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In the wrong place at the wrong time? Tough luck, says the state of Colorado. If you are arrested the police will charge you a $25 booking fee. If you can't pay on the spot, don't worry, they'll bill you. Even if charges are dismissed, or you are aquitted, you still pay a price! But fear not, if you can prove you are innocent (beyond reasonable doubt) you can get your money back. This is not something new, but something that people should be aware of.
Charon writes:
There is a case before the US Supreme Court, Nelson v. Colorado, which will be argued on Jan. 9, regarding the difficulty of getting fees and penalties refunded when defendants are found innocent.
And it's not just Colorado. Another case from Minnesota:
Corey Statham had $46 in his pockets when he was arrested in Ramsey County, Minn., and charged with disorderly conduct. He was released two days later, and the charges were dismissed.
But the county kept $25 of Mr. Statham's money as a "booking fee." It returned the remaining $21 on a debit card subject to an array of fees. In the end, it cost Mr. Statham $7.25 to withdraw what was left of his money.
The Supreme Court will soon consider whether to hear Mr. Statham's challenge to Ramsey County's fund-raising efforts, which are part of a national trend to extract fees and fines from people who find themselves enmeshed in the criminal justice system.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday December 29 2016, @03:32PM
all these fees are the fault of the republicans and stupid middle america who was conned into thinking that 'taxes are always bad, never allow an increase!'.
what else are they going to do? if you deny taxes to the people who work for the public interest (ha! I choked a bit on that bit of wording) then they will steal it some other way. they will find a way, and the way they find will be MUCH WORSE than if everyone just paid their fair share.
but no. the repuglicans keep forcing this 'dont pay any more taxes!' bullshit and this is what we are left with. roads that can't be fixed, sewers that fall apart, bridges that crumble and are unsafe, power grid and network grid that need serious upgrading, etc etc. but lets not pay more taxes! no no no. gotta keep trickle-down-jesus happy.
sigh ;(
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 0, Troll) by jdavidb on Thursday December 29 2016, @03:46PM
what else are they going to do? if you deny taxes to the people who work for the public interest (ha! I choked a bit on that bit of wording) then they will steal it some other way. they will find a way, and the way they find will be MUCH WORSE than if everyone just paid their fair share. but no. the repuglicans keep forcing this 'dont pay any more taxes!' bullshit
You explain perfectly in your post that we have a bunch of parasites and then castigate the Republicans for trying to starve the parasites. Seems like the solution is to fire the parasites.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 4, Insightful) by TheRaven on Thursday December 29 2016, @04:29PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Thursday December 29 2016, @05:32PM
Well if we are agreed they are parasites and cutting direct funding only inspired them to new levels of corruption, what is your solution? I can see two:
1. Double down on the penalties. These sort of things always start in Democrat Machine cities where they can prey on their helpless underclass. They can't sue, they don't even know how and it being a Machine it generally wouldn't matter anyway unless someone with really deep pockets donated the legal firepower to get such a minor case all they way into Federal Court. So RICO the Machines? Or just let the God Emperor go all in and RICO the Democratic Party in general?
2. Kill them. Give em "helicopter rides." Not the cops, the policymakers who thought this evil scheme up.
Somehow I doubt you find either of those acceptable, so what are we Republicans to do to bring relief to this oppression? Given our lack of control of the federal machinery (just having a POTUS doesn't mean much, especially a squishy "compassionate conservative) means we can't really do the two options I mentioned, ignoring the reality that 99% of elected Republicans would be terrified of #1 and vomit at the suggestion of #2, defund was the best option available.
This situation is pretty out of control, not this particular one the whole theme. Our justice system is totally broken. The process is the punishment in most cases. If you get arrested you will be lucky to see a judge within a month for anything but setting a date to talk about scheduling a trial. The system is setup to demand an unreasonable bond (a Constitutional violation) so the bailbond system can take a slice, you pay 10% up front to them and will never see it again win or lose. Now you need a lawyer, unless you want to risk your life on a public defender you better be able to pay up sucker. Next you decide whether you pay that lawyer to negotiate a plea deal or gear up for a multi-year battle. If the charge was a non-violent white collar crime you MIGHT actually be able to work while all this goes on, forget it if it is a violent crime in most of the careers that pay enough for a lawyer, so there goes the kid's college fund and your retirement. And if you somehow "win" in the end, you get precisely zero of any of that back. The process WAS the punishment.
If you are poor it is a little different. Your family usually pools their money to pay the bond company's fees, again that money is just gone, never to be seen again. You will have a public defender so will almost certainly plea out, and unless you are a career criminal (and they should actually be punished) you get probation. Look into how much THAT costs sometime. Whether you were guilty or innocent doesn't matter, your best option is always to take the plea. pay the fees and move on. Again, the process was the punishment.
