I am not quite sure about the American law system and not clear on what this means - but I think it is good news for you Spacepony. Assuming so, I'm glad for you and, as with garion333, I hope the past can be past.

Best wishes.

yes that is good. Do they have parole in china?

Excellent news - that sentence was way over the top for the circumstances of the offence. Will the annulment downgrade the side effects? ie make it easier to get on with your life without the blocks the previous one created?

Regards
Zy

I'm guessing that you're either a lawyer or one in training? If so, you should know that a homicide investigation is not a murder investigation. Calling people murderers while the homicide is investigated is entirely inaccurate and would get a prosecutor in deep shit before long. Homicide investigations come with natural, accidental, and suicide along with self defense killings, none of them are murder. If you don't know the difference, then I guess you're not insane with a belief like that. Aside from that inexplicable scenario, either you are, or it was a severely poor choice of words. In any case, my implying that you're insane for having insane views is not throwing insults.

First, the weed.

"I never mentioned marijuana in my reply."

Indeed, that is true, you just posted that insanity to answer my question that you quoted, which explains why you didn't mention what drug you were referring to. If you were talking about crack addicts and speed freaks sure, but you were specifically replying on weed, marijuana.

Second, the crime rate.

I mentioned violent crime rates for a reason. The drug statistics aren't included, and the population level is accounted for. Crimes committed against minorities not being reported doesn't cut it either, and the statistics show perfect correlation between rates of crimes committed by minorities and those against minorities.

What has changed are sentences.

Your point that it's dropping in your city is irrelevant, the national rates are dropping. The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. Passed by congress to combat increasingly lax sentencing by federal judges following the rehabilitation philosophy that corrupted our system. Allowing for a few years lag time on the crime rates, the lax sentencing before the act explains how we managed to more than quadruple the violent crime rate in less than three decades, all while following a massive drop in drug use from the peaceful sixties. After the act, violent crime rates dropped from over four times to three times as high as the relatively peaceful sixties. For your evils of drugs argument, consider your logic carefully. The sixties had low crime across the board.

Your argument that plea deals are necessary. A more logical one than the usual reason they are used. However, I fail to see the point in bringing someone to trial if you can't win. The reason you can't win is that you can't prove it. The standard for conviction is beyond a reasonable doubt for a reason. If there is reasonable doubt, as should be apparent by a lack of evidence, we're not supposed to be locking them up. If it's one of those absurd rules of evidence getting the case thrown out, I think you can guess what needs to happen there. In either case, plea deals are not an acceptable alternative, they are a cancer. A plea deal should consist of the defendant confessing, taking the normal sentence for the crime committed, and skipping the lengthy trial and associated costs.

Unfortunately, in most cases, plea deals aren't to send a guy to jail that would otherwise get away with something. They are to cut costs because we're stupid and think we can save money by letting more people get away with things. We haven't increased the judiciary with the population, we're too busy pissing away money on social programs to rehabilitate losers. By the flawed logic, it would take ten times as long to prosecute them all, so they don't, and we get an appropriate increase in crime to go with it.

Crime rates do not increase four fold in a vacuum, they do so for reasons. Think outside the morbid box of the legal system in its current, diseased form.

Yes it most certianly does, it removes the sex offender status from the crime. From my investigation what seems to have happened is this.

1. the prosicution motioned for an upgrade from an m2 to an m1
2. near the end of the trial (just prior to closing statementsO the judge said this during a side bar with both the prosicuter and my lawyer.

6 MS. (I removed last name): Yes, and that is still
7 an outstanding issue, but that's for the Court
8 to decide. I made a motion at the beginning,
9 before, I think, right before the 600 Motion to
10 amend the complaint to an M-1.
11 I think you held it under advisement.
12 THE COURT: Any reargument on that?
13 MS. (my lawyer): Your Honor, I would just
14 argue that it was charged as an M-2, should
15 stay as an M-2.
16 THE COURT: All right. I'm going to allow
17 them -- all right. I'm inclined not to give
18 this charge and, first of all, it's at the
19 court's discretion; secondly, it would apply
20 where there's little or no evidence that
21 corroborates the testimony of the victim, and
22 there is evidence here that tends to
23 corroborate his testimony.
24 So, I'm going to deny the Commonwealth's
25 request for the charge.

That is where I discovered that the charge was supposed to be an M2.

The accual sentencing sheet has on the top of it M2 crosssed out and the statement "ammended to M1" next to it. Under that is a signatore line with a mark at the end for the athorizing signator. The line is unsigned.

It seems that somewhere along the way the person who put the informaton into the system erroniusly entered it as M1 where in fact the record shows the the judge denied the states motion to upgrade the charge.

three months later when I went for sentencing WHAM I got blindsided with 11/23 months in jail plus 3 years probation where the guidelines for an m2 called for two years probation only...

also the M2 has no megens law provision (remember I did drag him out by his balls!) but the M1 is mandatory megans law... A major difference and someone screwed up.

I spoke to a lawyer from the ACLU today and they are looking into this. I also spoke to my bankruptcy lawyer and he put me in touch with another civil rights lawyer about this.

