I suppose it's possible, but one's morals get strained when the choice is 30 months versus 35 years. Counts are cumulative in feds, so go down the table twenty levels and tell me about "facing punishment for your actions." Shouldn't that punishment be just and fair?
I know, I apologize. But for the past few weeks,/. on Chrome has been having a weird bug...can't paste after I type any text. I can remember (u, ok well I try) a shortened URL.
Anyone else seeing this weird paste thing here on Chrome? 10.6.4, Chrome 7.0.517.44 I know, I know, use Firefox.
He allegedly "admitted" to what looks like ten counts or more, but since his special assessement was $200, he was only convicted of a single felony count. So, then, why ever would he have admitted anything else? That would be allocution, relevant conduct and further admitted behavior. When I plead out in February 2007, I admitted guilt on one count and all others were dismissed. I denied them (they were indeed false) and no one admits other behavior and gets done for one count.
According to the sentencing table, assuming this is his first offense, his offense was Level 22. He got a standard three-point reduction for admission of guilt and the judge gave him the low end of Level 19. He will do 87.5% of it, (no parole in feds) a little more than 26 months. He'll go to halfway house in 23.
But he will not go to a Camp. His relevant conduct will affect his custody, and he will probably go to a Low (basically a Medium with cubicles instead of cells), perhaps even FCI Elkton in Ohio where I was. Not fun.
My suspicion is whether he really admitted all those other counts, or this is journalistic excess.
Yeah. I saw guys in the feds who were doing 20 years because someone else committed a crime and they knew about it. I know a limo driver now at Elkton who picked up a fare at JFK, the DEA pulled them over and found the fare's bags stuffed with cocaine and meth. The driver knew nothing about it, denied all knowledge, and went to trial with a public defender. He got 37 years and lost his appeal, and does not have the money for collateral attack. Did you know that after one appeal, you must now use civil remedies, like 28USC 2241 and 2255, and you are NOT entitled to counsel for them?
I did five years for what most would call, at best, a silly prank that hurt no one and caused neither property or financial loss.
He allegedly "admitted" to what looks like ten counts or more, but since his special assessement was $200, he was only convicted of a single felony count. So, then, why ever would he have admitted anything else? That would be allocution, relevant conduct and further admitted behavior. When I plead out in February 2007, I admitted guilt on one count and all others were dismissed. I denied them (they were indeed false) and no one admits other behavior and gets done for one count.
According to the sentencing table, assuming this is his first offense, his offense was Level 22. He got a standard three-point reduction for admission of guilt and the judge gave him the low end of Level 19. He will do 87.5% of it, (no parole in feds) a little more than 26 months. He'll go to halfway house in 23.
But he will not go to a Camp. His relevant conduct will affect his custody, and he will probably go to a Low (basically a Medium with cubicles instead of cells), perhaps even FCI Elkton in Ohio where I was. Not fun.
My suspicion is whether he really admitted all those other counts, or this is journalistic excess.
We have 751 people in jail or prison per 100,000 population. UK? 151 per 100k. Germany 88. Japan 63. We throw people behind bars for offenses that would even amount to an arrest in most countries. I met people doing 20 years for a bag of crack the size of a sugar packet. I saw guys doing five for a phone call. I saw guys doing life because they were "co-conspirators" to something that happened 1,000 miles away without their knowledge.
Come on, the law is so weird, it has to be real. Fiction has to make sense.
An example: ever hear of Relevant Conduct? I've talked about this before. Here's the scenario: you get caught with a small bag of weed. You get arrested. While being booked some Fed sees you and says "hey! Aren't you the guy who mowed down all those nuns and orphans with an AK at McDonald's last week?" You deny it, but he's sure and you are charged with mass murder. You go to trial, and win. You are found not guilty after two minutes of deliberation. There was no evidence and the witness said it wasn't you.
But since the McDonald's was in another state, the case is federal, and you get six months for the weed. Think you'll do it in some easy Club Fed? No way, you have mass murder as relevant conduct. I am not kidding: your custody can be affected by dismissed or acquitted charges. You have been found not guilty, but it's on your Pre-Sentence Investigation and the Bureau of Prisons will send you to a much tougher place: after all, you're a murderer! So, you go to a USP, and are dead in a week.
