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Noah Stephens's avatar

Yea, fuck that. For what he did, the judge should have died in prison.

Also, violent/non-violent is the wrong dichotomy. Serious/non-serious is a better scale.

A fist-fight between two drunks is violent but not serious.

A judge who accepts bribes to put innocent kids in prison is non-violent but serious. A serious enough violation of public trust to deserve a life sentence.

Though, I’d argue using courts to essentially kidnap a kid and put them in prison is in fact a violent crime.

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Sean's avatar

While he was in federal prison for the federal crime of corruption, why was he not also prosecuted under state law for multiple counts of kidnapping, child abuse, and unlawful imprisonment?

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Greg Kemnitz's avatar

Probably to save money. It costs a lot of money to prosecute someone in open court in a complex multi-count indictment, and if it looked like he'd die in federal prison, there would be little reason to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars prosecuting him.

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Kevin Beck's avatar

Why did Joke Biden do that? My guess is that he is a fellow traveller with people who accept bribes.

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Matt L.'s avatar

Yeah, how do We The People even know Biden made any of these pardon decisions? A whole lot of rotten, shitty decisions have been made in the name of ‘Biden’ over last 4 years but highly doubtful it was Biden himself who made any of them. Joe Biden will be dead within the year and doesn’t care/know. I’m rather more outraged citizens voted this dementia patient into office in the first place, and to top that off, we’re prepared to vote for him a 2nd time before Kamala (“I’d do nothing different”) was installed instead, w/ no primary. We have lived through a bad version of ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ and these pardons are the rolling credits. These pardons are the Left’s sickness on full display. Decision by committee. What the 25th Amendment was designed to prevent. Except VP Harris and Biden’s entire cabinet were not up to the task.

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allison's avatar

I'm a liberal, and I'm all for mercy where the criminal justice system has failed. Sweeping clemency based on a set of filters (non-violent, unlikely to reoffend, home confinement, etc.) is egregious.

Jailing children for money, is violent (Judge Michael Conahan).

Administering cancer patients reduced chemo dosages and billing the full amount, is violent (Meera Sachdeva).

The non-violent or "white collar" label is a major failing of criminal justice system.

Biden is abiding by these labels without scrutiny, creating an arbitrary list from them rather than vetting the individual cases. This is not a flex of impartiality.

Is a president's clemency supposed to be impartial?

Is likelihood of reoffense the highest weighted factor for granting mercy?

Shouldn't mercy, as granted by the president, be for the low risk re-offenders who have been unjustly marginalized, underserved and impoverished? The victims of the broken justice system? And should we not have high expectations for thorough vetting of each clemency case and individual?

This judge and doctor used their privilege and seats of power to exploit the vulnerable.

Who were the incarcerated kids? White prep school students from wealthy families or the BIPOC at risk youth whose parents have limited resources?

Who were the patients that were so dubiously robbed of full life-saving care? I would venture that these folks were not of wealth or influence.

Maybe Biden didn't single out Conahan and Sachdeva for special favor but he didn't bother to weed them out. And that is the injustice.

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Aaron’s Party (Come Get It)'s avatar

Had high hopes that Biden would be a breath of fresh air from Trump and now have nothing but disdain for the damage he’s done to liberals and the left!

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Pete McCutchen's avatar

Yes. Most people are in prison for doing bad things. Mercy to bad people is cruelty to their victims.

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Tim Pallies's avatar

Context can be a wonderful tool, but for the record, I know no one abused by this judge, and still, I would never support this move by Biden. I don't care much about the forest. This particular tree embodied an evil too great to forgive.

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𝓙𝓪𝓼𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓮 𝓦𝓸𝓵𝓯𝓮's avatar

We can house dangerous people, threats to society, humanly. Unfortunately we don't do that which makes us just as bad.

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JudyS's avatar

Another pardoned person who is provided huge amounts of pills to people who suffered addictions and ruined lives. Also this pardon disregards the police and legal work it took to stop this doctor.

https://whnt.com/news/huntsville/biden-grants-clemency-to-huntsville-pill-mill-doctor-who-was-sentenced-in-2017/

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Marisa Rothstein, JD, CFP®'s avatar

Glad to have found your newsletter. Interesting topics and well analyzed. Look forward to what comes next!

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