Remember that the difference between the two levels of charges is not only about jail time but also my lost ability to earn an income. with an m2 I would not have had any moral turpitude issues and would not have lost my ability to earn an income.

I would not have lost my $379,000.00 home to sheriff sale, I would not have lost my $105,000.00 a year job! My girl friends family would not have pressured her to leave me cause I was a registered sex offender, I would not have been on the local news when a reporter announced I had a page at facebook. None of that would have happened to me.

I would also like to mention that my house is (was) a three story building in center city. The house across the street sold for $610,000.00

were it not for that error I would have receaved a punishment that fit the crime, not this crule and unusual punishment that I have had to endore.

Ouch  . Why where you registred as a sex offender? I thought that was supposed to happen when you try to have illegal sex or something of a sexual nature. This is what sex offender means

Crimes requiring mandatory sex offender registration may include downloading pornographic material of persons under the age of 18, (child pornography), rape, statutory rape and even non-sexual offenses such as kidnapping. The term sexual offender is a broad term, with sexual predator being used to describe a more severe physical or repeat sexual offense. Sexual offenders are also sometimes classified into levels [1], where the highest level offenders have the most aggravating crimes and thus, the most risk to the public and usually must register as a sex offender for their entire lives. Low level sexual offenders may serve only a probationary sentence and only register for 10 years as well as having less restrictions placed on them compared to higher level offenders.

SpacePoney I think you got screwed becasuse of the greay area in this law. Why do we have gray areas? Wouldent it be easyer to just have everything clear cut so you dont have to argue? Sometimes the law seems so stupid. Anyway hope you get your girlfriend back SpacePoney.

He dragged the other person by the genitals - which may be cruel and unusual, but not really a sexual offense in my opinion, since it was a violent activity, not a sexual activity. He didn't attempt any real sexual activity.

But hey, that's just my opinion, and it's ultimately up to a judge to decide. I am not a lawyer.





Wow, that's a pretty big blunder by the court. Yeah, you'd better fight it.

Prisons aren't being built to keep violent criminals off of the streets, they're being built to create drug-war dungeons. Rapists, murderers and thieves don't crowd US prisons. Rather, thanks in particular to President Ronald Reagan, it is harmless marijuana smokers who swell the cells to overflowing.

Of all the risks involved with pot smoking, the biggest one is getting arrested and thrown in prison with violent criminals. Last year more than 734,000 Americans were arrested for marijuana violations - more than for murder, rape, armed robbery and assault combined! Our court system and prisons should be reserved for people who harm others - not just potentially themselves.

The registration came with the M1 in my ignorance of the law I did not know that it should have been a red flag... indecent assult m1 is a sex crime with megans law mandatory. M2 is not a sex crime even with the same ellemets. in other words because I did not drag him by the balls for sexual gratification then it was not a sex crime... it was indecent and it was an assult but not a sex crime... I have been learning alot over this past week!!

Studies (some peer reviewed) I have linked to on the previous page, the Wikipedia links to, and Google links to claim otherwise. It has known and studied negative effects on both the individual and on society as a whole. Most of the claims of harmlessness are coming from people who are not looking at the research, or are simply ignoring the research and pretending it does not exist.

It can be easily argued whether it's more or less harmful than tobacco smoke, and it can be easily argued what the appropriate punishment should be, but it's really difficult to argue that it's completely harmless, because research is showing otherwise.

While true, not true. Crime statistics are kept on individual crimes. While a very larger percentage of the prison population is in there on drug offenses, violent crime is three times higher than it was fifty years ago. There are theories that the war on drugs is responsible for an increase in general violence as well, but it's entirely unproven. Dirt bags dealing drugs would probably still be dirt bags without that particular job opportunity, and the crime rate was higher before he started.

Edit: Cobra, drinking water can kill you, everything you eat contains cancer causing elements when consumed in high enough levels, you can get diabetes from eating candy bars. Risk is a part of life, deciding that something should be illegal because it might be bad for the user is absurd. Everything is relative, marijuana is harmless because more people are killed by candy, caffeine, cold medicine, peanuts, any number of common, every day substances.

Drugs ar evil. My step cousin hangs him self while he was high, and his brother a couple years later has a heart attack while high and now pretty much lost all motor control. I do not know what they were taking when that happend but still, thats pretty bad. Can you imagene what my aunt is going through with one son dead from haning him self and another pretty much a living vegatble?

SpacePony's M1

You have a bomb proof case against the State, the Judge denied an M1, yet you still got it. There are so many checks and balances ensuring correct sentencing is recorded, I am amazed at the gross negligence. The latter are the only words for it. It is quite simply, indefensible.

Take them to the cleaners - that was a disgrace.

Regards
Zy

I find it fascinating that many people prefer to pretend they live in a vacuum when it comes to personal risk, as if the rest of the world does not exist. They acknowledge that there is great risk in the world, yet deny that their own actions are risky to others. It is quite irrational, yet many people seem to hold to that viewpoint.