The whole system needs an enema. In 90% of arrests there is no good reason we couldn't get to a final verdict in sixty days max. Under no circumstance should it take more than six months to get through the initial trial and appeals another six.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by schad on Thursday December 29 2016, @04:44PM
We give the government money in order to provide us with certain essential services. But the government spends it foolishly. The extra money from the property tax increase? It goes to a shiny new computer lab that nobody ever uses. Meanwhile, our students still sit 2 per desk in an "expansion classroom" (aka a shipping container sitting in the parking lot) and share 1970s-era textbooks. And next year, another tax increase is on the ballot to "support our failing schools." This time it gets spent on a new field for the high school football team, leaving open the door for more tax increases in the future. And on and on and on.
You can only suffer through this for so long before you start to view all tax increases as just an opportunity for the government to increase its power while delivering absolutely zero return.
Of course, everyone in the world thinks that his government is wasteful and inefficient. We all wish that the government would focus on the services that we consider essential instead of the ones that those other guys do. But I do feel that we Americans, to a greater extent than any other developed country, get an appallingly poor return on our tax dollars. And so it's not unreasonable to reflexively oppose all tax increases. I mean, it may well be the wrong response, but... look at how shitty the government is at practically everything it does. Can you really blame anyone for thinking that the only solution is to throw it all out and start over?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 30 2016, @12:37AM
I don't. I agree. We've made a lot of discoveries and our technology has advanced a whole bunch since the last time we started over. We can at least get something that works much better than this creaking, decrepit cesspit of corruption and dynamic atrophy.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday December 30 2016, @12:52AM
The problem I'm seeing here is accepting with incomplete evidence the idea that government always spends money more foolishly than the private sector does. Especially when there are cases where the government has been noticeably more efficient than their private sector counterparts, like:
- The US Postal Service is substantially more cost-effective at moving things from one place to another than FedEx or UPS.
- Medicare and Medicaid get more health care work done per dollar of spending than any of the private insurers in the US. The Veteran's Administration does even better than Medicare and Medicaid. And government health care systems like Canada's NHS also get more bang for their buck than the US private insurers do.
- Municipal water in most cities is both safer to drink and better tasting than bottled water, especially bottled water that doesn't come from municipal water supplies.
The reason everyone thinks "Government always sucks" is that you only hear about the bad experiences. For example, hardly anyone fires off a blog post of "Mr Jones at the USDA is a really reasonable, dedicated and conscientious public servant doing his best to balance the goals of farmers, farmers' neighbors, food consumers, and the long-term environmental effects of their activities." And that sort of thing almost never finds its way into the news. What that means is that when the government is working properly, you probably don't even notice it or know who's responsible.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday December 30 2016, @05:26AM
But it never gets thrown out, it just gets starved enough that it can't afford to actually do anything but pay people to sit idle at their desks.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday December 29 2016, @06:53PM
I grew up with the half-lie that taxes were a civic duty to help keep the roads and bridges in good condition, and I believed it for a while. Once you google America's military budget, the ugly truth seems rather blatant. Every time I submit to taxes I hate myself for not refusing to pay my "fair share" of the bombs that my government drops on foreign countries. Despite being done under threat of force, this cowardice is one of the things I hate myself most for. It's not that I don't have other failings as a human being, it's that this one seems really major to me. Like, Godwin-invoking levels of major. I feel slightly less horrible about this government's domestic policies, but it's really just a matter of scale. They're still murdering innocents with my money. Long-term I hope to leave this country, but even then I'll be forced to either keep paying taxes to give up my ability to visit people I know and love who will still be living in the States. Realistically, I'll probably be a tax-paying citizen for at least a couple decades. So without getting all high-and-mighty (I, too, am guilty of paying taxes) I would love to see this beast starved of every penny it can be. If they have to work for that funding, good. If they have to make it even more obvious that they are simply the most powerful gang in town and that this is the only basis on which they get to demand tribute from common citizens, good. I have no interest in discussing collective bridge-building efforts until they stop murdering innocent children with my money (SPOILER: I like localized/decentralized bride-building schemes anyway, but wouldn't mind paying taxes in that context at all).
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday December 29 2016, @07:03PM
but no. the repuglicans keep forcing this 'dont pay any more taxes!' bullshit and this is what we are left with. roads that can't be fixed, sewers that fall apart, bridges that crumble and are unsafe, power grid and network grid that need serious upgrading, etc etc. but lets not pay more taxes! no no no. gotta keep trickle-down-jesus happy.
Don't worry, a Republican will be president soon. We'll be able to pay for all that stuff because, magically, budget deficits won't matter anymore.