As I've posted, I recently did five years in the feds, and rather than be close to my home in a Camp, I was sent to a disciplinary FCI as far away as they could send me, due to charges which were dismissed. The xBox thing does not surprise me in the least...there is so much bad law on the books, which is one reason we have so many people in jail.
Actually, $2500 is not expensive for a premium watch these days. I looked a a Robb Report lying in my doctor's office (this worries me..) and was absolutely shocked at the cost of elite watches. Even "cheap" premium watches sold at Amazon are insane. Check out this list of the "best men's watches of 2010. Absolutely nuts!
I wear a ten year old Bell & Ross I bought during the net bubble when I was "rich", or a fifteen year old Movado I got for a birthday present.
I would one day love a Breitling, but I'd like a Ferrari too, and that's not gonna happen either.
Both my kids started out with a great little app called Keywack. I took an old Mac Classic sitting in my basement, ran Keywack and the kids loved it. Never trashed the computer either, which I was sure they would do.
Keywack runs on anything, Win/Mac/Lin, and helped me get my kids learning about tech at around 18 months. The fact they are both capable programmers (one a senior in high school, another im middle school) might have something to do with their early comfort level, or it might not. But give it a try...
I fucking HATE people like this, trading on desperation. They remind me of the Laetrile wackos in the 70's and 80's. It's no more legitimate than the frantically dying who spend their last few pennies going to Lourdes, or giving money to "doctors of healing of the Lord." My wife's mother did this when my wife was 12 and her description of the outright robbery by the assholes who run the place and the surrounding "guesthouses" made me nauseous.
He claims "in vivo" success, then spouts some BS anecdotal "I've seen miraculous Stage 4 cures" rubbish. You have proof of in vivo success in properly executed peer reviewed studies? Post the links or STFU. I'll bet you aren't interested in naysayers. Just the desperate with a checkbook.
He describes theoretical, early-stage research which MAY, one day, have some use, after it is peer reviewed and proven legitimate. Right now, I see nothing but the most early suggestions of biochemical ideas, and FAR from any "unified theory" by biochemists. That's just silly.
This boob is simply suggesting a variation on the long-discredited Induced Hypoglycemic Therapy bullshit, and doing it in a really inappropriate place. Hey Sparky, if low sugar starved cancer cells, why aren't diabetics cancer-free? BTW, neurons starved of glucose die way before any other cells. "Avoid sugar, not just HFCS." Pfffft. IHT is DANGEROUS.
Posting rubbish like you did in this thread is fucking ghoulish and if there is any real karma, you just burned a whole lot of it.
I was watching one of the weird science documentaries my wife loves and saw one that beats this story by a bit. Jasper Lawrence had severe asthma and allergies and heard an old wives tale that hookworms could force the body's immune system to "cure" the allergies...so he went to Africa, stamped around in feces and got a nice case of hookworm. It worked.
Now, he has set up a business selling hookworms he harvests from his own feces.
I know Holland went for the defendant, and said as much, but two justices supported him being executed because he filed his paperwork late. Charming.
And I didn't suggest that statutory limits were the reason the justice system is broken...I KNOW it's broken because I just came through it. We have the largest prison population in the world and the highest per capita incarcerated population. So, what...we're a nation of criminals?
Lastly, there is no "massive opposition" to RvW. Only the fringe loonies want to criminalize abortion. Google away but here's one example:
If you can't re-assert it at any time, it's not a right. (The conclusion, from the information that you give, is that you therefore don't really have a right to appeal.)
You raise a very interesting point, with which I heartily agree. The US justice system is neither fair nor equitable. Here is Scalia's dissent in Holland where he quites statutes and time limits, and as the final arbiter of the law, gets to decide what "rights" we have or not.
Happens all the time. There are very fixed time allowances on appeals. For example, if you plead or are found guilty in federal court, you have ten days to file an appeal, or at least preserve your right to appeal. If you do not file within that ten days (even if you tell your lawyer to do so and he does not) you effectively waive your right to appeal. You may collaterally attack but collateral attacks are civil actions and you are no longer entitled to counsel.
