Teaching prisoners to dive...

[Web Monkey]

Here's an example of just how easily this can happen. Lets say you end up losing your job and because of this you can't afford to renew your drivers license. So now you are driving on an expired license and you get pulled over for a headlight that is out. In Texas you have just committed a class A misdemeanor (one step down from a felony) and will be fined between $100 and $500 plus will have to serve a minimum of 3 days in jail and possibly up to 6 months.

Somehow, I can't imagine that Texas actually would actually put someone in jail for driving with an expired licence unless they were being a d*** about something else.

Prison must be full of old people with bad memories.

Terry

 

[Wilson]

Is there any follow-up available on the lives of the men who graduated this program and their subsequent careers?

 

[mrjimboalaska]

perhaps the greatest inequalities in America today are unequal access to the legal system and unequal access to competent legal counsel.

This thread has hit home to me.....How can the legal system shut down one's bank accounts, therefore not allowing that person access to his funds for defense. Then that person goes to jail due to an incompetent public defender?

Also, I am finding that the people that are NOT expected to be repeat offenders are the ones that DONT get parole!
Why, even in the same county( Idaho ) is the child molester given 6 months and an assault given 5-15 years?
Is it because the Child Molester is on welfare, and the assaulter is making 300K a year?

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

This thread has hit home to me.....How can the legal system shut down one's bank accounts, therefore not allowing that person access to his funds for defense. Then that person goes to jail due to an incompetent public defender?

Also, I am finding that the people that are NOT expected to be repeat offenders are the ones that DONT get parole!
Why, even in the same county( Idaho ) is the child molester given 6 months and an assault given 5-15 years?
Is it because the Child Molester is on welfare, and the assaulter is making 300K a year?

Federal RICO law requires all bank accounts be frozen in a RICO case. Years ago, Florida used to exempt legal expenses until the feds shut them down... all assets meant ALL assets, not exempting those used for legal counsel. The National bar Association tried to complain, but were in the untenable position of arguing that public defenders weren't as good as paid counsel. True or not, the NBA couldn't say so, lest they offend a good part of their membership.

The legal profession should be like the medical professsion --- I can't refuse a patient because they can't pay, neither should any lawyer, good or otherwise.

 

[vondo]

The legal profession should be like the medical professsion --- I can't refuse a patient because they can't pay, neither should any lawyer, good or otherwise.

Really? That must be for life-threatening conditions?

When I took a new job a few years ago, I promptly broke my wrist. My old insurance paid for the emergency visit, but after that.... I could get my new employer to state that I was covered under their policy effective on the date of my employment (a few days before the accident) but I wasn't in the insurers system yet. I was turned down for an appointment with the orthopedist. I even offered to put it on my credit card and seek re-imbursement later. No dice. Without insurance they could charge that day, I was not allowed to see a doctor.

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

Really? That must be for life-threatening conditions?

When I took a new job a few years ago, I promptly broke my wrist. My old insurance paid for the emergency visit, but after that.... I could get my new employer to state that I was covered under their policy effective on the date of my employment (a few days before the accident) but I wasn't in the insurers system yet. I was turned down for an appointment with the orthopedist. I even offered to put it on my credit card and seek re-imbursement later. No dice. Without insurance they could charge that day, I was not allowed to see a doctor.

Really. It doesn't have to be life threatening, only acute. Whoever that was would be in trouble should you have developed some complication from your injury. Even many doctors are not aware that once their office makes contact with you about your condition, or you with them, they may already have established a doctor-patient relationship with you, even if the contact is by phone and not even with the doctor personally.

They should have at least seen you to assess whether the orthopedic situation required emergency care beyond an ER physician... if not, they would have been within their rights to refuse elective care IF other arrangements could be made. Example; I'm called by a patient with a severe headache, a patient belonging to an HMO I don't belong to... they can't locate their own doctor. I see the patient and discover it's a migraine and make appropriate referral to someone in the network. I eat the cost, but I have a legal obligation once they contact me to be sure it is something that can wait until they get insurance or find a doctor in their plan.

That doesn't mean I can't refuse to see someone --- if they threaten me, or are already under the care of another doctor, or if it is a problem I can't deal with --- i can't refuse acute care to someone because of ability to pay. I can, however, refuse to care for a benign or chronic condition for non-payment... I don't have to manage chronic headache for free. But legal counsel isn't provided at all, free or otherwise, for anything except major criminal cases. And even public defenders get paid... I often get nothing at all.

There is a federal law known as EMTALA that requires me to take care of anyone who calls on me ANYWHERE in the US. if someone has acute back pain in Colorado and calls me in Pittsburgh, I can't refuse.

 

[TexasZR2]

I wasn't going to post this, then decided I couldn't help myself. There is a better way to keep people from being thrown back in jail.....don't put them there in the first place. If everyone were more responsible for their own safety, there would be less offenders left alive to clog the legal system. Of course, this really only relates to violent crimes, but aren't those the criminals most people are worried about anyway? I'm not advocating all out vigilantism here (although we might come to that some day), I'm just saying we should be more responsible about our own well being. Choose not to be a victim.

 

[Mr.X]

I wasn't going to post this, then decided I couldn't help myself. There is a better way to keep people from being thrown back in jail.....don't put them there in the first place. If everyone were more responsible for their own safety, there would be less offenders left alive to clog the legal system. Of course, this really only relates to violent crimes, but aren't those the criminals most people are worried about anyway? I'm not advocating all out vigilantism here (although we might come to that some day), I'm just saying we should be more responsible about our own well being. Choose not to be a victim.

While your argument seems logical the sad truth is that there are folks out there who do not know how to make a good choice -regardless. Like a moth to a flame they will continue to do the same thing. This is due to psychological or organic issues in the brain. These things are hard to correct, and sometimes cannot be remediated.

X

p.s. like your avatar! Where's Gilligan?

 

[TexasZR2]

p.s. like your avatar! Where's Gilligan?

Alas....Bob Denver died. And then there were three.....

 

[KOMPRESSOR]

WHAT on earth is this FUZZ from several of you guys that the participants of these back-to-life programs for inmates should pay back for the "free" advantages they've received behind the walls of prison??! Just what kind of human relations is it you advocate here? Why should these souls, that has a one shot chance of getting back A civilized life , for every penny's worth be kept down-down-down, even after serving their sentences? Are you envyous? Are you just so greedy you don't want to pay ANY taxes at all?? Are you so much better than anyone with a conviction you can't stand the idea of not being able to keep them "where they belong"???