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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   36203 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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The various filings unfortunately don't include a sentencing guidelines rundown because they plea deal went around that

Here's the government's sentencing memo (I found it by googling "joshua bustle courtlistener"). The sentencing guidelines don't apply to misdemeanors.

Typically a person in position to get home confinement either has scammed people out of millions of dollars, or has a case officer report that details a laundry list of uncharged conduct. Home confinement is historically defined as a 1:2 ratio compared to prison. See. Chapter IV.

I appreciate that you included a link, but that's a report from 1987. Home confinement happens all the time nowadays, for both pretrial detention and sentencing, and is usually enforced by an ankle bracelet. It's the absolute norm for my misdemeanor cases (and sometimes felonies if I secure a good deal), and the ranking typically goes from community service > home detention > jail. Prosecutors are dismissive of home detention because they think it's akin to a vacation, which I kind of understand. I wouldn't expect you to know all this, but I'm confused as to where you got the impression that this is reserved to only multi-million scammers. For a recent reference, BOP released a bunch of federal prison inmates into home confinement because of the pandemic. It's a widely used sanction.

For a recent reference, BOP released a bunch of federal prison inmates into home confinement because of the pandemic.

Yeah, that is a point against you. If you think its acceptable to put rapists and burglars on home confinement, that means you think those are in the same tier of crime as picketing congress. I disagree with that idea fundamentally, and also would posit the idea of covid releases was more related to the desire to decarcerate than it was legitimate covid policy.

With regards to your link, the government memo supports my theory that these were just normal people caught up in a system intended for evil people.

Jessica Bustle’s criminal history consists of several traffic infractions, with the disposition unclear as to some of these matters, plus a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge. (Dkt. 27 ¶¶ 29-37.) If the Sentencing Guidelines did apply to her offense of conviction, she likely would have zero points.

Zero points. My god. I externed for a judge for most of law school, no one had zero points.

Prosecutors are dismissive of home detention because they think it's akin to a vacation, which I kind of understand. I wouldn't expect you to know all this, but I'm confused as to where you got the impression that this is reserved to only multi-million scammers.

Among white collar people or otherwise productive people, you generally have to achieve that level of criminality to be noticed at all by the feds. Almost everyone I saw sentenced to confinement was a white collar criminal who posed zero threat to anyone. I never saw a single political protest case go to sentencing in a large city with lots of them.

If you think its acceptable to put rapists and burglars on home confinement, that means you think those are in the same tier of crime as picketing congress.

I'm really having trouble following your thread because your responses seem to respond to a new collateral topic in each iteration. The point you made above, as I understand it, was to present home confinement as something reserved for high-profile cases by citing to a manual from 1987. When I pointed out that no actually, home confinement is the norm for low-level crimes nowadays, and also if you want a more recent reference point for how it works at the federal level you can look at what the Bureau of Prison did because of the pandemic, you shifted your point. You then claim that I think rapists and burglars are on the same tier as picketing congress. What? No, that's not the point at all. And this is getting into quibbling territory, but the feds virtually never deal with rapes and burglaries unless those things happen on federal property or somehow involve crossing state lines. And besides, the BOP pandemic home confinement release plan explicitly disqualified sex offenses.

Zero points. My god. I externed for a judge for most of law school, no one had zero points.

This is so weird. Of course people have zero points. Literally everybody in the entire world is born with zero points. All that zero points means in what you quoted is how many prior convictions that person has under USSG §4A1.2. That means that even hardened criminals at some point had zero points.

This is so weird. Of course people have zero points. Literally everybody in the entire world is born with zero points.

True, but you never see them in federal court, or if you did they would probably be subject to an upward departure under 4A1.3

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