The right to privacy...

[Arfann]

Originally posted by crowMAW
Have you ever noticed the huge list of pardons an out going President may confer?  

Yep, that's the only thing bad about voting Dubya out. When he leaves all them CEO's will be pardoned and back in business.

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by crowMAW
Once convicted, felons lose most of their civil rights.  It varies by state how these rights are restored upon release.  If the felon is paroled they are still convicts in the penal system, but they are basically released on their own recognizance with limited supervision.  If the felon has served his/her complete sentence then depending on the state, some of their civil rights are automatically restored.  However, some states like Florida have a very cumbersome civil rights restoration process.

I know a guy whose Masters thesis focused on the origins of removing civil rights for felons.  Apparently, he discovered that those states that first instituted such a practice:

(1)  Possessed relatively higher levels of felony crimes by minorities than other states (note that this doesn't speak to crime levels themselves, only to the people committing those crimes).

(2)  Had recently lost civil rights cases at the federal level.

One would conclude, then, that at least initially, removing the right to vote from felons came about as a round-about way to disenfranchise minority groups in those states that implemented such a policy.

Food for thought I suppose.  I honestly don't know the history of such laws, and I haven't seen the guy's data to verify its accuracy or robustness.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[Maverick]

Todd,

That type of study has one major failing. Did he have ACCURATE stats on voting levels of those felons prior to their criminal activity? If not, then any causal relationship or correlational relationship is an invalid conclusion. In other words if they didn't vote before losing the right, then the loss of the right was of no consequence.

3 categories of liars.
Liars
Damn liars
Statisticians

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by Maverick
That type of study has one major failing. Did he have ACCURATE stats on voting levels of those felons prior to their criminal activity? If not, then any causal relationship or correlational relationship is an invalid conclusion. In other words if they didn't vote before losing the right, then the loss of the right was of no consequence.

[/B]

Obviously, this is something I've thought about but don't know the answer, as I haven't seen the data.  I'd guess that he must have had some sort of measure along these lines (though it would quite difficult to find measures for voting felons), as it's the most obvious criticism of such a research project.

One might argue that even if a majority of felons did not vote, there remains at least a minority, no matter how small, that did.  This minority was subsequently disenfranchised by the removal of civil rights for felons.  In addition, statutory removal of civil rights officially eliminates the possibility of organizing that non-voting majority to vote; institutional disenfranchisement replaces self-selected disenfranchisement.

3 categories of liars.
Liars
Damn liars
Statisticians

Not true in all cases.    A sound research design utilizing proper statistical tools may be quite valid.  That's not to say that researchers can't or don't manipulate statistics, but it's certainly not considered common or acceptable to do so in academia.  Most incorrect conclusions come from ignorance as to the correct statistical tools to utilize for a given set of data (using linear regression to measure non-linear relationships, for instance).

Like I said, I can't speak to the strength of this guy's data.  It could be total crap, or it could be really strong.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[Saurdaukar]

Can we nominate Levi for most intelligent post?

[crowMAW]

Originally posted by Dead Man Flying
One would conclude, then, that at least initially, removing the right to vote from felons came about as a round-about way to disenfranchise minority groups in those states that implemented such a policy.

Well, if they can show that, then there is a Supreme Court ruling (Hunter v. Underwood) that states that a disenfranchisement law reflecting "purposeful racial discrimination" is not constitutional.

Originally posted by Maverick
The right to bear arms, vote and one or two others. (My memory is failing me right now)

I may be getting confused between felons on parole and felons having completed their sentence, but if I recall correctly the other two are 1) unreasonable search and seizure; and 2) free association.  

If I recall, the standard for a warrantless search of a known felon is merely reasonable suspicion rather than probable cause.  But the Supreme Court has flip flopped so many times on 4th Amendment stuff, I don't know how any cop can keep it all straight.  Used to be that a guy running at the sight of police was not sufficient for a warrantless search and now in some situations unprovoked flight is sufficient.

Also if I recall correctly, free association may be limited by making it illegal for felons to knowingly associate with other felons.

[Airhead]

I can see Crow's underwear.

[crowMAW]

Originally posted by Airhead
I can see Crow's underwear.

Pervert!:D

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by crowMAW
Well, if they can show that, then there is a Supreme Court ruling (Hunter v. Underwood) that states that a disenfranchisement law reflecting "purposeful racial discrimination" is not constitutional.

