Rethinking Draconian White Collar Sentences

post from TalkLeft on 23 February 2007 11:56:00 PM. © TalkLeft

Law professor Ellen Podgor had a very thoughtful article, Throwing Away the Key, 116 Yale L.J. Pocket Part 279 (2007, about the need to rethink the draconian sentences being meted out to white collar criminals.

These modern changes in sentencing and parole law have caused the debate to shift: the question is no longer whether white-collar offenders should do less time than street offenders, but whether they should really be treated more harshly than international terrorists and violent criminals.

The sentences given to white-collar offenders seem oddly imbalanced when compared to those given to international terrorists and violent criminals. For example, eighty-year-old Adelphia founder John Rigas received a fifteen-year sentence, and his son Timothy Rigas, the CFO of the company, received a twenty-year sentence. The white-collar sentencing figures also seem out of line when compared with many state sentences for murder, rape, robbery, and burglary, crimes that find themselves federalized when serving as predicate acts of RICO.

Podgor uses Skilling, Milliken, Ebbers and others as examples, and concludes:

Eliminating sentencing disparity is an important goal for achieving an equitable judicial process. But increasing white-collar sentences and then throwing away the key does little to benefit society. The stories show the need for a change. And hopefully this time, quantitative analysis and statistics will not drive the Guidelines down the wrong path.

The bottom line is that we need to return to individualizing the sentencing process because we do not sentence numbers—we sentence people. If we really believe that the time should fit the crime, then we need to start realizing that not all crimes and not all criminals are alike

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TalkleftThePoliticsOfCrime/~3/95130526/2562

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Late Nite FDL: A Fanboy Moment

post from Firedoglake on 23 February 2007 11:42:13 PM. © Firedoglake

(Tori? Honey? Are you alright? Tori? Tori!) Well, here's something else to make me to lick my slavering TRex chops with anticipation. Tori Amos will be releasing her 9th album on May 1st, "American Doll[...]

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http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/02/23/late-nite-fdl-a-fanboy-moment/

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Eschaton After Dark

post from Eschaton on 23 February 2007 11:40:00 PM. © Eschaton

Murder by Death - Brother

video details and more

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http://atrios.blogspot.com/2007_02_18_atrios_archive.html#117229207568342215

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Former President Clinton Making the Big Bucks

post from Gun Toting Liberal ? on 23 February 2007 11:09:00 PM. © Gun Toting Liberal ?

When this sitting President leaves office and I personally can not wait for that day, he will go on the speaking tour. I?m just guessing that many of his highest paid speeches will be in Saudi Arabia or in Israel. That my friends is what former President?s of the United States do [...]

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http://guntotingliberal.com/archives/823

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Former President Clinton Makes The Big Bucks

post from Gun Toting Liberal ? on 23 February 2007 11:09:00 PM. © Gun Toting Liberal ?

When this sitting President leaves office and I personally cannot wait for that day, he will go on the speaking tour. I?m just guessing that many of his highest paid speeches will be in Saudi Arabia or in Israel. That, my friends, is what former Presidents of the United States do to [...]

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http://guntotingliberal.com/archives/823

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Dispatches from Iraq.

post from Think Progress on 23 February 2007 11:07:00 PM. © Think Progress

From McClatchy’s Baghdad bureau: “The other kid that i can not forget was in Fallujah, he is laying down suffering bullets injuries and his father, mother and aunt were killed in the car behind him and he can not see them… he refused to let the ambulance take him to the hospital only if I [...]

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http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/23/dispatches-from-iraq/

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C&Ls Late Nite Music Club with Melissa Etheridge

post from Crooks and Liars on 23 February 2007 11:06:35 PM. © Crooks and Liars

It's Oscar time again, and I'm hoping An Inconvenient Truth wins big, because I'd love to see Al Gore on stage with millions of people watching and applauding worldwide. One of the awards the documentary is up for is Best Song, for I Need To Wake Up, by Melissa Etheridge. If you haven't seen [...]

