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Comment by cobrausn | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, it's an example of government as envisioned by the founders working as intended - when someone at the state level overreaches, a federal court strikes it down (I'm hoping the same thing happens to this absurd law regarding dealer sales). This happens in more places than just Texas.

Doesn't change the fact that your first statement is not factual anymore. Given time I think we (Texans) can eventually stop / vote out all these morons who think legislating morality is their job - we've been headed that way last few elections anyway.

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> Yeah, it's an example of government as envisioned by the founders working as intended - when someone at the state level overreaches, a federal court strikes it down

Jeffersonian democrats certainly were against that idea, as evidenced by nullification, which was in issue up until the civil war.

Maybe the federalists, but it sounds extreme even for them.

It sounds like something that the northern politicians had in mind in the late 19th century or maybe early 20th century.

i know its OT, but could you expand on that idea?

Washington and Hamilton -- the Federalists you mentioned -- desperately wanted a strong federal gov't with supremacy over state laws. Washington wanted the powers of the federal gov't enumerated in the constitution (and many of them), and his desire was for a unicameral legislature with direct popular representation.

That our constitution ended up vague on these issues-- and the existence of the Senate with its state-appointed representitives-- is owed to negotiation and comprimise. Of course, Washington presided over the congress on these issues, he was not himself a delegate, so you don't have a lot of direct quotes on these topics but what we know has been pieced together over the years from his (limited) correspondence and 2nd party accounts.

Well, your current governor is Rick Perry so your recent track record on electing non-morons is pretty bad. Austin != Texas.

I don't live in Austin, and Austin isn't as special as it thinks it is. I will repeat myself - I live in the fourth largest city in the United States, which happens to be in Texas, is not Austin, and has a homosexual mayor, who is (all things considered) a fairly conservative Democrat. Some people are just pragmatic.

That's Governor Goodhair to you.

Glad to hear it. Just consider this poor bastard, who was recently sentenced by said morons to 50 years for the entirely non-violent act of shoplifting a package of ribs.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/willie-smith-ward-rib-theft_n_3365554.html

That's "justice", Texas style. Better than the Taliban's, I suppose. But not by much.

It seems he was sentenced not for stealing ribs, but because the threatened the store owner that confronted him, which is, in fact, a violent act. It also appears he was somewhat of a habitual offender, having been convincted of various violent and non-violent crimes many times previously.

The sentence is somewhat harsh (eligible for parole in 12.5), but your comparison to the Taliban is absurd.

EDIT:

somewhat harsh in relative comparison to normal American sentencing standards, since the goal is apparently to single out Texas as some horrible place where sentencing is too harsh. I will now point out draconian three-strikes laws in other more progressive states that would have had him in jail for life.

Make no mistake, I think American criminal courts and sentencing are too harsh in general and our prisons are horrible travesties of justice. But the singling out of this state is what I'm calling absurd - all of American criminal sentencing is broken.

SOMEWHAT????????????

The clarification here on the details is certainly nice to have.

However, are you seriously suggesting that 50 years imprisonment is only somewhat harsh?! Taking 12.5 years at the minimum before being eligible for parole for stealing $35 ribs and "threatening" someone?

By the way, saying "I've got a knife" and calling that a threat is both a stretch of what it means to threaten and what it means to call something a "violent act".

$35 food theft != 50 years imprisonment. That is fucking insane, not somewhat harsh.

I would think the sentence reflects more his continuing criminal career than the immediate crime at hand.

I'm not sure about this case, but it could much like the three strike laws mentioned above. He only got five years for the robbery, five years for the threat, and forty years for his habitual criminal activity. As stated, in three-strike territory he possibly would have gotten life simply for the robbery of $35 worth of ribs.

I agree with the above, singling out Texas as some kind of outlier for this type of thing doesn't seem quite right.

I'm not picking on or singling Texas out. I don't care which state it is.

Life imprisonment for stealing $35 of food is bullshit. Repeat offender or not.

There's a fundamental problem with a society that is okay with an increasing prison population spending their entire adult lives there because of terminal sentences on the basis of recidivism.

Increasing sentences for recidivism itself is constitutionally debatable, I think, though I'm not sure if it has been challenged on that basis. This is America, though. It'd probably stand cos we like the idea of systemic incarceration as a means to low crime rates.

Not that I necessarily disagree with you, but some might complain there's little difference between stealing $1000 over ten criminal acts or all of it in one robbery.

That point is debatable, certainly.

I don't like to harp on things that have become politicized too often, but this particular case stands in such stark contrast to bankers who made off with billions, none of whom to my knowledge are spending the rest of their lives in a common prison.

That's why the howls of injustice, to quote another commenter. $35 in ribs, taken by repeat offender, is apparently a greater crime against society than the repeat offense of fleecing the entire society.

(Shrug) I'm guessing the rest of us can get along OK without this enterprising young gentleman. It's not as if he's likely to cure cancer or start the next Google.

> * It's not as if he's likely to cure cancer or start the next Google.*

Why in the fuck does that have anything to do with the severity of the sentence?

Should we start valuing people based on their probability to cure cancer or start the next Google?

Just saying that his case sounds pretty far down the list of things that call for howls of injustice, IMHO.

Your grasp of justice is about as firm as Attila the Hun's understanding of orbital mechanics.

I could fit in a disgruntled mutter or two next Tuesday morning between 9 and 11. Would that help?

The charge was not shoplifting and that headline is preposterous.

When will people get the difference between theft and robbery through their heads? One is a property crime. The other is a violent crime.

But sure, just go ahead and say you'll get 50 years for shoplifting. You get more clicks and you can be seen as indignant and virtuous.

EDIT: Ok, so I'm wrong about Ward actually threatening the clerk. But he was a multiple felon, and the jury apparently believed the testimony that he had a knife (which would have been illegal for a multiple felon to carry).

My comments in general still apply to many, many stories that are presented the way I originally described.

Uh, you didn't actually read the article, did you?

If you did, you'd understand that yes, it was shoplifting. He was apprehended after the fact, at which point the shoplifting was discovered. When asked if he had anything else, he replied that he had a knife, but didn't actually show it.

In other words, there was no violence committed or even threatened in the course of the crime. There was no violence committed or credibly threatened after the fact. There was simply a statement, which could easily be seen as a confession, that he had a knife in his possession.

"That's "justice", Texas style. Better than the Taliban's, I suppose. But not by much."

Well we can't all have the outstanding records of quality policing of places like California...

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