(October 6, 2014 at 11:01 pm)HopOnPop Wrote: 1)CRIMINAL CHARGES: If we assume a crime is commited, even if small, you noted originally that you agree that some form of condemnation or public ostracisation of some minor sort was in line with your sense of liberty, and above you again noted a "literal slap on the wrist" also being fine in your thinking (if one can consider this a crime, that is) -- and that is all I would like to see too (and that is how I view community service). I think your real criticism (to which, if I am assuming correctly, I also agree) is with how the way the American criminal justice system deals with convictions that end in mere community service. This kind of crime should not ever be part of anyones public permanent crimial record (I would go so far as to suggest any punishment that a court finds sufficient to punish with mere "community service" should merely be served and forgotten about by the system, much like parking tickets). Now on to whether it was an actual crime --
You got that wrong. My position is that public ostracization and/or condemnation is an appropriate response for offending the public's sentimentalities. Any such condemnation would and should be apart from the legal system. The legal system should not involve itself even to give a literal slap on the wrist. That is my real criticism - retaliating for offending the public is not something the criminal justice system should enter into.
Ofcourse, it goes without saying, I don't think "offending the public" should be regarded as a crime.
(October 6, 2014 at 11:01 pm)HopOnPop Wrote: 2) TANGIBLE DAMAGES: I am not sure what you may actually mean when you say "tangible damages" or "actual damages" here, but in my eyes the were damages in this case that may be rightly considered by our courts -- namely, in the form of intimidation/bullying (which is a civil rights issue) and, secondly, in the form of potentially incitement to violence (in that, if simply ignored, this lack of official notice would predictably be expected to encourage other youths and people to do similar things, and such situations can also predictably escalate to retaliatory actions as well -- thus it behooves the government to nip-it-in-the-bud to help preserve peace by enacting some kind of deterent to the initial act, not as punishment but as a deterrent to others). I think If you wish to argue that such forms of "damage" are too intangible to consider punishable by some form of regulation, then you calling into question a lot settled law founded under the auspices of Civil Rights and Equal Rights statutes (which I personally consider to be a hallmark development to any society that might remotely consider itself to be a "free society").
The only intimidation/bullying done here was by the DA's office.
As for the "potential incitement of violence argument" - that is central to every attempt to curb freedoms. A similar argument is often made that women should not wear revealing clothes or go out at night lest they "incite" men to rape them. Better to nip all that in the bud and prosecute women who are out late or dress immodestly.
Without any actual incitement - meaning "persuading, encouraging, instigating, pressuring, or threatening to commit violence" - the incitement argument doesn't apply.
