Justice

[Over43]

I throw this out for your opinions.

Apparently yesterday, NFL receiver Donte Stallworth received 30 days in jail, 2 years probation and paid an undisclosed cash settlement to the family of a man he killed while driving "under the influence" after a plea bargain. Had the case gone to trial, and had he been found guilty, he could have faced up to 15 years in prison.

My question is, is this just?

O43

[Brant Gaede]

I throw this out for your opinions.

Apparently yesterday, NFL receiver Donte Stallworth received 30 days in jail, 2 years probation and paid an undisclosed cash settlement to the family of a man he killed while driving "under the influence" after a plea bargain. Had the case gone to trial, and had he been found guilty, he could have faced up to 15 years in prison.

My question is, is this just?

O43

Not enough information. Driving "under the influence" isn't necessarily the same thing as that causing the accident. You don't even say what the charge he pled to was. Obviously everybody got together and worked out the best deal each party could get which was accepted by the court.

--Brant

[ginny]

Brant, that's the thing about plea bargaining. You get sentenced, but you lower it by a large degree. The idea is that it ultimately saves cost and time. The issue isn't whether this is justice, but whether there should be plea bargaining in the first place. Recently, there was a case of a man who raped a four-year old girl and plead guilty. He received one year for his crime. Part of the problem was that the prosecution (instead of the defense) pushed for the plea because they had a difficult case and wanted some kind of sentence rather than none.

I don't think there'll be an easy answer.

Ginny

[Brant Gaede]

Brant, that's the thing about plea bargaining. You get sentenced, but you lower it by a large degree. The idea is that it ultimately saves cost and time. The issue isn't whether this is justice, but whether there should be plea bargaining in the first place. Recently, there was a case of a man who raped a four-year old girl and plead guilty. He received one year for his crime. Part of the problem was that the prosecution (instead of the defense) pushed for the plea because they had a difficult case and wanted some kind of sentence rather than none.

I don't think there'll be an easy answer.

Ginny

There never will be. Life is hard and tough. It's wonderful if we can greatly enjoy it anyway. Pursuit of happiness.

--Brant

[Dglgmut]

Didn't want to start a new thread, so I'm reviving this one.

In what way is justice objective? The consensus amongst Austrian economists seems to be that justice is a subjective, abstract concept, while order is what's important. I agree with this. Who's to say what is "just"? An eye for an eye--why? What if I value my eyes less?

Order is a kept by appealing to individuals' sense of justice, by keeping things approximately consistent with the majority's idea of fairness. We could keep order more easily by sentencing all criminals to death, but nobody would agree to that.