“In two recent criminal cases in the United States, defendants received similar sentences for very different sorts of actions. In the first, a young man was convicted of negligent homicide for texting while driving and killing two scientists in the process. The New York Times reported [1] on the case and the sentence meted out to the young man:
“He pleaded guilty to two counts of negligent homicide, but his record will be cleared if he fulfills the sentence imposed by the judge. It included 30 days in jail, 200 hours of community service, and a requirement that he read Les Misérables to learn, like the book’s character Jean Valjean, how to make a contribution to society.”
In the second case, another young man received a sentence of 300 hours of community service, one year of probation, and a one-year ban from a large swath of land on the U.S.-Mexico border. His crime? Leaving jugs of water in the desert for would-be border crossers, in an attempt to help prevent deaths. Walt Staton, 27, was convicted in June of this year and sentenced in August on federal littering charges in an absurd scenario reminiscent of something straight out of Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant [2]“:
“And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean ‘n ugly ‘n nasty ‘n horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, ‘Kid, whad’ya get?’ I said, ‘I didn’t get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage.’ He said, ‘What were you arrested for, kid?’ And I said, ‘Littering.’ And they all moved away from me on the bench there….”
The prosecution in Staton’s case had actually pushed for five years of probation and a $5000 fine, arguing (as reported [3] on CNN.com) that he had “knowingly littered” and that the inscription on the plastic jugs of “buena suerte” (“good luck”) evidenced an intention “to aid illegal aliens in their entry attempt.” The prosecution’s Sentencing Memorandum went further in its rhetoric, making thinly-veiled allusions to themes suggestive of the so-called “war on terror” and fanning the flames of racialized fear-mongering…”
http://www.commondreams.org/print/46712
