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Comment by DamnYuppie | Hacker News Reader

Stealing a coat or possessing 1/2 and ounce of marijuana are generally not felonies. Stealing would be larceny and there are cost thresholds associated with that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony

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Virginia and New Jersey have felony larceny thresholds of $200; Massachusetts draws the line at $250. Arizona, Oklahoma and Tennessee all class possession of half an ounce of marijuana as a felony. Several states make possession of any amount within proximity of a school, church or park a felony. There are countless examples of misdemeanour possession being trumped-up to felony possession with intent based on very flimsy grounds.

This is all nitpicky and arbitrary, which is largely my point. The line between misdemeanour and felony is thin, but the consequences of crossing it are severe. In one state, you might get a $50 fine; in the next, you might be barred from voting or lose your green card.

I think you're missing the overall point. It doesn't matter whether the demarcation is $200, $250, or $3000 between a misdemeanor and a felony. It is more important that a person has trafficked in stolen goods. For that reason, lowering the limit of a misdemeanor is far more likely than raising it.

Besides, different states have different laws. This isn't arbitrary but how our country was designed to work.

In Virginia, felony larceny starts at $200, easily within coat range. I once had jury duty and was faced with the prospect of sentencing the defendant to up to 20 years in prison for the crime of receiving stolen goods valued at least $200. I got rejected from the jury, probably because I said I couldn’t possibly consider 20 years in prison for that.

I feel like at that point, it'd be morally correct to lie to get into the jury...

My English might fail me here, but if you think about a 20 year sentence and find it not adequate to the crime, wouldn't you have "considered" it?

I can understand why the question is asked though. The jury is there to find facts, i.e. define what has happened. The judge will then find the "correct" sentence if found guilty. The jury should not be swayed to a not guilty finding if they believe a guilty would be correct, just because the possible maximum sentence is too long, even if it would not be imposed in the case at hand anyway.

Virginia is unique here. Juries perform sentencing, not just finding of guilt. That’s why they asked the question.

Interesting. It certainly brings the risk of vengeful sentencing. But that brings me back to my original question: Would they have lied if they would have said "I would consider 20 years", already having made up their mind about it?

I may not be quoting the lawyer exactly, and there’s probably specialized legal meaning as well. The net result, at least as I understood it, was that they were asking if we would be able to consider the full range of sentences after having seen all the evidence and heard all the testimony. Basically, trying to screen out people who have already made up their minds, like they might try to screen out people who have already decided that the accused is guilty.

I was hoping that my discussion of how absurd that sentence was might influence the jurors who actually made it on.

Jury nullification is still definitely a thing. The trick is actually getting on the jury.

Yep the fastest way to get the kick off a jury is to mention your support for jury nullification. Sometime it's the judge that will dismissed you insted if one of the lawyers.

A state employee in Texas was charged with a felony for making a $0.25 personal call on a state owned telephone.

What about 3 strikes in many States?

Sympathy for habitual criminals?

I understand your point. But I think the problem actually arises long before strike number three. In most cases, it's ONE strike and you're out as far as "bad social credit score" goes. It's just going to be VERY difficult for you to secure employment, or even decent housing, with that conviction on your record.

Just one of the hard realities of the legal system.

I am not sure I follow your question as it is very open ended. Are you asking if I am in favor of incarcerating criminals who continually commit violent felonies?

Originally, the 3 strikes laws were to be used only against violent felonies. I'm not sure how they were able to include non violent offenses to the list.

Easy. Find one example of someone who stole something three times, then later murdered someone. Scare people with this fact. Make up a theory about how larceny is a gateway to violence.

This is, exactly, how the immigration debate is being held in DC. One undocumented shot and killed a citizen by accident, and now we're supposed to kick all immigrants out. Visceral emotion is a great tool to optimize society for corner cases.

The threshold was $100 in Louisiana in 1996 for the case referenced: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16607471

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