked, and because California, nearly bankrupt, clearly doesn't have the resources to follow through on that promise.

Kennedy upheld the reduction to 137.5%.  It could be achieved entirely by building new prisons or transferring out prisoners, but if the state of California can't get the percentage low enough by so doing it must release prisoners.

Scalia and Alito (I think) do not dispute that the 8th amendment has been violated, and do not dispute that California is obligated to remedy overcrowding, but would allow California to continue with its proposed plan, even though it's guaranteed to fail, and even though it's as plain as day that California intends to drag its feet on prison overcrowding...well, forever if the courts will let it.

[Lady Door]

The take-away message for me is that if everyone in California goes on a crime spree, no one has to go to jail.

That interpretation amuses me, even if I do live in an area that has a reputation for excessive amounts of violent crime. You should see all the scary people I live next to. Tiny 35-year-old men walking their girlfriend's shih tzus and belligerent old ladies with walkers and the aged black men (or the freaky young white males - regardless, it's always a man) who like to ride the buses from one end of their route to the other witnessing to all the passengers whether they care or not.

...

I may have gotten onto a wee tangent there. Anyway.

--

The problem with prison is that it only works as a deterrent/as punishment if, you know, you don't get let out because the system is overloaded. Remember Lindsay Lohan? (Or, well, maybe if you live outside of this crazy state you aren't confronted with her every day. I don't know.) People keep saying how she'll never learn because she gets the equivalent of a daisy chain on the wrist every time she does cocaine or drives drunk or steals jewelry. She has RECIDIVISM metaphorically tattooed on her forehead, but it doesn't quite get to her brain because the punishment is so not a punishment. It's free fucking publicity. This latest time she went to court and was sentenced to 120 days in jail and 480 hours of community service for misdemeanor (originally felony) grand theft and probation violation. They expect her to serve as little as 14 of those 120 days.

What the hell?

(Let's ignore the "star treatment" angle of this particular case. Fact is, plenty of people with "lesser" crimes and sentences are going to get a dose of "Oh fuck, I actually got away relatively lightly!" And sure, you'll have your cohort who decide this brush with the law was more than enough from them. But you'll also have the cohort who sense this enormous weakness in the system and set out to exploit it, as the seedy underbelly often does.)

[NotMiki]

Reminds me of a little experiment my mother tells me they did in Boston back in the '70s: enforcing jaywalking laws and giving tickets to every violator.  It ended 2 weeks after it began in the face of incredulous members of the public laughing, ripping up tickets, and generally completely ignoring the police trying to uphold the law.  Now that's what I call voting with your feet!

...

*ahem*

It seems to me prison will remain a good deterrent to crime in CA as long as they carefully tailor the population of prisoners they release.  If they make it clear that new inmates aren't getting off the hook, it should work all right.  When you get down to it, prison as a deterrent to crime pales in comparison to societal pressure.  For most folks you don't commit grand theft (other than grand theft: shitloads of mp3s) because it's wrong, y'know?  And for the crowd of mostly poor mostly minority young men who, because of their upbringings, feel little societal pressure not to commit crime, prison is such a normal part of their culture that I wouldn't be confident in saying it's much of a deterrent as things stand.

[Shale]

The take-away message for me is that if everyone in California goes on a crime spree, no one has to go to jail.

Alternately, there's a message that even the state government does, eventually, have to take its fingers out of its ears and accept that doing expensive things (like committing to house and feed someone for life if they steal three golf clubs) when you don't have any money has consequences.

[Cmdr_King]

http://www.toledoblade.com/news/2011/05/25/Michigan-Senate-approves-school-funding-cuts-as-budget-voting-continues-in-Legislature.html

As always, western civilization has its priorities straight *nod*

[Dhyerwolf]

Reminds me of a little experiment my mother tells me they did in Boston back in the '70s: enforcing jaywalking laws and giving tickets to every violator.  It ended 2 weeks after it began in the face of incredulous members of the public laughing, ripping up tickets, and generally completely ignoring the police trying to uphold the law.  Now that's what I call voting with your feet!

They should have made that it was legally a jaywalker's fault if they get hit by a car. Irate enough people would solve their problem.

[NotMiki]

but the problem wasn't the jaywalkers.  it was the pesky police trying to intrude upon a sacred way of life.  If I can cross 4 lanes without getting hit, I don't deserve a fine, I deserve a reward!

[Dhyerwolf]

Come now, that logic only holds true for speeding. Unless you meant award instead of reward, as in Darwin!

[NotMiki]

I, uh, don't think they give Darwin awards to people who are in the position of collecting them.

Anyway, it's only stupid if you get hit.  And if you DO get hit, then I'm fine with you getting a ticket for jaywalking.

[metroid composite]

I've heard of people getting jaywalking tickets in other cities, and in some places it's effective.

It sounds like in this case the problem was the unenforceability, though.  Unlike cars, you don't have a licence plate tatooed to your head.  What does the police officer do if you tear up the ticket and walk away?  Arrest you and fingerprint you?  Unless they're willing to go that far....