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Victims of ‘kids-for-cash’ judge outraged by Biden pardon: ‘What about all of us?’ (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 3 days ago by Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
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[-] Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world 123 points 3 days ago

This is enraging. Makes my blood boil.

I'm not seeing anyone reporting on an actual reason biden would do this. If anyone has any source on that I'd like to see it. What the fuck could his justification be? If anything, the judges deserved much harsher sentences, not a fucking pardon.

Insanity. If not, please enlighten me.

[-] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 86 points 3 days ago

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/13/biden-clemency-judge-michael-conahan-000890

Those commutations were extended to people on Covid-related home confinement after federal authorities verified that their offenses were nonviolent and not a sex offense or terrorism related, the official said. They were also all considered a low risk for recidivism, had not engaged in any violent or gang-related activity while in prison and had been on good behavior for at least a year. None of the commutations granted were individual decisions, the official added, and none who met the criteria were excluded.

Not that any of that makes it any better. Some people are in prison for a reason. Blindly letting a bunch of them out, after getting blowback because you wrote a get out of jail free card for your particular family, is just as bad as blindly treating them all as animals "without considering the specifics of his case."

[-] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 86 points 3 days ago

Yeah, I hate Joe Biden as much as anyone who knows his history on criminal justice issues should, but his mistake here was one of negligence.

The real problem here is

federal authorities verified that their offenses were nonviolent

Like, how was this nonviolent? This judge participated in a scheme to kidnap children and if they or their parents resisted they'd have violence inflicted upon them, just because that violence was being done by police officers and the kidnapping was to a jail cell instead of a brothel shouldn't change anything, but the system can't help but give a judge the easy white collar criminal treatment

[-] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 31 points 3 days ago

It's non-violent when the state does it. Just like "capital punishment".

[-] PunnyName@lemmy.world 31 points 3 days ago

We need to punch up more. The healthcare CEO was just a stepping stone.

[-] Alwaysnownevernotme@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

Fucking launch pad.

[-] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Yeah, I had a very similar argument a couple days ago.

Nonviolent is not the same as victimless and there are plenty of nonviolent criminals who belong in jail.

[-] ArtieShaw@fedia.io 26 points 3 days ago

This is where it gets messy for me.

I'm in favor of letting the COVID release prisoners go. It seems unnaturally cruel to send non-violent offenders back to prison for the rest of their sentence if they haven't reoffended.

I would not have released this guy in the first place. "Non-violent" my ass.

[-] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 16 points 3 days ago

I think the Biden administration is probably pretty unanimous in connecting “has money and good connections” with “how much harm could he be doing, really when you get down to it?” They probably didn’t even realize that there might be bad people in the mixture of “non-violent” offenders, such that they would need to look over the list with any amount of attention.

It just happened that this guy is so infamous that you can make a news story about it, but I would bet that there are some quiet sociopaths in the mixture who didn’t make the news who are even more horrible.

[-] cogitase@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 3 days ago

He has been on house arrest since 2020 after 9 years in prison and only had 2 years of house arrest left. His sentence was commuted but he wasn’t part of the pardons, so there’s no change to his status as a felon. All this means is they are removing his ankle monitor less than 2 years earlier than scheduled.

[-] Buffalox@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

You see, when you are rich you are living the good life. So as a judge would say: Apart from abusing a trusted position, and being wealthy and having privileges far above the norm, so he didn't need corruption top live a more than decent life. But apart from that, and being corrupt despite that. He lived an otherwise good life!!

Yes people have freaking gotten off on such nonsense!!! Except the parts that expose the double standard of course.
These assholes believe that being privileged means they actually deserve MORE privileges. When they should be punished HARDER!. A homeless person struggling to survive, can get years in prison for stealing a snack bar! No mercy for the poor! He can't even afford a decent lawyer, so we can discard him as we please, and not get in trouble for it.

The system is so badly tilted to favor the privileged with more privileges in all aspects of life.

[-] CitricBase@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

This has to have been some kind of clerical error, there's no political motivation whatsoever for Biden to have done this.

That being the case, keep publicizing the story, and maybe it will get to the administrations radar. Have the clemencies already been actuated, or is there still time to correct the mistake?

