Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
Okay, so I'll ask again - how much worse can an invasion of privacy be?
I've tried to subtract the results from this. I've tried to focus solely on the conduct and apply it to the law.
If a crime is punishable by up to 5 years and a party violates that crime both in a pre-meditated fashion and in a manner designed expressly to create the type of harm that the statute seeks to avoid, how can you avoid giving the maximum sentence?
I cannot come up with a more brazen, mean-spirited, pre-meditate, intentional violation of an invasion of privacy law than this one, apart from involving minors (which would be under a different scheme) or the threat of violence (which would be punishable under a separate count).
No pitchforks, no mob mentality. This was a textbook and severe violation of a statute punishable by 5 years. How do you not give it to them apart from using your emotion. While accusing others of getting overly emotional in this, you're ignoring the fact that it's your emotion and concern over seeing a young kid ruin his life that has you seeking the lesser penalty.
If this was a 60 year old homeless guy, I doubt you'd defend him so vociferously.
It's an emotionally charged issue. But if you take emotion out of it on both sides and look at it from a purely technical standpoint, the guy earned the maximum penalty allowed by law.
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You're right that if the accused was a 60 year old man, I'd have less sympathy. At that point in your life, you're supposed to be beyond your youthful indiscretions. These two were freshmen in college. They've barely reached the age of majority. It's not like they decided to rob a bank or mug someone or even drive drunk or something else that they would certainly understand to be against the law.
I guess that our main point of difficulty here is that you're out for revenge and I'm more interested in salvaging a couple of lives of people who most likely had no intention of doing anything that would lead to someone jumping off a bridge.