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http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/02/23/cls-late-nite-music-club-with-melissa-et
heridge/

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Sad State of Italian Politics

post from TPMCafe - The Coffee House feed on 23 February 2007 11:05:10 PM. © TPMCafe - The Coffee House feed

While we're all obsessed with a U.S. presidential race a year and a half out, there is an actual race going on now in France for president--and the collapse this week of the Italian government. What does this have to do with the U.S.? A lot--if we are hoping to have reliable allies and, for those of us who are progressives--even more if we are hoping to have reliable European allies who will strongly and assertively promote democratic values around the world. Ironically, to American ears, at least, one of the parties who has been most forceful in promoting a democratic--and interventionist (although not along Bush lines) international policy has been the very short-lived Prodi government in Italy, which fell this week.

Roman Prodi, a former head of the EU, and a leader of the Christian Democrats in Italy, blocked with the Italian Communists and others on the left to form a grand coalition, barely beating back the right wing under former PM Berlusconi. In office, he appointed the Communist leader and well-respected statesman Massimo D'Alema as Foreign Minister.

This past summer, when Jacques Chirac, the French President, retreated from his pledge to send French troops to keep the peace between Israel and Hezbollah, after the war, D'Alema stepped in with Italian troops-and by advocating a more forceful peacekeeping force from Europe that could, perhaps, set a precedent for further peace moves in the region--especially with the Palestinians.

In the wierd world of Italian politics, much of it influenced by old Cold War politics, the Italian Communists--the first of the "Euro-Communist" parties to break with the Soviet Union and Stalinist politics--has played a terribly interesting role in promoting a vision of left-wing internationalism that promotes peace and dialogue, and military intervention when needed or necessary. They've offered a robust vision for the left, but tragically, their own country's political deficits have kept them from playing the role that would benefit the democratic left on a world stage. Finally, this week, the government (which could still be revived) fell with a vote of two who voted against Prodi's support for Italian troops in Afghanistan. The knee-jerk anti-Americanism cost Prodi his government and the sane left a voice on the world stage. D'Alema, according to the Financial Times, reportedly said: "What do you expect if you put Trotskyists in parliament?"

Yes, the Bush Administration's foreign policy is a disaster--but for Europe to offer itself as a counter to American hegemony even one iota, it has to promote a policy of sane interventionism, not blanket anti-Americanism. Let's hope that D'Alema and Prodi have another chance.

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/tpmcafe-main/~3/95097362/sad_state_of_italian_poli
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Ralph Nader and Cary Grant

In his last years, Cary Grant would phone me once in a while. It started when I asked him to pose for a magazine cover with his daughter. He said yes, but his former wife said no. Grant and I discussed it and finally gave up.

After that, he would call every so often, and we found ourselves discussing his opinions of journalists, working mothers, parenting and anything else that crossed his mind.

After one of those pleasant conversations, it struck me: He missed being Cary Grant. In his eighties, long retired, he was on corporate boards and surely had a busy social life but, in these calls, he was the Cary Grant he once was, a great star, sought after by editors, the object of endless interest.

Over time, we all lose our faces and bodies to age, but what keeps us going, beyond family and friends, is our sense of ourselves that tells us we are still who we were, no matter how diminished.

Most of us can avoid mirrors, but what must it be like to confront on TV a younger self or see in the eyes of strangers the cliché question, ?Didn?t you used to be...??

So we have the sad spectacle of faded figures lending their former fame to execrable movies, embarrassing commercials and tacky TV roasts to reassure themselves they still matter. By comparison, Cary Grant?s phone calls were a modest and dignified way of filling the void.

Now we have 73-year-old Ralph Nader popping up everywhere to convince himself he is still the Ralph Nader he used to be, flirting last evening with Wolf Blitzer about running against Hillary Clinton, promoting his book about his family, still defending himself against charges that he gave us George Bush and, to Blitzer?s surprise, plugging his favorite airline while blasting all the others in supporting a passenger?s bill of rights.

Attention must be paid, to quote Mrs. Willy Loman. But Ralph Nader should fight the encroachments of age by getting a talk show, writing more books or babbling on a blog (like me). He should do anything he wants to get attention but stay the hell out of Presidential politics.

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http://ajliebling.blogspot.com/2007/02/ralph-nader-and-cary-grant.html

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Animalosity

Who knew that fake fur wasn’t, you know, so fake? And, have you ever heard of such a thing as a “raccoon dog”? This story, straight from the garment district of New York, makes the Union of Needltrades, Industrial and Textile Employees slogan, “Look for the Union label” seem all the more appropriate:The [...]

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http://allspinzone.com/wp/2007/02/23/animalosity/

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