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Social Networking Sites Becoming Useful For Lawyers
chareverie writes "With how the internet has become, social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace have become a tool for crime solvers, employers, and now, lawyers. Two weeks after Joshua Lipton was charged in a drunk driving case, the college junior attended a Halloween party dressed as a prisoner, with the words 'jail bird' on his costume. Not surprisingly, his prosecutor was able to obtain photos of him at the party that were posted on Facebook, and claimed he was an 'unrepentant partier who lived it up while his victim recovered in the hospital.' The photos were presented in a slideshow, with one of them showing Lipton holding a can of Red Bull in one hand, and an arm draped around a girl bearing sorority letters. The judge agreed with the prosecutor, and changed Lipton's sentence to two years in prison. The article also cites other instances of people getting harsher sentences from pictures of them posted online."
https://records.txdps.state.tx.us/DPS_WEB/Sor/index.aspx?PageIndex=Display&SID=06369391
Google cache to the rescue! http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:PnpGwlSu35kJ:www.myspace.com/JoE_BoNeS+JoE_BoNeS&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ca I especially like the message someone left on his "fridge".
Taking his PC i think was a bit overboard unless they had hard evidence that some crime was committed with the PC. The judge should never have permitted that warrant to go thru.
The PC can contain evidence, such as unpublished photos. Saying you can't grab a PC for evidence is just like saying you can't search the personal diary for evidence (which obviously isn't the case.)
In criminal court, search warrants can be issued as long as they can convince a judge that there's a good chance evidence can be improved or obtained. It's a tactic popular with child porn cases, but can be extended to other cases as well.
He'll only have the capacity to pardon non-violent drug offenders in federal prison -- not those imprisoned under state laws.
> And if it was someone in your family lying painfully in the hospital, the photo of the defendant carrying on in a jailbird costume two weeks after the accident would likely fill you with rage. You'd want justice.
You misspelled 'revenge'. And that's not what the law is for.
Most things I hear or read deal with sentencing disparities based on the race of the victim. Here's a GAO report (PDF) from 1990 submitted by what appears to be the Senate judiciary committee. Strom Thurmond is listed among the submitters. He's hardly leftist.
From the findings:
The findings section does discuss some reasons their results are not the last word on this subject.
http://archive.gao.gov/t2pbat11/140845.pdf
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
And he didn't kill anyone either...he almost did. There is a large piece here to be said about posing for the camera while doing something stupid. I mean really now, its not like he was trying to hide from the camera. ANYONE at that party could have walked into the court room and said "Oh, by the way, this guy is a prick". The photo thing here really has about squat to do with privacy. It has to do with acting like a moron in public and being surprised someone kept a record of it and it came back to bite you. This isn't about privacy and I don't know why everyone keeps making it about privacy. When you go out in public and act like a moron you have NO expectation of privacy.
And no, it does not SEEM like Josh was an idiot. He was an idiot and deserves worse punishment. I have absolutely 0 respect for drunk driving. 0, zip, nada, zilch, it is 100% preventable and fucking moronic to do. The fact that he didn't kill anyone (only put them in the hospital for weeks while he continued to party) doesn't make a damned bit of difference. To be honest I think we would see drunk driving drop off significantly if we treated EVERY incident as attempted murder. It pisses me off that more people have their lives ruined by drunk drivers than the number of drunk drivers who have their lives ruined over their own stupidity.
Don't get me wrong, I have no kind of problem with drinking. I have been really drunk before and it has NEVER EVER EVER occurred to me "Gee, I should get in a car and go drive home" due to that reduced inhibitions crap. Fuck them.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
What's an RA?
"Resident Advisor" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_assistant They help keep order, do events and such in a college dorm.
Yet, once he's president, he'll have the official capacity to pardon all non-violent drug offenders... think he'll do it???
He'll only have the capacity to pardon offenders of federal drug laws, not state.
He posted photos of himself smoking pot and drinking while underage on his social networking page. Those photos are evidence of a crime (namely, smoking pot and drinking while underage). That's sufficient PC to search his computer for additional photographs and other evidence of those crimes. Just because he's under arrest for vehicular homicide doesn't mean the police can't get a search warrant for evidence of other crimes.
Generally the prosecution cannot introduce character evidence against a defendant until a defendant raises his own character as an issue. Depending on what's recovered, it may be possible to introduce evidence against him under one of the exceptions to this rule (MIMIC - motive, intent, lack of mistake, identity, common plan).
No he wouldn't have.
There are no black men in this country as powerful as George H. W. Bush. Period.
Alcoholics Anonymous, the renowned 12-step program that directs problem drinkers to seek help from a higher power, says it's not a religion and is open to nonbelievers. But it has enough religious overtones that a parolee can't be ordered to attend its meetings as a condition of staying out of prison, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
In fact, said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the constitutional dividing line between church and state in such cases is so clear that a parole officer can be sued for damages for ordering a parolee to go through rehabilitation at Alcoholics Anonymous or an affiliated program for drug addicts.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/08/BA99S1AKQ.DTL
We're judging people now because of character instead of actions?
Now? What do you mean by now? Do you have any clue whatsoever about how the American justice system actually works?
Judges are given broad power over sentencing. They are permitted, nay expected, to use this power to give more punishment to the worst criminals. "Worst" being defined by things like not showing remorse, no ties to the community, prior criminal record etc. It all pretty much feeds into two questions: is this person likely to commit further crimes, and will his example serve to deter others? This information is all very relevant to those questions.
In the case at hand, if a guy who seriously hurt someone was back out partying his heart out just two weeks later, do you think he's likely to commit the same crime again? I'd say, hell yes, put that fucker away.
Sentencing is about punishment. Well guess what: if you say you're sorry and show remorse, society has decided that in general you deserve less punishment than some defiant ass monkey who doesn't change his behavior.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
Sullivan, the prosecutor, was the one that captioned the image "Remorseful?" not Lipton, the dude shown in the picture. Lipton looks like a dumbass but I don't think he was purposefully trying to sabotage his own case.