Holmes Belongs in Prison, Not $13,000-a-Month Manor, US Says
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Would be nice if they would say this when a poor person, because they cannot afford a team of lawyers, gets a completely over the top punishment on shoddy evidence.
Is Holmes such an imminent danger to society that she needs locked up and cordoned off from our communities?
Secondly, those positions are not mutually exclusive or even intellectually inconsistent. You can think there are too many people in jail general (eg for certain crimes and certain groups in society) and still think that for certain specific cases, jail is appropriate.
Thirdly, as a sibling has pointed out, protection of society is not the only or even the primary reason a jail sentence might be appropriate in a given case. I believe prosecutors believe flight risk is the primary reason jail is appropriate in this case, at least partly because her partner bought a ticket to Mexico in January for her which was only cancelled after the government intervened.[1] Her counsel said it was in expectation of being found not guilty so she was able to attend a friend's wedding but the bummer for that theory is that it was a one-way ticket.
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/elizabeth-hol...
What’s especially worth considering here is what Holmes did: most people expect high standards for medical ethics since lying as she did could have irreversible impacts on people’s lives. Her fraud involved inaccurately telling people that they had cancer, or giving values which lead to changes in medication or other treatments. That isn’t as bad as it could have been – I don’t believe anyone was given a false negative on cancer, for example - but it’s absolutely toxic for trust in the medical system if it’s not strictly punished.
Similarly, as a corporate officer she lied repeatedly to investors, regulators, and the public.
What both of those have in common is that they’re positions of trust where fraud is relatively hard to catch. Millions of people are in positions where they could on a daily basis abuse their customers’ trust and potentially never be caught, and so we have to consider the deterrent effect as well. Doctors, bankers, CEOs, etc. are highly paid so a financial deterrent isn’t nearly as effective at preventing lapses as the possibility of jail time - your family trust can’t serve it for you - and those consequences also mean that the people around you aren’t going to help cover it up the way they might if it was profitable enough to look the other way.
One can support reforms against punitive justice and still be disgusted by something like this, or one can also support prison reform while considering Holmes's crimes bad enough to merit a fairly strong degree of punishment in this specific case. Basically: complex subjects like this are full of nuance, and strawmen need not apply to and honest debate.
That's basic logic and fairness.
The two extremes are almost always both wrong.
That's an illusion. There's almost no wealthy criminal that sees the walls of a prison - and if they do, they find ways to get out very quickly thanks to their connections.
The way I perceive it the US justice system is too prone to be toyed around with by people with money. A lot of the stuff people pull off in the US would land you in contempt of court if you just tried it elsewhere on the world.
Innocent until proven guily, I get all of that, but what money factually buys you in the US is ridiculous
Under our peculiar pay-to-play “cash bail” system, it only applies to those who can afford the fee.
For the rest of the people it’s very much the opposite: stay imprisoned (and lose your job etc) until not proven guilty.
To avoid this, many people take a loan from a “bail bondsman” that comes with a service fee of around 10% of the bail —- which might easily be tens of thousands of dollars and leave a poor person in crippling debt for years or forever — regardless of guilt.
What makes you think this?
She was convicted. Let her appeal her conviction from within a jail cell.
But perhaps the plot for Holmes could be that she has 48 hours to find out who is responsible for Covid-19. Teaming up with Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, the unlikely trio find themselves in a race against time. Was it Fauci? Or someone else?
Stranger is US law in general, where the outcome of convictions depends on the emotional stability of a judge and the thoughts of a jury.
Law is an emotional process in the US. In Europe there are no emotions involved in the sentencing.
I think this reflects the responds like "Send her to prison, where she belongs". There is an appeal, so let's see if she really belongs there.
I think you're missing the point, yes it is legal for anyone to appeal a conviction.
In the US (and I assume most of the rest of the world) that is dependent on your ability to pay a lawyer to do that for you and your likely outcome is impacted by the price you are able to pay for that lawyer.
The other point is, this is a conversation about a two tier justice system. Rich people get to spend their appeal in a mansion, poor people sit in prison waiting on an appeal.
So I would say, she's been convicted of a crime and has been given time for it, send her to prison like everyone else.
Once her appeal is successful, then let her go back to that life of luxury.
It's extremely hard to democratically enact change even in countries with multiple political parties and proportional representation. The US doesn't even have that, it's an illusion of choice with 2 parties who are equally corrupt.
The real problem is that people simply don’t care. People are much more willing to go to the polls over their right to own guns than issues like this.
https://www.patriotsoftware.com/blog/payroll/does-your-state...
> It is totally legal to appeal a conviction.
Does the US not operate in the same way? Is it not the case that rich people can hire expensive lawyers at every stage of the process while poor people can't?
Clearly the size a bank account is very relevant indeed.
The person you're responding to is referencing that sentencing is done by a judge who is supposed to be more objective when determining sentence, as opposed to emotional juries who simply determine if they are guilty or not of accused crimes.
I’ve had to hand over money to get a friend out after he was arrested due to an extradition request.
> If you've done something very bad, or are a big flight risk you will not be granted bail, but again, not a money issue
It absolutely is a money issue. The bigger surety you can put up, the less those things matter.
>It's about risk of absconding
And putting up a bigger deposit obviously helps address that risk.
>Secondly, no, cash bail is not a thing in the UK
It is. In the UK it’s called a bail security. It’s not common, but absolutely a thing.
See on lexisnexis https://www.lexisnexis.co.uk/legal/guidance/securities-suret...
>Someone being arrested in the UK for extradition is not part of the UK justice system
Absolutely is, and the rules regarding bail are the same.
>Unsurprisingly, foreign nationals can't have their passport taken away by a foreign country, who'd have thought?!?!?
What? Of course they can. It’s not at all unusual for people bailed for crimes in the UK to be required to surrender their foreign passports.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-patients-hurt-by-theranos-1...
That to me is what pushes me over the edge to jail for her: defrauding investors arguably should not involve jail time but I think knowingly playing games with medical procedures, food safety, etc. should be one of the electrified third rails that everyone knows is not worth any profit.