The end of lawlessness
Marion Jones is Sentenced to 6 Months
I guess we can all breathe a deep sigh of relief as the plague of steroids is finally behind us.
From that article:
"Jones had hoped to avoid prison, but U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas said he was giving her six months the maximum called for under her plea deal 'because of the need for general deterrence and the need to promote respect for the law.'
As she pleaded for mercy, Jones talked at length about her children, including the infant son she is still nursing.
'My passion in life has always been my family,' she said. 'I know the day is quickly approaching when my boys ask me about these current events. I intend to be honest and forthright ... and guide them into not making the same mistakes.'"
I want this scofflaw off the streets. A nursing mother, no less. What a foul, filthy, unhallowed recreant. Thank goodness Marion Jones is finally behind bars and this dangerous influence is not in the general vicinity of children and crippled persons.
What do we want in America? A bunch of hoodlums ignoring and scorning laws around illegal drugs? What would this world come to if average people regularly transgressed our sacred legal frameworks around illegal drug use? How could we live with such a parody of the law?
All I can say is thank goodness this harlot is finally behind bars where she clearly belongs. Marion Jones down, 88 professional baseball players to go. We'll start with Roger Clemens and finally end this scourge of wickedness and corruption.
It's enough to drive a man to drink. Forcing people to clean up their lives and clean up the world is a tough business.
But as Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani will tell you, somebody's got to do it.
3 comments:
Points well-taken. I heard she went up for the perjury re: the 'roids and some check fraud thing.
I don't think locking MJ up for check fraud will make me more secure, but I can imagine times when a little cooler time could make sense for a fraudster, maybe.
I don't know anything re: the check fraud part, do you?
I don't, John. If the check fraud is minor - I don't know; less than a $100, say, or if there is some reasonable explanation - then I generally favor restitution as long as a judge can feel reasonable certain that she has genuine remorse and is not a likely threat again. You never really know, is the truth. But neither do I like the idea of jail time as more of a fix all than it can really be. She's handling it all pretty classy, at this point, it seems to me. So she's probably going to be fine. But jailtime is seriously disruptive to peoples' lives in a way that other methods should be preferred unless we are convinced that they are the only effective means, I think, to deter future crime. Jailtime can create some pretty crazy dynamics, for many people, especially young people, in my experience, and, without responsibility often seems to undermine peoples' confidence in the criminal justice system and government, generally.
But I would be very open to evidence that contradicts me on this and thinking, more carefully, about when and where jail is a stronger deterrent.
The truth is, John, that I'm more open to the case for deterrence than I have been, in the past. But I am fairly committed to the idea that the least intrusive option that still gets the results of decreased or no criminal behavior in the future should be preferred. My experience is that when people, at least kids, have people who care about them and looking out for their futures holding open doors for their chance to rejoin decent society, they will often take those opportunities. Not always and not necessarily cleanly in the meantime. But it makes it more likely, in my experience, than jailtime alone and perhaps at all, depending on the offense, which often serves to bring more people into the net of criminality and underworld activity.
But I will say that I am looking at this issue with fresh eyes and I do want to take seriously where the evidence leads me and not just where my own sympathies lead me, at this point.
Steroids are pretty closely linked in those ballplayers minds to drugs and the drug war, I would seriously bet, John, given its pervasiveness and the similar pervasive use of illegal drugs in America and many liberal democratic societies. And I think that situation is best dealt with both through legalization, at best, and decriminalization, at least, and with more open debate and discussion about both drug use and steroid use and respect for the rules of sport against steroid use, unless that debate leads to some other consensus.
I want solutions like everyone else. And I don't want to defend bad options if they overlook consequences that are worse tradeoffs.
That's something we'll have to keep talking about.
I must say, John, just in case I die tomorrow - which seems likely given that it is 10:30, I am still awake for whatever ungodly reasons, that I actually favor alternatives to prison, like restitution, reconciliation efforts, etc., as a rule and prison, generally, only when people are dangerous. I an genuinely open to being wrong and will admit it the moment that I get the faintest inkling that I am, but I think, generally, that using prison for purposes other than people are genuinely dangerous undermines its containment and deterrent purposes, invites too many people into the criminal and underground world, undermines peoples' confidence and trust in government, the criminal justice system, law enforcement and authority, generally, and creates a chasm in societies that actually create networks of people who nurture and maintain criminal and wrong-minded behavior rather than eliminating or decreasing its propensity.
The irony is that, these days, I actually take abiding by the law fairly seriously. I would venture to bet that I take it more seriously than most people. And I must admit that the debate and discussion about the matter has very much impacted my thinking and behavior around this. But it is my thinking and behavior and the conscience and judgment that are responsible for both, in my life, that are responsible for that change in the seriousness with which I take the law and legal and criminal and other right and wrong-minded behavior and not the deterrent effects of the law, in the least. To the contrary, the more I've been afraid of the law, in my life, the more I've behaved in conflict with its letter, spirit, and premises and in conflict with my own commitment to doing right and good and the less committed to the legal and moral good that people have intended with the use of legal remedies.
Ironic, huh? But completely and utterly true. And the very reason why I am so open to being wrong about this whole matter. Because much of my thinking on this issue is impacted by my own personal experience, thinking, behavior, conscience, and judgment on this point and my experience has been unequivocally affected by conscience and counterproductively impacted by the law, itself, and its implied use of force, without a shadow of a doubt in my mind.
But I know that I could very easily be an anomoly and not the rule. So I'm completely open to being that anomoly, a minority, a less-than-convincing plurality, utterly out-of-touch with reality and my own senses or any and every other explanation for why my experience doesn't match the norm or why I'm just interpreting my own experience poorly, naively, narrowly, romantically, or in any other way that does not match the more general empirical evidence on this matter.
Just in case I die a fiery death in my new Toyota Corolla tomorrow.
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