[-] solrize@lemmy.world 51 points 3 days ago

That guy was a Pennsylvania state judge and must have broken a zillion Pennsylvania laws with that scheme. Why was he only taken in on Federal charges? Biden can't pardon state charges, apparently. So if he had been locked up under state law, he'd still be locked up.

[-] osaerisxero@kbin.melroy.org 13 points 3 days ago

Well, the good news is that's still on the table

[-] generalEdo@sh.itjust.works 32 points 3 days ago

Do these people really not see what is going on with the recent CEO killing? Is it really that hard to understand how much people like them are hated by the poors?

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 9 points 3 days ago

This makes me wonder, if we somehow got President Harris for a month, do you think she'd do anything different?

[-] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 9 points 3 days ago

Different from Trump? Yes.

It’s spilt milk at this point, but the idea that we even needed to evaluate Harris in order to vote against Trump in this particular election, is ridiculous. Wait and see, if you don’t agree, probably it will become clear very early next year.

[-] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 3 points 3 days ago

This isn't Trump though; this is Biden.

[-] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 2 points 3 days ago

The question was about Harris, who also isn't Biden.

[-] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 4 points 3 days ago

They're asking if Harris would do anything different from Biden what are you even talking about?

[-] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat -1 points 3 days ago

Yes, I saw. I remember it, I was there. They asked a fair question, making a point, and I asked another fair question, also making a point. Is there something I can help you with here?

[-] TheOctonaut@mander.xyz 1 points 3 days ago

The question had nothing to do with whether or not to nominate Harris or Biden for the election. The question was a hypothetical "would someone with a fully functional brain be using these 2 months productively?" question. This applies whether it was Biden that lost or Harris that lost or Bernie that lost.

The election is over and lost. You can give the "vote for anyone except Trump" hair-trigger response a rest now as it turns out they didn't.

[-] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 0 points 3 days ago

The question was a hypothetical “would someone with a fully functional brain

Incorrect. The question was a hypothetical "would Kamala Harris" et cetera. If they'd asked the question you said, we'd be having a different question.

I wasn't the one that brought Kamala Harris into the equation, so saying that I was bringing up the election for no reason, needs to be directed instead at the guy who brought the election into his hypothetical. We're presumably not picking the vice president at random to ask this question of.

The election is over and lost. You can give the “vote for anyone except Trump” hair-trigger response a rest now as it turns out they didn’t.

Yeah, maybe so. It's tough to do.

[-] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 30 points 3 days ago

I don’t know that I would be able to keep my sanity if some crooked judge sent me to juvie for money and got a presidential pardon.

[-] TWeaK@lemm.ee 3 points 3 days ago

He didn't get a pardon, his sentence was commuted. That means they ended it early, but he's still guilty of the crime.

[-] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago

Do you suppose this distinction makes any appreciable difference?

[-] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 11 points 3 days ago

If he was working class, it definitely would, but for him? Probably not.

[-] candybrie@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

Depends on where he lives and what he wants to do. He's still a felon and in some states it affects your right to vote, right to own a gun, receive government assistance, etc.

[-] PunnyName@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Hopefully he's fully cooked. Well done. Gotta kill the internal parasites.

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 3 days ago

Fuck this guy

[-] nul42@lemmy.ca 7 points 3 days ago

When asked to free the prisoners, Biden thought they asked him to free the imprisoners.

[-] DougHolland@lemmy.world 12 points 3 days ago

What a kick in the victims' teeth. Commuting this guy's sentence is Trump-level corrupt, one of the more despicable things Biden has done.

[-] GraniteM@lemmy.world -1 points 2 days ago

More despicable than running for re-election in the first place?

[-] someguy3@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

Question on legal proceeding, can Biden rescind his pardons?

[-] shoulderoforion@fedia.io 3 points 3 days ago

the american people voted for donald trump again, dark bandon couldn't give a single fuck what any of us ungrateful self destructive democracy destroying cunts have to say about anything any more, he gonna do what he wanna do, and then wait for trump to throw him and his one remaining son in prison

[-] distantsounds@lemmy.world 15 points 3 days ago

Biden never gave a fuck to begin with

[-] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

Based. The Democratic party saw how shitty the Republicans were becoming and took the opportunity to do less and to enrich themselves

this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2024
352 points (99.4% liked)

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