Pink Plates Proposed For Sex Offenders

[SmellyFed]

Pink Plates Proposed For Sex Offenders
Yellow Plates Already In Use For Drunken Drivers




POSTED: 5:33 p.m. EDT April 27, 2005
UPDATED: 7:59 p.m. EDT April 27, 2005


Story by nbc4i.com (http://www.nbc4i.com/)

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Some Ohioans convicted of drunken driving can be seen driving vehicles with yellow license plates. If one Ohio lawmaker has his way, sexual predators could soon have to drive vehicles with pink license plates, NBC 4's Erin Tate reported.

http://images.ibsys.com/2005/0427/4423765_200X150.jpg

The bright yellow license plates help law enforcement officers recognize drivers with multiple DUI convictions.

"We've sold over 16,000 in the past five years," said Fred Stratmann, of the Ohio Department of Public Safety.




http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?siteSection=6&id=23227

[Venus de Smilo]

How stupid. They should be on death row instead of out driving around. Why don't these lawmakers do something significant about the problem instead of trying to buffalo people with feel-good band-aid measures? Is the color of the license plate going to stop an offender?

[Rink]

Yup, all they have to di is switch the plates or go out of state

[Warlady]

This will piss off the faggots. How about putting them in prison and throwing away the key. Or death as Venus suggested? Sheesh. Will the lawmakers ever learn? How many kids have to be sacrificed?

[Venus de Smilo]

If they want to piss off the queers, they should make the plates lavender.

In fact, the entire state of MA should switch to lavender plates.

But I digress. The only solution to child molestation is rapidly dispensed death. They should just be put down like rabid dogs, first offense. Gone.

[SmellyFed]

If it wasn't so monumentally disgusting, it'd be almost funny. Why not a big colorful rainbow with a pot of excrement at the end?

[Venus de Smilo]

If it wasn't so monumentally disgusting, it'd be almost funny. Why not a big colorful rainbow with a pot of excrement at the end?

That's quite a suggestion, coming from someone with your handle.:grin:

[Riverboat]

If they want to piss off the queers, they should make the plates lavender.Lavendar, AND glow-in-the-dark.

[nene]

But I digress. The only solution to child molestation is rapidly dispensed death. They should just be put down like rabid dogs, first offense. Gone.

Perfection. A child that has been victimized by a convicted child molester is also a victim of a society that releases these animals. Exterminate these perversed maggots upon their first conviction.

[Venus de Smilo]

Perfection. A child that has been victimized by a convicted child molester is also a victim of a society that releases these animals. Exterminate these perversed maggots upon their first conviction.

Precisely right.

[Warlady]

I totally agree nene. Americans are going to have to scream loudly that we have HAD ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[nene]

I totally agree nene. Americans are going to have to scream loudly that we have HAD ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Indeed, Guerrera.

[ThomasIsUnderrated]

There's no way the current SCOTUS would uphold the death penalty for child molestation. I believe capital punishment is limited to murder, treason, espionage, and large-scale drug trafficking thanks to SCOTUS rulings during the 1970s.

Of course, if we ever get an originalist majority on the SCOTUS, then we'd have much more freedom when it comes to punishment of these cretins.

[Rink]

There's no way the current SCOTUS would uphold the death penalty for child molestation. I believe capital punishment is limited to murder, treason, espionage, and large-scale drug trafficking thanks to SCOTUS rulings during the 1970s.

Of course, if we ever get an originalist majority on the SCOTUS, then we'd have much more freedom when it comes to punishment of these cretins.

Too bad, as i should think child molesters should be more heinous than large-scale drug trafficking by a LONG haul.

Man is this nation's priorities screwed up or what?

[ConservativeYouthMovement]

Well child molestors ruin a few peoples lives, drugs directly or indirectly can ruin everyones lives.

But I never had anything against putting criminals to death for any reason, so child molesting is pretty high on the list.

[S-T]

I agree that the child molesters should be put to death. However, right now many of them are not in prison but are on a sex offender registry. That is the reality that we have to deal with. This is simply an upgrade to the registry. Putting them to death is better, but this isn't a bad idea.

