I love stupid people. - Page 2 - GreenHybrid

AshenGrey · #11 (**permalink**) 08-25-2007, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by leahbeatle

Odd. If it was fake, would they have a good reason to arrest her? Certainly there was intent- but was there possession? Perhaps she had real crack in her apartment, however.

From a legal perspective, if you intend to commit a crime, but what you do isn't a crime, you aren't guilty. Like if you buy a bag of oregano, and you think it's a drug, you haven't committed a drug crime because oregano is perfectly legal.

In my criminal law class, the professor gave this example: Surreptitious dog petting. Let's say you're crazy, and you think it's illegal to sneak up on other people who are walking their dogs in the park and pet the dogs. Let's say that you're convinced it's a crime, called surreptitous dog petting, and that, with the intent to break the law, you go sneaking around the park, creeping up to people's dogs, petting them, and running away. Can you be arrested and charged with anything? No. Petting dogs is legal. There is no crime of 'surreptitious dog petting' to charge you with, and you aren't guilty of it because it doesn't exist, whether you think it does or not.

Intending to commit a crime, by itself, isn't a crime. It's intent coupled with an action.

Actually, in the "buying oregeno as drugs" scenario, both parties have committed criminal offenses (under Maryland law at least).

The seller would be charged with "CDS: Man/Dist: Fake CDS" and "CDS: Poss Fake CDS as CDS".
The buyer would be charged with "ATT-CDS: Poss Not Marihuana" (yeah, I know it's spelled "marijuana", but CJIS has it spelled with an "h" in every appearance).

The seller's "Man/Dist" charge is a felony, while the "Poss" charges are misdemeanors.

Yeah, it's great working for Pretrial Release.

leahbeatle · #12 (**permalink**) 08-27-2007, 04:23 PM

Well, what can I say, I was taught Criminal law by a professor who had been a criminal prosecutor in New York. He was teaching in Michigan from a textbook written who knows where. I then went on to pass the bar exam in Illinois. None of this qualifies me to speak to the drug laws in Maryland.

Conclusion: Answer varies by state.

ETA- in my example, I never said that there was a REASONABLE way that the person who bought the oregano would think it was a drug, or that the person selling it to them said it was, just that buying oregano is legal. If you go to the grocery store, buy oregano, and think that it's not really oregano but something illegal because you're stupid or mentally ill, you have not committed a crime and neither did the grocery checker.

AshenGrey · #13 (**permalink**) 08-27-2007, 06:48 PM

Leahbeatle:

What I've noticed is that New York also categorizes their felonies from Class A to Class E. Maryland just has felonies and misdemeanors. Unfortunately, Maryland seems to be pretty lax on crime. For example, there are a bunch of ATT-Felonies that count as misdemeanors, not felonies (attempted theft+$500, for example). It doesn't make a lot of sense sometimes.

Also, some misdemeanors carry a longer jail term than some felonies.

leahbeatle · #14 (**permalink**) 08-28-2007, 10:54 AM

Criminal laws in general don't make a lot of sense in many places in this country. We have all these ancient rules on the books that were put in place for all kinds of ridiculous reasons that have faded over the years, but the laws remain. The reasons behind the laws may have been horrific in the first place, or just nonsensical, but you can't always figure out the progression of any of the reasoning just by reading the current code.

An egregious example of this that comes to mind was a long time ago in Georgia or Mississippi or someplace- and your pardon if I'm not remembering the story exactly. One of those state legislatures decided that the thing they wanted to do was to execute as many black criminals as possible, so they went through the convictions and picked out which crimes were the 'black' crimes, which is to say that, more often, black people were convicted of doing them, and made those crimes punishable by the death penalty. Similarly, the 'white' crimes were all removed from death penalty eligibility. The upshot of this was that for decades in Georgia or wherever, a man who beat his wife could be executed for it, but a man who murdered his wife could not. (this has been changed since)

ETA:

I'm a bit confused by your statement that misdemeanors can be punishable by longer jail time than felonies. I was taught - probably in that same criminal law class- that the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony is that a misdemeanor is punishable by less than one year in jail, but that a felony was punishable by a year or more of jail time. You didn't actually have to be sentenced to the full year to be a felon- Martha Stewart got three months, but the crime was punishABLE by a year or more, so it was a felony. I suppose this could still work with what you said, in that the maximum time for a misdemeanor could be more than the minimum for a felony, but it's also possible that the definition only holds true in some places.

giantquesadilla · #15 (**permalink**) 08-30-2007, 07:20 PM

Haha. I was watching Cops and this lady bought crack and brought it to the police station to try and get the seller in trouble. She was arrested for possession. Crackheads aren't the smartest...

greenman456 · #16 (**permalink**) 09-13-2007, 08:31 AM

It's still a crime even if the drugs are not real.

livvie · #17 (**permalink**) 01-18-2008, 12:53 PM

Too bad the tiger didn't get all 3...

what dumbasses!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/01/18/tig....ap/index.html

leahbeatle · #18 (**permalink**) 01-18-2008, 01:46 PM

Well, but what about the tiger? It ended up dead too... That can't be described as natural selection.

livvie · #19 (**permalink**) 01-22-2008, 08:09 AM

I'm pissed they had to kill the tiger.