Unless I'm mistaken, Hunter v. Underwood also made it clear that the presence of a racially disparate impact alone was not sufficient to strike down criminal disenfranchisement.  

Therein lay the ingenuity of such a statutory design if in fact states began criminal disenfranchisement as a de facto method of racial discrimination.  As disenfranchisement for convicted felons occurs regardless of race, the laws do not violate the Equal Protection clause.  Yet by selectively choosing which felonies incur criminal disenfranchisement, states may target those racial groups most likely to commit such crimes while claiming constitutionality.

Judging intent proves a difficult endeavor if the actual impact does not matter to the courts.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[beet1e]

Does your constitution always act in your interests? I always remember how a known cocaine dealer walked free from a New York courtroom, despite a mountain of police evidence against him and the fact that there was no doubt of his guilt, even amongst his defence counsel. The reason was that the warrant issued for the police search of the guy's house was invalid - the date on it was wrong, or some other seemingly minor error. The drug dealer pleaded the fourth amendment, and the judge had to rule that the search had been unlawful, and therefore the evidence gained from that search was inadmissible in court.

I sometimes feel that things were better in the old days! Saw a TV programme about Jack "Jack the Lad" Shephard this week. He lived in London in the early 18th century. At that time, criminals were brought before the assizes to a trial lasting all of 30 minutes. If the judge didn't like the colour of your eyes, to the gallows you went! -Sure cut out a lot of the paperwork - lol. No sitting around on Death Row for 15 years.

Ah yes, the infamous second amendment.  TOTALLY anachronistic in this day and age. I mean, can you imagine private citizens armed with handguns or maybe even high powered rifles like RC51's, rising up against a government that has cruise missiles and cluster bombs? But guns MUST be allowed! OK, so a lot (many thousands) of people are going to die at the wrong end of a gun each year... Hehe, a small price to pay, and one worth paying, I hear some of you say. Because we MUST preserve the second, and the US citizens MUST have guns. Otherwise life would just not be the same. There are 300,000 people with whom I'd like to discuss that over the years 1975-2000. Oh wait, they're all dead. Never mind.

I'll just go on locking my doors at night - has worked for my family for over 100 years that I know of.

No apology for any thread hijack, as I'm on GTO's ignore list.

[Furball]

Originally posted by beet1e
Saw a TV programme about Jack "Jack the Lad" Shephard this week. He lived in London in the early 18th century.

That was a great programme! his fourth escape from jail was brilliant!

[SOB]

Beetle...You're a fool.  And it's not even funny any more, it's really kinda sad.  You should either seek professional help to cure you of your irrational fear and loathing of guns or perhaps isolate yourself from anything that reminds you of them.  They're inanimate objects, not the boogy man.  I promise.


SOB

[beet1e]

Originally posted by SOB
They're inanimate objects, not the boogy man.  I promise.

SOB

Maybe, but we need to discuss it with those 300,000, and to do that we'd have to have a séance. Has there been ANY year in which fewer than 5,000 people were wrongfully killed by said "inanimate objects"? You're entitled to think I'm a fool, but I think you're a complete avacado to play that stupid "inanimate objects" card time after time after time.

Come to think of it, the judicial thing has gone full circle. You may be appalled at how things were in 18th century Britain, with people being hanged after a 30 minute trial. I wonder how many people who were hanged were actually innocent of the crimes with which they were charged. I would like to compare that figure with the number of people wrongfully killed by a gun in the US each year, despite the protection of their state of the art squeaky clean judicial system, constitution, various amendments...

Anyway, SOB. Don't do a Toad and try to blame your high number of gun deaths on social problems/blacks/deprivation. We have all those problems in Britain. But we DO NOT have thousands upon thousands of unlawful gun killings each year.

Funny that...   Go figure!  

[vorticon]

yes i do...most people are insanely headstrong and will think it can never happen to them and continue doing it...many of them beleive that theres no way people will get a search warrent for there computer unless they do something really stupid, many of them beleive even if it is searched theres no real evidence on there...anyway it would take way to much manpower and a lot of red tape to even start something like that...look at those kiddie pornographers...an incredibly small number of htem ever gte prosecuted...

[SOB]

Originally posted by beet1e
Anyway, SOB. Don't do a Toad and try to blame your high number of gun deaths on social problems/blacks/deprivation.

As wacky as this sounds, I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the person holding the gun.  Crazy me, I don't believe the hunk of metal in their hand was the driving force behind their actions.


SOB