[Venus de Smilo]

There's no way the current SCOTUS would uphold the death penalty for child molestation. I believe capital punishment is limited to murder, treason, espionage, and large-scale drug trafficking thanks to SCOTUS rulings during the 1970s.

Of course, if we ever get an originalist majority on the SCOTUS, then we'd have much more freedom when it comes to punishment of these cretins.

WY started to press for this a few years ago. I'd like to see them enact the legislation and then let it be tested. I would expect an Eighth Amendment challenge at the very least. If the SCOTUS overturned it, it'd be one more black mark against them. WY (or any state) could cloak the measure within anti-child sex-slave trafficking within the state.:thumb: Let the Court's lefties argue that trafficking in children for sex or the individual acts against them aren't as serious as drug-trafficking. A side benefit would be that if, by some miracle it was upheld, a willing AG could wipe out NAMBLA in one heartbeat.

[ThomasIsUnderrated]

Let the Court's lefties argue that trafficking in children for sex or the individual acts against them aren't as serious as drug-trafficking.

I believe the justification used for the death penalty for large-scale drug trafficking is that such actions require organized crime-rings (which, as all know, are quite likely to commit murder). In those cases, I think it's usually only the kingpins who can face execution without proof of a specific murder. Anyway, I'd see the same justification maybe working for the leaders of the child-sex trade (that would have to be a federal law authorizing the DP for such crimes), since I'm sure they use similar tactics, but there's little chance that it would work for individual acts.

Of course, if we ever get an originalist SCOTUS majority, then all of that will change. (Please, please, please!) Prior to SCOTUS decisions of the 1970s, the states executed people for rape and child molestation, and the federal government had the death penalty for kidnapping across state lines.

[Venus de Smilo]

But there were some cases in the '80s that confirmed wide discretion for states in sentencing for felonies if the sentence came from the trial judge instead of the jury (that's the reason that CA uses a jury RECOMMENDATION for the DP but the sentence is actually pronounced by the trial judge), and the decisons weren't limited to murder cases. The decisions respected state's rights in legislation.

What I'm suggesting is that the trafficking be used as the vehicle to get the DP into the equation. Such legislation would not have to mirror the fed drug-trafficking laws to any substantial level at all because with molestation, unlike drug distribution, you have specific known victims tied directly to the offender.

If the feds want to get RICO on board with it, more power to them. They can already bust child sex-slave rings under the organized crime hook anyway. Have they done anything about adding the needed legislation to prosecute an individual offender who crosses state lines for the purpose of offending, including producing or procuring child sex literature, in the same way that they prosecute drug-traffickers who import or cross state lines with product? Sure, they go after producers, but not consumers or offenders who cross state lines to offend. They leave that to each state to prosecute the crimes within their state as they see fit. So be it, and let the penalty be the DP if states sees fit.

[UnkHiram]

Pink Plates, Smink Plates -------- shoot the SOBs the day they are convicted. That will cut down tremedously on the repeat offense rate.

[DeclinetoState]

It's a bad idea. It would help sex offenders on the outside find each other more easily.

[ThomasIsUnderrated]

But there were some cases in the '80s that confirmed wide discretion for states in sentencing for felonies if the sentence came from the trial judge instead of the jury (that's the reason that CA uses a jury RECOMMENDATION for the DP but the sentence is actually pronounced by the trial judge), and the decisons weren't limited to murder cases. The decisions respected state's rights in legislation.

Yes, while not all the cases were murder cases, I don't think any of the ones giving wider discretion to states with respect to the death penalty because of that reason were NOT murder cases.

I'm pretty sure that no sentence of death for a crime that didn't involve murder, treason, espionage, or the like has been upheld since the Court's decisions in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Now, there were some famous cases about whether a state had to conduct proportionality review with respect to how others convicted of the same crime from that state were handled under state law. The Court said there was no such requirement, and that the state had wide discretion to sentence in that context.

However, that's not the kind of proportionality review that was at issue in the Court's infamous decisions restricting the death penalty. In those cases, the Court struck down the death penalty for certain crimes, because it felt that the punishment was disproportionate to the crime.