Think that's unfair? There are cases that would blow your minds. How about a death row inmate who filed his pro se appeal late, and was denied appeal of his death sentence. He finally got heard in the US Supreme Court but Scalia and Thomas dissented, saying "too late, too bad, so sad.."
Time limit injustice is way too common, (and tolling is not often granted) but this injustice is not often discussed, because as I often say, citizens in the US know NOTHING about the system that can suck them in at a moment's notice.
Hoo boy is that naive. My whole point was that even if you did nothing, the prosecutor can get you indicted. Do you understand the Grand Jury system? You do not give testimony, only the prosecutor does. You really would tell a prosecutor to "stick it" if you thought he had no evidence? You'd roll the dice with a jury?
Many people face that choice every day, and do time rather than do a LOT of time.
Consider: three of those statistics: (the high ones) do not involve trial, innocence or guilt: they are of ALL Fed criminal defendants.
The most telling: 93.6& of all Federal CASES result in a guilty plea. So, if you are simply charged (you don't have to be indicted, you know...I saw many inmates who waived indictment) you have about a 94% chance of being found or pleading guilty.
Busted By The Feds the book many inmates use (stupidly) as a legal bible has even more frightening statistics.
I suspect your first assumption is probably the right one. How else to explain these statistics: that the US 1) has the highest incarceration rate in the world, 2) the highest documented prison and jail population in the world and: 3) 7.3 million people on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole?
Really? Anything that involves interstate commerce can immediately be classified as federal. And it's easy to classify anything has having an effect on commerce.
I did not say "I didn't do anything." I said "I was facing five life sentences plus 105 years for an offense no one had ever been jailed a day on before. " And that is absolutely true. In fact, I filed my own 2255 collateral attack and the judge issued a sua sponte ruling (in violation of Greenlaw) using Gonzalez v Raich, a 9th Circuit medical marijuana case, which states that the Government can regulate noncommercial INTRAstate activity in which it has an interest. (See Wickard v Fillmore.) No "special circumstance.." the Feds just need to have an interest in you.
As for only "robbery with a gun" being an example of a life sentence requirement, that's bollocks. Feds operate on a very strict numerical system, (even though Booker says it's all advisory.) See this table? All you need to do is get up to Offense Level 37 with a few priors and you're gone forever. Or get a few 924(c) counts, the third of which puts you away for life, mandatory. There are white collar guys who are doing life because their dollar amounts are high. Bernie Madoff didn't use a gun, did he? How about Jeff Skilling? A guy who sells small amounts of drugs three times does 20 years, mandatory because of 18 USC 851.
You can do life for conspiracy. If I call you and ask "hey want a pound of blow?" and you simply say yes, you can be indicted on a pound of blow..at least 15 years. No blow needs to exist. Happens every day.
Just cause you have a pal who happens to work for a PD doesn't mean you understand just how unjust the system is. Actually, at the spot I served, I never saw a single inmate who claimed to be innocent.
Really? If you were completely innocent, but had been indicted on Federal charges that would most likely put you away for life if you blew trial, or you were offered a two year plea deal, you'd actually gamble your life on twelve people who hear a very colorized version of the truth?
93.6% of Fed cases result in a guilty plea. 75.6% of Fed criminal defendants are convicted following trial. 97% of Fed criminal defendants are sentenced. 82.8% of Fed criminal defendants receive a prison term.
That's not guilty defendants: it's ALL defendants.
Many of the people I met in Fed prison had either done nothing, or something so minor as to certainly not merit hard time. (I was a bit of a jailhouse lawyer..not much else to do.) I saw guys serving 20 years for making a phone call. I am not kidding.
As I said, it doesn't matter at ALL whether you did it or not. It matters what you can prove. And trust me, it's YOU that needs to do the proving, innocent till proven guilty is BS.
So, maybe you didn't do it, but you almost certainly will lose at trial. Yes, you''l be "right" and will have the moral high ground,..and wear khakis the rest of your life.
