Denny Hastert is Contemptible, But His Indictment Exemplifies America’s Over-Criminalization

[jberryhill]

16. It doesn't matter

If some city somewhere had a death penalty for jaywalking, then nobody is going to care if someone otherwise odious is charged and executed for jaywalking.

It's that way with a lot of laws. In this instance, any observation along the lines of "how can you be charged with a crime for withdrawing money from your own bank account for a lawful purpose" equates to "Oh, so you are defending a pedophile now?"

Oddly, nobody says, "Oh so you are defending a rapist" in the context of reading someone their "Miranda rights" when a suspect is arrested. I'd bet that practically nobody at DU knows what Ernesto Miranda actually did, and of which he was convicted even when his self-incriminating statements were excluded from evidence.

Whether or not a law, or its enforcement, is reasonable, is simply not an objective question. Most people, and that includes most people on DU, are going to want to know who is being charged. The most handy example of that in regular action here at DU is the situation with Julian Assange and the Swedish criminal procedure. Whether or not Swedish laws on sex crimes, or Swedish prosecution mechanism are, or are not reasonable, is entirely dependent on what you think of Julian Assange in the first place. Observing those threads, that is the only distinguishing factor among participants.