For example, from Coker v. Georgia, which has not been overruled (and was, in fact, cited by Justice Kennedy four times in his awful majority opinion in Roper that banned the juvenile death penalty):


"Because the death sentence is a disproportionate punishment for rape, it is cruel and unusual punishment within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment even though it may measurably serve the legitimate ends of punishment, ... "

[Riverboat]

Pink Plates, Smink Plates -------- shoot the SOBs the day they are convicted. That will cut down tremedously on the repeat offense rate.Could we at least shoot the bastards with pink bullets?

[Venus de Smilo]

Yes, while not all the cases were murder cases, I don't think any of the ones giving wider discretion to states with respect to the death penalty because of that reason were NOT murder cases.

I'm pretty sure that no sentence of death for a crime that didn't involve murder, treason, espionage, or the like has been upheld since the Court's decisions in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Now, there were some famous cases about whether a state had to conduct proportionality review with respect to how others convicted of the same crime from that state were handled under state law. The Court said there was no such requirement, and that the state had wide discretion to sentence in that context.

However, that's not the kind of proportionality review that was at issue in the Court's infamous decisions restricting the death penalty. In those cases, the Court struck down the death penalty for certain crimes, because it felt that the punishment was disproportionate to the crime.

For example, from Coker v. Georgia, which has not been overruled (and was, in fact, cited by Justice Kennedy four times in his awful majority opinion in Roper that banned the juvenile death penalty):


"Because the death sentence is a disproportionate punishment for rape, it is cruel and unusual punishment within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment even though it may measurably serve the legitimate ends of punishment, ... "

I don't think any state has put forward the DP legislatively for any crimes other than those you've mentioned in a long, long time. The Court is a political beast. What I'm saying is that the Court should be put on the spot over these kinds of crimes. If enough states would just do it, the Court would be harder pressed to overturn the will of the people. If they do, then it's one more reason for the people to see the need to appoint strict constructionists because "cruel and unusual" was intended to limit the form of punishment (no torture, etc.), but not dictate to the states what punishments can be legislated by the people, and the people need to see this.

Kennedy is getting senile. Requiring proportionality in sentencing as it relates to the TYPE of crime as opposed to comparative proportionality among like crimes is just another judicial dream snatched from the penumbra. I don't see why molestation shouldn't be the subject matter to reverse that and Coker (which I have not read but I accept your citation of the relevant passage).

Obviously if the Court upheld the DP for molestation it would be a huge win, but not likely the first time around. But even a loss is helpful because it demonstrates to the people the Court's indifference to the will of the people concerning even the most visceral issues and because it puts the nature and grounds of the Court's objections on the record so that the next run at it can be honed to avoid those pitfalls.

One thing is for sure: if it's never attempted, it will never happen.

[ThomasIsUnderrated]

because "cruel and unusual" was intended to limit the form of punishment (no torture, etc.),

Very true.



Kennedy is getting senile.

I think that calling him senile may be going easy on him. Apparently he makes annual treks to Europe in which he communicates with those in the legal profession of those countries. And based on his recent opinions which cite international decisions, it seems reasonable to assume that he's adopted the Eurotrash view that the US needs to adopt the sensibilities of Europe. It's like he's embarassed about this country.

Requiring proportionality in sentencing as it relates to the TYPE of crime as opposed to comparative proportionality among like crimes is just another judicial dream snatched from the penumbra.

I agree. What's amusing is that the Court has given much more discretion to states with respect to the latter than the former.

I don't see why molestation shouldn't be the subject matter to reverse that and Coker (which I have not read but I accept your citation of the relevant passage).

Interestingly enough, that passage was from a footnote in Coker which further explained the majority's reasoning. I generally liked Justice White, but that decision was not a good example of opinion writing (and not just because of the decision made).

Obviously if the Court upheld the DP for molestation it would be a huge win, but not likely the first time around.

I would say virtually impossible, especially given the recent activism on the Court regarding the death penalty. Justice O'Connor could be willing to uphold the death penalty for molestation (about a 50-50 chance), but I see no chance that Justice Kenendy would vote to uphold it.