What Graber filmed was called a Terry Stop and the cop is able to search you without a warrant within your "wingspan" to check for weapons that may threaten him or other people. There are a lot of laws that cops often break on Terry Stops. My car was searched on my own property under the guise of a Terry Stop, which of course is wildly illegal, but I digress.
What Graber is "facing" is a maximum..he will never serve it unless he decides to roll the dice with a jury, blows trial and the judge sentences him to the maximum. Since the ACLU is involved, you can bet that will never happen.
But States and more often, the Feds will indict you for offenses that carry insane sentences in order to convince you to plead out, as the vast majority of people do. I did. I was facing five life sentences plus 105 years for an offense no one had ever been jailed a day on before. If I went to trial and lost on one single count, I would have done fifteen years, mandatory. (No parole in feds, BTW...you do 87.5%) I signed for five years, did 52 months.
Now, would you have fought? Really? Many people say they would, but it's a lot different when you are considering giving your life to 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty. When you realize that the whole system is set up to plead out 95+% of cases and do anything possible to convince you to not go in front of a jury, the average person has almost no chance in the system as it is set up. You didn't do it? That doesn't matter. It's what you can PROVE to a jury. And most of the time, the Government has much better lawyers and resources, so Graban is actually lucky...he won't serve a day, IMVHO.
CSI, Law and Order are worse than misinformation..they are propaganda, brainwashing us into thinking the system is fair and equal. It isn't. Graber is lucky that his case has publicity value. He may be "facing" sixteen years, but he'll never serve any.
But we aren't all lucky. We are indeed one Terry stop away from ruin. Be careful.
Slashdot Mirror
I suppose it's possible, but one's morals get strained when the choice is 30 months versus 35 years. Counts are cumulative in feds, so go down the table twenty levels and tell me about "facing punishment for your actions." Shouldn't that punishment be just and fair?
I know, I apologize. But for the past few weeks, /. on Chrome has been having a weird bug...can't paste after I type any text. I can remember (u, ok well I try) a shortened URL.
Anyone else seeing this weird paste thing here on Chrome? 10.6.4, Chrome 7.0.517.44 I know, I know, use Firefox.
Mea culpa.
Hmm, good point. Ok...
According to 18 USC 3553 the judge MUST consider the issue of disparate punishment. So the judge does. And does what he/she wants anyway.
It's a HUGE business, the prison industry, and it needs a steady flow of bodies, which it easily gets.
He allegedly "admitted" to what looks like ten counts or more, but since his special assessement was $200, he was only convicted of a single felony count. So, then, why ever would he have admitted anything else? That would be allocution, relevant conduct and further admitted behavior. When I plead out in February 2007, I admitted guilt on one count and all others were dismissed. I denied them (they were indeed false) and no one admits other behavior and gets done for one count.
According to the sentencing table, assuming this is his first offense, his offense was Level 22. He got a standard three-point reduction for admission of guilt and the judge gave him the low end of Level 19. He will do 87.5% of it, (no parole in feds) a little more than 26 months. He'll go to halfway house in 23.
But he will not go to a Camp. His relevant conduct will affect his custody, and he will probably go to a Low (basically a Medium with cubicles instead of cells), perhaps even FCI Elkton in Ohio where I was. Not fun.
My suspicion is whether he really admitted all those other counts, or this is journalistic excess.
Sorry, link is http://goo.gl/CoIcB
Yeah. I saw guys in the feds who were doing 20 years because someone else committed a crime and they knew about it. I know a limo driver now at Elkton who picked up a fare at JFK, the DEA pulled them over and found the fare's bags stuffed with cocaine and meth. The driver knew nothing about it, denied all knowledge, and went to trial with a public defender. He got 37 years and lost his appeal, and does not have the money for collateral attack. Did you know that after one appeal, you must now use civil remedies, like 28USC 2241 and 2255, and you are NOT entitled to counsel for them?
I did five years for what most would call, at best, a silly prank that hurt no one and caused neither property or financial loss.
He allegedly "admitted" to what looks like ten counts or more, but since his special assessement was $200, he was only convicted of a single felony count. So, then, why ever would he have admitted anything else? That would be allocution, relevant conduct and further admitted behavior. When I plead out in February 2007, I admitted guilt on one count and all others were dismissed. I denied them (they were indeed false) and no one admits other behavior and gets done for one count.
