This does not mean that it should be legal to defraud people of billions of dollars, ruin countless lives, and harm many more.
This is a rare case where a white collar crime was appropriately punished. Sam showed no remorse, and no evidence that he would not engage in similar crimes in the future. He earned this time.
Hopefully he’ll reform and be worthy of early release; but candidly I doubt it. I think he’s irredeemable.
White collar criminals can and should be likened to serial killers in the severity of their crimes. They spread invisible miseries indiscriminately, near entirely without justice or recognition. I am glad one of them is finally being properly punished.
I'm not saying it's right. But it's the tacit consensus we maintain to make ourselves comfortable with the risks of piloting deadly machines every day.
https://chat.openai.com/share/2dc83d60-d14b-4438-8226-ac59de...
I don't know if it can summarize books correctly always, it almost always does; and I also don't know if there's just a bias in publishing about race relations because that sells.
But it seems right to me that the most orthodox opinion is that racial bias, drug policy and socioeconomic status are the biggest factors in the severity of sentencing in general.
So you are referencing two acutely exceptional cases - a white collar crime by a rich person that only somewhat interacts with drug abuse of Aderrall that is acutely severely punished, and a drug-related crime that is acutely poorly punished.
What was his plan? What did he expect to earn from this action? And now, who would plan to DUI because they believe it's worth a 26-month sentence?
SBF knew what we was doing and did it knowingly. He thought he wouldn't be caught and earn a few extra billions. Unless we was drunk all along…
It's about the long-term planning and the clear intent to choose a path with such a risk/reward ratio.
SBF operated with forethought and malice. He intended to deceive people. He was trying to commit fraud.
Hometown guy did not intend to crash or kill anybody.
Now the results of hometown guy's actions were more direct and severe, but had he had the choice, he would not have crashed and killed anybody. He's not a criminal, just a fucking idiot.
And hometown guy accidentally got behind the wheel of a car while drunk?
If you go out to drink, you don’t bring your car. If you know you need to drive later, you don’t drink.
They might be drunk when they are driving, but they very much put themselves into a situation where it was the likely outcome while sober.
No. He did not. Everything that happened was likely unplanned. Hence, no forethought. And I doubt he was trying to hit anybody. Hence, no malice.
Yes, he still made those choices and they were bad choices. So he does need to make restitution. But the fact that he wasn't intentionally trying to do what he did makes his offense different than SBF's.
Now, is there an issue that our penal system is ultimately more punitive than rehabilitory? Of course, but even from a punitive standpoint, accidental murder should warrant less punishment than intentional large-scale multi-billion dollar fraud. We can't base punishments solely on the outcome of an event. Intent of the perpetrator has to matter.
That said, I've personally known of two people who were convicted of DWI vehicular manslaughter, and they both received 15-year sentences, so 26 months seems to be an aberration.