{"id":693,"date":"2011-02-01T14:24:03","date_gmt":"2011-02-01T19:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=693"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:58:31","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:58:31","slug":"punishment-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/02\/01\/punishment-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"Punishment > Crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zach Luck<\/em><\/p>\n

Last week the blogs buzzed with the story of a mother hit with a 10-day jail sentence and a $30,000 fine for misstating where she lived (she used her father\u2019s address) to get her daughters into a better school. \u00a0The mother, Kelley Williams-Bolar, is now unable to get an Ohio teaching license despite being\u00a0only a few credit hours away<\/a>\u00a0from her degree due to this felony conviction.<\/p>\n

There are so many things wrong here its hard to know where to begin. \u00a0The heart-wrenching human drama of a woman severely punished for doing what she thought was right? \u00a0The continuing\u00a0racial divide<\/a>\u00a0in American\u2019s schools more than half a century after Brown? \u00a0The selective enforcement of a rule against a\u00a0black family<\/a>? \u00a0A criminal system which places ever-higher penalties on a felony conviction and ever-lower bars on what constitutes a felony?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Its about all these things, but it\u2019s also about prosecutorial ethics. \u00a0The judge in the case spoke out on the over-zealousness of the prosecutor in the case. \u00a0The judge said she repeatedly tried to convince the county prosecutor to offer Williams-Bolar plea to a misdemeanor but that in the she \u201ccan\u2019t put a gun to anybody\u2019s head and force the state to offer a plea bargain<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The brief clip of the prosecutor\u2019s\u00a0closing argument<\/a>\u00a0in this local news piece (at 1:19) shows the prosecutor dramatically announcing: \u201cAsk yourself why, oh why, oh why, you would believe a word she told you on the stand!\u201d<\/p>\n

The real question is why do we let prosecutors politicize charges and demand outrageous sentences.\u00a0 Why, oh, why do we let the adversarial system run amok? \u00a0\u00a0 I understand that schools have no choice but to find ways to enforce their district lines, this post isn\u2019t about finding a way to radically alter our public school system to let any kid go to any school. \u00a0Or better yet, how to equalize funding, teacher-quality and educational opportunities across all schools for all kids.<\/p>\n

Making the kids attend another school? OK. \u00a0A fine for deterrence? Fine. \u00a0Five years in prison and a felony record? \u00a0Absolutely not. \u00a0That\u2019s right. The prosecutor in this case asked for a 5-year prison sentence for the crime of writing down grandpa\u2019s address on a school enrollment form. \u00a0It was only thanks to the judge\u2019s leniency that Williams-Bolar is serving ten days in prison, two years probation and 80 hours community service instead. \u00a0Why, oh, why indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zach Luck Last week the blogs buzzed with the story of a mother hit with a 10-day jail sentence and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-bb","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}