According to the sentencing table, assuming this is his first offense, his offense was Level 22. He got a standard three-point reduction for admission of guilt and the judge gave him the low end of Level 19. He will do 87.5% of it, (no parole in feds) a little more than 26 months. He'll go to halfway house in 23.
But he will not go to a Camp. His relevant conduct will affect his custody, and he will probably go to a Low (basically a Medium with cubicles instead of cells), perhaps even FCI Elkton in Ohio where I was. Not fun.
My suspicion is whether he really admitted all those other counts, or this is journalistic excess.
We are the number one per capita nation for incarceration, but more interestingly, we also have the largest number of prison inmates.
We have 751 people in jail or prison per 100,000 population. UK? 151 per 100k. Germany 88. Japan 63. We throw people behind bars for offenses that would even amount to an arrest in most countries. I met people doing 20 years for a bag of crack the size of a sugar packet. I saw guys doing five for a phone call. I saw guys doing life because they were "co-conspirators" to something that happened 1,000 miles away without their knowledge.
God Bless America.
Come on, the law is so weird, it has to be real. Fiction has to make sense.
An example: ever hear of Relevant Conduct? I've talked about this before. Here's the scenario: you get caught with a small bag of weed. You get arrested. While being booked some Fed sees you and says "hey! Aren't you the guy who mowed down all those nuns and orphans with an AK at McDonald's last week?" You deny it, but he's sure and you are charged with mass murder. You go to trial, and win. You are found not guilty after two minutes of deliberation. There was no evidence and the witness said it wasn't you.
But since the McDonald's was in another state, the case is federal, and you get six months for the weed. Think you'll do it in some easy Club Fed? No way, you have mass murder as relevant conduct. I am not kidding: your custody can be affected by dismissed or acquitted charges. You have been found not guilty, but it's on your Pre-Sentence Investigation and the Bureau of Prisons will send you to a much tougher place: after all, you're a murderer! So, you go to a USP, and are dead in a week.
As I've posted, I recently did five years in the feds, and rather than be close to my home in a Camp, I was sent to a disciplinary FCI as far away as they could send me, due to charges which were dismissed. The xBox thing does not surprise me in the least...there is so much bad law on the books, which is one reason we have so many people in jail.
Actually, $2500 is not expensive for a premium watch these days. I looked a a Robb Report lying in my doctor's office (this worries me..) and was absolutely shocked at the cost of elite watches. Even "cheap" premium watches sold at Amazon are insane. Check out this list of the "best men's watches of 2010. Absolutely nuts!
I wear a ten year old Bell & Ross I bought during the net bubble when I was "rich", or a fifteen year old Movado I got for a birthday present.
I would one day love a Breitling, but I'd like a Ferrari too, and that's not gonna happen either.
Yet another opportunity to wear funny glasses for three hours and have pointy objects thrust at me repeatedly.
Maybe he'll buck the trend and NOT do it in 3D?
Cut out eyeholes?
Both my kids started out with a great little app called Keywack.
I took an old Mac Classic sitting in my basement, ran Keywack and the kids loved it. Never trashed the computer either, which I was sure they would do.
Keywack runs on anything, Win/Mac/Lin, and helped me get my kids learning about tech at around 18 months. The fact they are both capable programmers (one a senior in high school, another im middle school) might have something to do with their early comfort level, or it might not. But give it a try...
For drizzle.
I fucking HATE people like this, trading on desperation. They remind me of the Laetrile wackos in the 70's and 80's. It's no more legitimate than the frantically dying who spend their last few pennies going to Lourdes, or giving money to "doctors of healing of the Lord." My wife's mother did this when my wife was 12 and her description of the outright robbery by the assholes who run the place and the surrounding "guesthouses" made me nauseous.
He claims "in vivo" success, then spouts some BS anecdotal "I've seen miraculous Stage 4 cures" rubbish. You have proof of in vivo success in properly executed peer reviewed studies? Post the links or STFU. I'll bet you aren't interested in naysayers. Just the desperate with a checkbook.
