Legal

It's all been building up to this. When it comes to Evil Lawmaking, DUI has it all. Every evil lawmaking practice I've mentioned so far, and then some. That alone makes it an example of the evil lawmaking practice of Piling On. The DUI laws are are twisted maze created by decades of legislators trying to prove they're tough on crime. I'm not very good at reading statutes, … [Read more...] about Evil Lawmaking: DUI

Continuing my somewhat interrupted series of articles on bad, sloppy, or downright evil lawmaking, I'd like to talk about administrative punishment. If you commit a crime and get caught, one way or another you eventually end up in court, where if you're convicted, a judge decides your punishment. So then you serve your time, pay your debt to society, and get on with your … [Read more...] about Evil Lawmaking: Administrative Punishment

Scott Greenfield has the story of how a clerical error lead a New York court to put a man on trial for a charge that had already been dismissed, and nobody seemed to notice anything wrong until a month after he was convicted. It's actually even worse than it sounds. Read it for yourself. … [Read more...] about Nassau County, Brazil

Continuing my series of articles on bad, sloppy, or downright evil lawmaking, I'd like to talk a little bit about how much states love to suspend or revoke people's driver's licenses. A suspended license is a branch of a problem I mentioned earlier: Free Punishment. A suspended license is just a database entry and a form letter. It probably costs the state less than a buck, … [Read more...] about Evil Lawmaking: License Suspension

A few months ago, I posted a followup to my Jury Duty series in which I expressed my curiosity about whatever happened to the defendant, whom I called "Jose." I had been unable to find out what sentence he received. Well, one of the prosecutors (I think the one I referred to as the "blonde prosecutrix") just stumbled across that entry: Imagine my surprise to see a Jury that … [Read more...] about Jury Duty: The Prosecutor Speaks