Scattershot Justice

I was pondering whilst driving earlier today, and began considering the practice of 'shotgun' justice, in which some poor bastard is assaulted with numerous charges, ranging from 'misdemeanor looking at a policeman' to 'felony possession of a deadly weapon with intent to sell it to a guy who might use it in the commission of a federal crime in Zimbabwe' in an effort to make sure that something, anything, might stick.It's not difficult to see the attractiveness of this stratagem, because we know evil-doers are slippery little fish and we hate them*, but the truth is, this is an incredibly vindictive, hateful, and despicable practice**.

Let me elaborate.

If you place a sniveling, home-burning, little rapist murderer into a school-bus full of 4th graders***, and given a choice of weapons with which to dispatch the blighter, what sort of weapon would you choose?

If you chose a shotgun, then you are either incredibly stupid, or a horribly insensitive clod, because you just shot a handful of kids in the face in your effort to eviscerate the aforementioned sinner.

The Magic School Bus of Death

What's my point, you ask, slightly bewildered? I'll tell you, after I take another swig from this bottle.

Ahhh.

Ok, so my point is, in the words of Blackstone: "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer,".

The truth of this statement is, of course, debatable, but the reasonableness is unassailable. If a terrorist took refuge in a hospital, no reasonable man would drop a tactical nuke on the roof.

Harry Blackstone

There are plenty of reasons to ignore this, (notably in war)**** but in all honesty, it takes a remarkably insensitive person to damn the innocent in an effort to crush the guilty.

With that said, the main problem with scattershot justice is one of hitting innocent bystanders with stray pellets. The other problem, is that vindictive police or prosecutors are free to use stray pellets on a whim to pursue personal vendettas.

Just one example of our misguided efforts to legislate ourselves into oblivion would be drunk driving, as reckless driving and killing people is presumably already illegal.***** Drunk drivers are a problem, no doubt, but standard laws are already sufficient in this regard.

Drunk driving laws serve several purposes:

1. Raises awareness that it's bad (little more than a TV commercial)

2. Severely punishes people for relatively minor infractions.

3. Tacks on another penalty on top of an already existing one.

4. Puts innocent people in jail.

5. Generates publicity for Billy Joel.

Enough to get raped in prison

Laws which prohibit open containers of alcohol in vehicles are even worse.

I'm not trying to defend drunken slobs, certainly not the worthless scum who ran over your baby a year ago, but simply making new crimes for which to punish him, is simply unreasonable.

This concept applies to Al Capone as well, that famous example of legal ingenuity also becomes an example of a horrible legal environment in which any persnickety bugger with a badge or persistent DA can put anyone in jail at any moment no matter what.

I agree wholeheartedly that some offenses are particularly awful, and the desire to 'get that guy' can be overwhelming. But poor Justice should never be kicked to the curb and bloodied just because someone is really hurt or angry; thanks to our penchant to over-legislate, our nightmarish legal landscape is fast becoming impossible to navigate, we are all criminals, and the government is free to prosecute the everliving dookie out of any citizen it (dis)likes.

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If you found this rant interesting, inflammatory, defamatory, derogatory, negatory, or own the rights to any images (which I stole), jokes, footnotes, etc. contained in this post (which I probably stole), then I guess you can fill out the proper form and send it to one of our committees dedicated to helping me evade capture by the Federal Marshals hot on my trail.

Also, I'm not a lawyer, this post is unlikely to help you in any sort of court case, unless it's directed against me.

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* Boy, do we hate them!

** By otherwise nice people.

*** Not a good idea, but I saw it in a movie once.

**** Or video games.

***** In most states.