Fergie's Tech Blog

Off Topic: Found Not Guilty and Still Doing The Time

Michael Hampton writes on Homeland Stupidity:

In the United States, you can be sentenced to prison for crimes you didn’t commit.

Under current federal sentencing guidelines, the government can demand that the court sentence a defendant found guilty of some charges but innocent of other charges as if he had been found guilty of all of the charges.

This, of course, is why they throw any charge they can think of at everyone who crosses paths with the injustice system. Invariably, they’ll manage to convict even the most innocent person of something, even if it’s a jaywalking charge, and get a sentence far in excess of what would be reasonable for such a charge.

A federal district court recently condemned the practice, which it said occurs “routinely.”

posted by Fergie @ 11/15/2006 05:51:00 PM