On Tuesday in Holy Week, my son Micah and I attended a one-hour class on first communion. Shepherd of the Valley, an ELCA Lutheran congregation in Apple Valley, Minn., aims this class at fifth graders. Others are welcome, however, including children younger than fifth grade who seem ready to receive the Lord’s Supper and have parental permission to do so.
The kids were full of questions about many different aspects of the Eucharist, from the grand-theological (Why did Jesus die?) to the nuts and bolts practical (Where do you get the bread?). After the questions were duly noted on a whiteboard, Pastor Randy Brandt ran through short answers to each one.
I’m titling this post “CSI: The Cross” because one question the children asked was, “How did the Cross cause death?” Pastor Randy’s answer was that, with the arms nailed to the cross-beam, it becomes increasingly impossible to breath. It is a slow death by asphyxiation — a form of torture that the Romans intended as a brutal deterrent to any rebellion against their occupying rule.
Palestine, under Roman rule, had no prohibtion against cruel and unusual punishment.
Showing posts with label cruel and unusual punishment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cruel and unusual punishment. Show all posts
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Thursday, April 29, 2010
One Lewd Act and It's Off to Prison for Life
On April 12, a judge in Nevada sentenced a 34-year-old woman to life in prison for kissing a 13-year-old boy, getting him to touch her breast through her clothes, and asking him for sex.
At trial, the woman admitted to roughhousing with the boy, but said she was intoxicated and did not remember more beyond that. Intoxication is of course not a defense, and committing lewd acts with a minor is no minor thing.
Even if she is released on parole after ten years, however, Michelle Lyn Taylor must register as a sex offender and be subject to lifetime supervision. As her defense attorney pointed out, Ms. Taylor's sentence is longer than if she had killed the boy.
From press accounts, it isn't clear why the district attorney chose to charge her under a statute carrying such a heavy mandatory minimum sentence, and why no plea bargain was offered. The jury was not told that a guilty verdict would carry such a severe sentence, and surely no one in the Legislature anticipated that the statute would be used this way. Too often, the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing in the American criminal justice system - and people's lives are unredeemably ruined as a result.
That's why Doug Berman, in his sentencing blog, notes that this could be a test case to probe the meaning in non-capital cases of the Eight Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Or is it possible, as Berman speculates, that there are additional facts about the case that have not been made public?
At trial, the woman admitted to roughhousing with the boy, but said she was intoxicated and did not remember more beyond that. Intoxication is of course not a defense, and committing lewd acts with a minor is no minor thing.
Even if she is released on parole after ten years, however, Michelle Lyn Taylor must register as a sex offender and be subject to lifetime supervision. As her defense attorney pointed out, Ms. Taylor's sentence is longer than if she had killed the boy.
From press accounts, it isn't clear why the district attorney chose to charge her under a statute carrying such a heavy mandatory minimum sentence, and why no plea bargain was offered. The jury was not told that a guilty verdict would carry such a severe sentence, and surely no one in the Legislature anticipated that the statute would be used this way. Too often, the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing in the American criminal justice system - and people's lives are unredeemably ruined as a result.
That's why Doug Berman, in his sentencing blog, notes that this could be a test case to probe the meaning in non-capital cases of the Eight Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Or is it possible, as Berman speculates, that there are additional facts about the case that have not been made public?
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Dog Years
When I began reading an essay about the Obama family’s new dog, Bo, on the op/ed page, I wasn’t looking for material to use in a blog post. As much as I embrace E.O. Wilson’s notion of “consilience” — drawing on all spheres of human knowledge for holistic problem solving — I really didn’t expect Bo to contribute much toward the illumination of criminal justice issues.
The more I read of Wayne Pacelle’s essay, however, the more striking the parallel seemed between the warehousing of dogs in “puppy mills” and the warehousing of humans in jails and prisons. Pacelle is the president and CEO of the Humane Society. He paints a disturbing picture of the conditions inside the factory farms that spew out 4 million puppies every year, nearly 2 million of whom end up being euthanized in shelters for lack of a good home. Within the puppy mills, disease is rampant, as dogs typically get no exercise, no opportunity to leave their cages, and precious little, if any, human interaction.
