🚀 go-pugleaf

Dave Briggman (paradigm@mercury.interpath.net) wrote:
: gronke@acpub.duke.edu (Paul Gronke) wrote:
: >In article <43q5ge$ic0@redstone.interpath.net>,
: >   paradigm@mercury.interpath.net (David Briggman) wrote:

: >Let's see: the guy has no record, he has a steady job, and, yes, his 
: >parents are stable members of the community.  How high could the 
: >bail have gone to make it unpayable?  1,000,000?  10,000,000?  Thos 
: >kinds of bails are almost never set, are they?  Certainly not in a 
: >first offense case.

: I could name countless 
: numbers of people who committed violent acts with no prior criminal 
: record and were not given the privilege of house arrest prior to his 
: court hearing (Timothy McVeay, Colin Ferguson, Blanch Taylor-Moore, 
: anybody involved in the Little Rascals case [all of them were no-bail 
: holds], the law school student who shot up Chapel Hill)...there goes 
: your argument about high/no bails on first offenses.

All of these cases have one thing in common - BIG name recognition.
In TV's case, big flee potential...

: >Dave, the story in the Herald Sun, which you claim you read, says 
: >quite clearly that the District Attorney *requested* house arrest as 
: >a greater restriction on his movements.

: Wednesday's Herald Sun article made no mention of that...and how does 
: one assume that being on house arrest is MORE restrictive than being in 
: a cell with guards?

House arrest is more restrictive than not having house arrest given equal bail.


: >>book smart, no common sense.
: >
: >Dave, weren't you the person who told us not to stereotype schools a 
: >few weeks ago when someone made a disparaging comment about GMU?  Go 
: >look this word up in the dictionary: "hypocrite"

: Actually, Paul, if you'll go back and read the posting, what I said was 
: that most state colleges and universities (both in Virginia and 
: nationwide) could provide a better undergraduate and graduate education 
: in most any field of endeavor (with the possible exception of the 
: Medical School) and that Duke lives off of it's reputation it earned 
: quite a while ago (long before any of the current crop of students 
: arrived here) and doesn't really live up to today. I also said they live 
: off of their alumni and that there are better educational values to be 
: had, I should know, I paid for the law school tuition of my girlfriend, 
: who attended and graduated Duke Law.

You girlfriend is not herewith elected Representative of the Duke Law
School and while her experiences are important, the are not a paradigm.
Duke has only recently earned its reputation in certain fields, and in
another opinion holds up very well in many fields.  While the school does seek 
money from alumni, it does so becuase in terms of its national prominence 
it is young and has no where near the endowments of the other five
schools that make up the top six in the nation.  I also don't
think that "most" state school can provide better undergradute and graduate 
education in "most" any field of endevor.  If you look at *all* the state 
schools you will without question find some that have better programs in
some fields, but your generalization doesn't wash.  Have any stats?

: Lord knows that for the money, most state colleges provide more 
: education and knowledge for the dollar.

The Lord may know it, but without any proof on your part, us mortals 
don't.

: One of the departments I am contracting for has a fourth year EE who 
: doesn't know what formatting a hard drive does and doesn't know what the 
: operating system of a computer does for the computer...yet he's going to 
: be designing microchips - makes sense huh? Most ten year olds know what 
: that does - my daughter knew when she was five - as do most children 
: nowadays.

Who is this person?  He should not be getting his degree.  However - 
does he know how to design a micro-chip?

: It's amazing how none of the liberals have made any reference to my 
: opinion that had he been black he'd still be in the Orange County jail 
: (a regular term is "pre-trial detention") where the community would be 
: guaranteed to be safe from him and he would be guaranteed to show up for 
: his trial. No such guarantee exists with him on house arrest.

Had he been Black I think there would probably be a greater 
chance of his either getting a much larger bond or a no-bond
hold.  Using a Greene-esque line of reasoning, given the 
general economic state African-Americans face here, the bail 
as set may have been sufficiently high...

Which, I suppose, begs the question - should the affluence of the 
accused or his/her family be taken into account when setting 
bail?  If I am accused of some crime and am able in a pinch to 
get a $30,000 bond but another person who is like me in most 
regards except affluence is able to post $100,000 should my bond be 
set lower?