He describes theoretical, early-stage research which MAY, one day, have some use, after it is peer reviewed and proven legitimate. Right now, I see nothing but the most early suggestions of biochemical ideas, and FAR from any "unified theory" by biochemists. That's just silly.
This boob is simply suggesting a variation on the long-discredited Induced Hypoglycemic Therapy bullshit, and doing it in a really inappropriate place. Hey Sparky, if low sugar starved cancer cells, why aren't diabetics cancer-free? BTW, neurons starved of glucose die way before any other cells. "Avoid sugar, not just HFCS." Pfffft. IHT is DANGEROUS.
Posting rubbish like you did in this thread is fucking ghoulish and if there is any real karma, you just burned a whole lot of it.
Um, if you think I was actually doing anything but saying "look at THIS revolting practice" y'all need your receptors checked.
I was watching one of the weird science documentaries my wife loves and saw one that beats this story by a bit. Jasper Lawrence had severe asthma and allergies and heard an old wives tale that hookworms could force the body's immune system to "cure" the allergies...so he went to Africa, stamped around in feces and got a nice case of hookworm. It worked.
Now, he has set up a business selling hookworms he harvests from his own feces.
I don't usually reply to ACs, but...
I know Holland went for the defendant, and said as much, but two justices supported him being executed because he filed his paperwork late. Charming.
And I didn't suggest that statutory limits were the reason the justice system is broken...I KNOW it's broken because I just came through it. We have the largest prison population in the world and the highest per capita incarcerated population. So, what...we're a nation of criminals?
Lastly, there is no "massive opposition" to RvW. Only the fringe loonies want to criminalize abortion. Google away but here's one example:
http://www.pollingnumbers.com/poll-of-polls/roe-versus-wade.html
or
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/05/cnn-poll-record-support-for-roe-v-wade.html
The issue is dead, stare decisis after almost 40 years is a no brainer.
you effectively waive your right to appeal.
If you can't re-assert it at any time, it's not a right. (The conclusion, from the information that you give, is that you therefore don't really have a right to appeal.)
You raise a very interesting point, with which I heartily agree. The US justice system is neither fair nor equitable. Here is Scalia's dissent in Holland where he quites statutes and time limits, and as the final arbiter of the law, gets to decide what "rights" we have or not.
Happens all the time. There are very fixed time allowances on appeals. For example, if you plead or are found guilty in federal court, you have ten days to file an appeal, or at least preserve your right to appeal. If you do not file within that ten days (even if you tell your lawyer to do so and he does not) you effectively waive your right to appeal. You may collaterally attack but collateral attacks are civil actions and you are no longer entitled to counsel.
Think that's unfair? There are cases that would blow your minds. How about a death row inmate who filed his pro se appeal late, and was denied appeal of his death sentence. He finally got heard in the US Supreme Court but Scalia and Thomas dissented, saying "too late, too bad, so sad.."
Time limit injustice is way too common, (and tolling is not often granted) but this injustice is not often discussed, because as I often say, citizens in the US know NOTHING about the system that can suck them in at a moment's notice.
Hoo boy is that naive. My whole point was that even if you did nothing, the prosecutor can get you indicted. Do you understand the Grand Jury system? You do not give testimony, only the prosecutor does. You really would tell a prosecutor to "stick it" if you thought he had no evidence? You'd roll the dice with a jury?
Many people face that choice every day, and do time rather than do a LOT of time.
Consider: three of those statistics: (the high ones) do not involve trial, innocence or guilt: they are of ALL Fed criminal defendants.
The most telling: 93.6& of all Federal CASES result in a guilty plea. So, if you are simply charged (you don't have to be indicted, you know...I saw many inmates who waived indictment) you have about a 94% chance of being found or pleading guilty.
Busted By The Feds the book many inmates use (stupidly) as a legal bible has even more frightening statistics.
I suspect your first assumption is probably the right one. How else to explain these statistics: that the US 1) has the highest incarceration rate in the world, 2) the highest documented prison and jail population in the world and: 3) 7.3 million people on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole?
Really? Anything that involves interstate commerce can immediately be classified as federal. And it's easy to classify anything has having an effect on commerce.
