you'd think two lawyers would know that.
2: You'd think their idiot friends and supporters, and Yahoo 'News' could come up with some better defense than 'it's just vandalism'.
Especially since, if someone melanin-challenged who could in ANY way be somehow linked with conservatives/right-wingers/ these same asshats would be screaming "WHITE SUPREMACISTS BOMBING POLICE CAR!", and demanding jail with no trial.
3: The way this article is put together demonstrates, once more, that Yahoo 'News' is a bigoted and shitty news source.
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Calling arson "vandalism" is like calling armed robbery "petty theft". There's a reason the penalties for arson are higher, even for an unoccupied building or car; it starts something that is likely to run out of control and affect far more than the arsonist intended. A car will probably have enough gasoline in the tank to make one heck of a blaze - or if you are especially unlucky, the tank might heat up and boil until it explodes like a bomb. Once, there was a burning car on the right shoulder of the freeway, with the fire department out trying to keep it from spreading. I passed it in the left lane, sitting in the left-hand seat, but with two wide lanes (and one side of my car) between me and the fire, I still felt searing heat as I passed. Those firefighters were much closer, and I wonder how long their protective gear is good for against so much heat. Also, even though this was green and damp Michigan, that heat was going to dry out and burn the grass for quite a ways. I don't want to think about what might happen in a dry climate...
I do agree with the Atlantic editorial (did they call it that?) in two ways. Pre-trial jail and bail bonds are NOT supposed to be for punishment, but merely to ensure the suspects appear at trial, and I don't see a pair of lawyers as much of a flight risk. All too often pre-trial detention is not only pre-trial punishment, but it's used to discourage suspects from going to trial at all.
And 45 years is ridiculous. (It also probably came from adding up the maximum sentences, not the much lower guidelines, but still...) It would have helped to have listed the charges, but to get that high must have required several dubious laws and prosecutorial tactics, such as:
1. Immense sentence enhancements from being "an attack on law enforcement", as compared to what they could get for doing the same thing to a civilian.
2. Stacking up multiple charges for the same criminal act just to run up the sentence - this is the second way that prosecutors will try to extort a plea bargain and avoid having to prove _anything_ in court.
3. "Conspiracy" charges, like two people doing a crime together is much worse than one person doing it alone.
But you can count on the Atlantic trying to blame all this on Trump, not mentioning that such things have been going on for at least 40 years - with the full support of Biden and many other Democrats. Biden may have forgotten, but it's all in the public record.
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