From: matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: Carjacking prosecution
Summary: Lock them up and throw away the key.
Keywords: Merciful to the cruel ==> Cruel to the merciful
Date: 20 Nov 92 16:26:51 GMT
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Lab, APG MD.

In article <1992Nov14.044308.15152@r-node.gts.org> ndallen@r-node.gts.org 
(Nigel Allen) writes:

> Two Philadelphia Men Arrested For Carjacking
. . .
>   PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 13 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In the first armed
>carjacking case in the United States under the recently enacted
>federal Anti-Car Theft Act of 1992, Bob C. Reutter, the Special Agent
>in Charge, Philadelphia Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
>(FBI) and Michael M. Baylson, United States Attorney for the Eastern
>District of Pennsylvania (EDPA), today announced the arrest of [two
>young Philadelphia punks -- names deleted] . . .
. . .
>   In a complaint and warrant, [the punks] are charged with armed
>robbery of an automobile while in possession of a firearm in
>violation of the Anti-Car Theft Act of 1992.  This statute (Title 18;
>U.S. Code, Section 2119) which went into effect on Oct. 25, 1992,
>creates the new federal crime of armed carjacking based on the
>increased incidence of carjackings nationwide.

What's the maximum sentence?

>   On Oct. 27, 1992, [the two punks], each carrying pistols,
>approached a man and a woman in the Steak and Ale Restaurant parking
>lot located at 240 West Swedesford Road in Berwyn, Pa., as the
>couple was entering their 1992 BMW.  [the two punks] placed guns in
>the victims' backs, ordered then to walk over to the restaurant's
>commercial trash dumpster and then ordered them at gunpoint to climb
>up into the dumpster.  The assailants then locked the dumpster,
>threatened to kill the victims if they get out of the dumpster, and
>drove off in the BMW.  

Sounds like kidnapping to me.  Doesn't kidnapping carry a maximum
sentence of life in prison?

>   Baylson stated that "armed carjacking is a heinous and violent
>offense that causes innocent people to look over their shoulder
>when taking the simple step of getting into their car."

He's right.  If the time-honored practice of trial by jury
establishes that these two punks actually committed these crimes,
and if the government's criminal justice system is truly committed
to the proposition that the most important function of government
is to secure the safety of innocent people, the two perpetrators
will serve whatever maximum term the new "carjacking" law provides
for, and then spend the rest of their natural lives in prison for
kidnapping.

What we are far more likely to see, however, is some misguided
attempt to salvage the lives of these two young men -- 21 and
23 years old; to  "rehabilitate them" so they will have "one more 
chance" to live useful and productive lives as decent citizens
on the outside.  Necessarily, such an attempt will simultaneously
give them "one more chance" to point guns at more innocent citizens.
And their next victims might not live through the crime as these
victims did.

To my mind, conviction for a crime like this proves beyond any
reasonable doubt that the convicts are vicious, depraved thugs.
It is not worth the risk to the public entailed in trying to
salvage their lives.  Punish them, and protect us, by locking 
them up in a dungeon forever, and throwing away the key.  Show
America's thugs and punks that *we mean it*.

					-- Matt Rosenblatt
                                        (matt@amsaa.brl.mil)

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