It was jarring to read about these miserable conditions and disconcerting to realize I had been so oblivious to then. It's not as if our culture has no standards for the treatment of dogs. In December 2007, Michael Vick, the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback, was sentenced to 23 months in federal prison and 3 years of probation for his part in a brutal dog-fighting conspiracy. A professor at Valparaiso University School of Law (my law school alma mater), Rebecca Huss, was appointed guardian to the 48 pit bulls seized from Vick’s property by investigators. The legal system does not go to the trouble of bringing down star quarterbacks, and appointing guardians, for species whose members are completely disposable.
Is there an analogy between puppy mills and American prisons? In one way, the situation is the exact opposite. Dog farms churn out the pups hoping to sell them to people who want them, whereas prisons provide a place to confine unwanted people. But the health hazards of warehousing are inescapable, whether the species is canis lupus familiaris or homo sapiens.
For American inmates, the belly of the beast is most exposed in California, where the prison healthcare system has broken down under the strain of constant overcrowding. With inmates triple-bunked in gymnasiums, hallways and other unlikely places, and their medical records in chaos, many have died of preventable illnesses or committed suicide over the past decade. The federal courts have found this to be cruel and unusual punishment, which is prohibited by the Eight Amendment. On February 9, a special three-judge panel announced its intention to cap the number of prisoners at slightly more than 100,000, a reduction of more than 50,000 from the current size of 156,000, which is twice the system’s designed capacity. (Coleman v. Schwarzenegger, 2009 WL 330960)
Michael Vick is scheduled to be released from federal prison in July. (Just in time for training camp?) How many unwanted dogs will still be languishing in puppy mill and shelters then, and how many unwanted humans in jails and prisons?
The more I read of Wayne Pacelle’s essay, however, the more striking the parallel seemed between the warehousing of dogs in “puppy mills” and the warehousing of humans in jails and prisons. Pacelle is the president and CEO of the Humane Society. He paints a disturbing picture of the conditions inside the factory farms that spew out 4 million puppies every year, nearly 2 million of whom end up being euthanized in shelters for lack of a good home. Within the puppy mills, disease is rampant, as dogs typically get no exercise, no opportunity to leave their cages, and precious little, if any, human interaction.
It was jarring to read about these miserable conditions and disconcerting to realize I had been so oblivious to then. It's not as if our culture has no standards for the treatment of dogs. In December 2007, Michael Vick, the former Atlanta Falcons quarterback, was sentenced to 23 months in federal prison and 3 years of probation for his part in a brutal dog-fighting conspiracy. A professor at Valparaiso University School of Law (my law school alma mater), Rebecca Huss, was appointed guardian to the 48 pit bulls seized from Vick’s property by investigators. The legal system does not go to the trouble of bringing down star quarterbacks, and appointing guardians, for species whose members are completely disposable.
Is there an analogy between puppy mills and American prisons? In one way, the situation is the exact opposite. Dog farms churn out the pups hoping to sell them to people who want them, whereas prisons provide a place to confine unwanted people. But the health hazards of warehousing are inescapable, whether the species is canis lupus familiaris or homo sapiens.
For American inmates, the belly of the beast is most exposed in California, where the prison healthcare system has broken down under the strain of constant overcrowding. With inmates triple-bunked in gymnasiums, hallways and other unlikely places, and their medical records in chaos, many have died of preventable illnesses or committed suicide over the past decade. The federal courts have found this to be cruel and unusual punishment, which is prohibited by the Eight Amendment. On February 9, a special three-judge panel announced its intention to cap the number of prisoners at slightly more than 100,000, a reduction of more than 50,000 from the current size of 156,000, which is twice the system’s designed capacity. (Coleman v. Schwarzenegger, 2009 WL 330960)
Michael Vick is scheduled to be released from federal prison in July. (Just in time for training camp?) How many unwanted dogs will still be languishing in puppy mill and shelters then, and how many unwanted humans in jails and prisons?
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