I did not say "I didn't do anything." I said "I was facing five life sentences plus 105 years for an offense no one had ever been jailed a day on before. " And that is absolutely true. In fact, I filed my own 2255 collateral attack and the judge issued a sua sponte ruling (in violation of Greenlaw) using Gonzalez v Raich, a 9th Circuit medical marijuana case, which states that the Government can regulate noncommercial INTRAstate activity in which it has an interest. (See Wickard v Fillmore.) No "special circumstance.." the Feds just need to have an interest in you.
As for only "robbery with a gun" being an example of a life sentence requirement, that's bollocks. Feds operate on a very strict numerical system, (even though Booker says it's all advisory.) See this table? All you need to do is get up to Offense Level 37 with a few priors and you're gone forever. Or get a few 924(c) counts, the third of which puts you away for life, mandatory. There are white collar guys who are doing life because their dollar amounts are high. Bernie Madoff didn't use a gun, did he? How about Jeff Skilling? A guy who sells small amounts of drugs three times does 20 years, mandatory because of 18 USC 851.
You can do life for conspiracy. If I call you and ask "hey want a pound of blow?" and you simply say yes, you can be indicted on a pound of blow..at least 15 years. No blow needs to exist. Happens every day.
Just cause you have a pal who happens to work for a PD doesn't mean you understand just how unjust the system is. Actually, at the spot I served, I never saw a single inmate who claimed to be innocent.
I'm just suggesting people be very careful.
Really? If you were completely innocent, but had been indicted on Federal charges that would most likely put you away for life if you blew trial, or you were offered a two year plea deal, you'd actually gamble your life on twelve people who hear a very colorized version of the truth?
The cold facts:
93.6% of Fed cases result in a guilty plea.
75.6% of Fed criminal defendants are convicted following trial.
97% of Fed criminal defendants are sentenced.
82.8% of Fed criminal defendants receive a prison term.
That's not guilty defendants: it's ALL defendants.
Many of the people I met in Fed prison had either done nothing, or something so minor as to certainly not merit hard time. (I was a bit of a jailhouse lawyer..not much else to do.) I saw guys serving 20 years for making a phone call. I am not kidding.
As I said, it doesn't matter at ALL whether you did it or not. It matters what you can prove. And trust me, it's YOU that needs to do the proving, innocent till proven guilty is BS.
So, maybe you didn't do it, but you almost certainly will lose at trial. Yes, you''l be "right" and will have the moral high ground,..and wear khakis the rest of your life.
What Graber filmed was called a Terry Stop and the cop is able to search you without a warrant within your "wingspan" to check for weapons that may threaten him or other people. There are a lot of laws that cops often break on Terry Stops. My car was searched on my own property under the guise of a Terry Stop, which of course is wildly illegal, but I digress.
What Graber is "facing" is a maximum..he will never serve it unless he decides to roll the dice with a jury, blows trial and the judge sentences him to the maximum. Since the ACLU is involved, you can bet that will never happen.
But States and more often, the Feds will indict you for offenses that carry insane sentences in order to convince you to plead out, as the vast majority of people do. I did. I was facing five life sentences plus 105 years for an offense no one had ever been jailed a day on before. If I went to trial and lost on one single count, I would have done fifteen years, mandatory. (No parole in feds, BTW...you do 87.5%) I signed for five years, did 52 months.
Now, would you have fought? Really? Many people say they would, but it's a lot different when you are considering giving your life to 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty. When you realize that the whole system is set up to plead out 95+% of cases and do anything possible to convince you to not go in front of a jury, the average person has almost no chance in the system as it is set up. You didn't do it? That doesn't matter. It's what you can PROVE to a jury. And most of the time, the Government has much better lawyers and resources, so Graban is actually lucky...he won't serve a day, IMVHO.
CSI, Law and Order are worse than misinformation..they are propaganda, brainwashing us into thinking the system is fair and equal. It isn't. Graber is lucky that his case has publicity value. He may be "facing" sixteen years, but he'll never serve any.
But we aren't all lucky. We are indeed one Terry stop away from ruin. Be careful.