I dunno. I believe the guy is guilty and should be punished for recklessness, etc. but I don’t like it when authorities rely on indirect charges to “get” someone.
Prove the original crime, don’t rely and peripheral procedure like “they lied to a federal agent” (uhh) cop-out. Do your job.
Likewise I’m not don’t of people getting off on “technicalities” (Some more than others)
If you read the article, it's not really a technicality. He filed a false incident report with the FAA, lied to the FAA about what happened, and destroyed evidence despite an order from the NTSB to preserve the wreckage in order to cover up what really happened. That is all illegal for a good reason.
What’s the angle? The fuselage doesn’t crumple one way if it’s staged and another way if it was an accident. The metal and construction materials cannot know intent.
Do you need prove a crime was committed in the first place? Or can the government accuse me of being a drug dealer but I disposed of the evidence when I took out the trash last week so I obstructed their investigation.
Did you read the article? He destroyed the remains of the plane AFTER the FAA explicitly told him to not even touch it.
Sure, no evidence, no crime, but in this case there was evidence that the feds knew about. If you destroy the evidence before the cops know it exists, fair game. But this wasn't it.
As usual, the coverup is worse than the crime. Especially for the guy getting railroaded.
Being asked to not do it is not prereq to being charged. Even if the FAA didn’t ask, he could still be charged and prosecuted for the same crime. Its against law to destroy evidence of a crime but you don’t need to prove the crime actually existed. They could have said he was drug smuggling and still charged with obstruction of justice for the same act.
> The penalty for destroying this evidence should not exceed the original crime or value of the property I destroyed in any rational way.
The rational reason is that this is a behaviour we want to discourage. We want to diacourage it because it makes it more complicated and more costly to catch criminals, and more likely for them to get away with their crimes.
So if I lift a candy bar at a 7-11, am detained and questioned and the investigator notices chocolate smudges on my cheeks and uses that as reason to have my stomach pumped to produced destroyed evidence after I claimed I didn’t eat it, they can stick me in the slammer for 20 years for lying and destroying evidence?
There is the idea of commensurate punishment. 20 years for destroying evidence for something that while serious didn’t defraud anyone, maim anyone or cause damage I think is unreasonable and unconstitutional.
And here is where the reporting of these number goes wrong. The youtuber in question won’t go to jail for 20 years. You as the chocolate thief won’t go to jail for 20 years.
20 year is the absolute maximum for the worst evidence tampering you can think of. A serial offender, after knowingly and willingly leveling a city block with people in there the second time to hide his street gang’s accounting fraud, and exhibiting open contempt towards the judge while loudly proclaiming he will do it again after they let him out. That person can not get more than 20 years for the specific crime of evidence tampering. That is what the 20 years statutory maximum is.
Definitely disagree here. In the system you’re proposing it’s a no-brainer to tamper with evidence: you won’t end up worse than you are and might even get out of it entirely! You’re basically incentivizing criminals to tamper with evidence—you clearly didn’t think this through.
Arguably the lying to investigators crime is worse than the original. He crashed a plane he owned with only him in it. Sure, there was risks of danger to the ground and wildfires, but those risks are the same if you accidentally crash a plane, and the actual resulting damage was indeed minimal. Reckless behavior that ultimately does not cause damage or harm is rarely penalized heavily.
Lying to investigators and destroying evidence is unquestionably wrongdoing, and required far more explicit intent and action than merely failing to correctly fly an aircraft.
“Failing to correctly fly an aircraft” is quite an understatement. This person didn’t just accidentally run out of fuel, or accidentally stalled.
He intentionally set up the airplane with cameras, intentionally wore a parachute, intentionally stopped the engine mid-flight and then intentionally jumped out of the airplane while holding a camera on a selfie stick.
None of this can be described as ”failing to correctly fly an aircraft”. What he did required explicit intent.
> I believe the guy is guilty and should be punished for recklessness, etc. but I don’t like it when authorities rely on indirect charges to “get” someone.
I think in the absence of actual injuries, the obstruction charge is actually the more serious criminal charge applicable. Which is not an indirect charge; obstruction is a distinct crime with its own harms.
It really irks me when authorities go after someone, can't prove something then because they don't want to look bad and want to get a promotion will instead get people for nonsense like they did Mrs Stewart. She should have been able to sure the government and get punitive damages for malicious prosecution.
Why? Do police officers get fired or lose money when technicalities free criminals? If so, why couldn't we just keep that part and not release the criminals on the technicality?
> Do police officers get fired or lose money when technicalities free criminals?
Presumably there's some level of incentive to catch criminals. Otherwise why would police officers do anything? (Of course another possible answer is that they don't).
> If so, why couldn't we just keep that part and not release the criminals on the technicality?
Because it's very hard to maintain an incentive unless it's aligned all the way through an organisation. The consequences for police dishonesty needs to be something that will cause police chiefs to lose elections. Letting criminals go free is one of the few things that does that.
My point is that letting a criminal go isn't a consequence. Suppose a police officer, instead of waiting for a warrant that was going to be issued, barges into a suspect's home without a warrant and finds the evidence to convict the suspect.
The officer has done wrong (entering the home without the warrant) and should face some punishment for that. The threat of punishment deters the officer from acting without a warrant.
On the other hand, releasing the criminal, who is actually guilty, is not a real deterrent. What if the officer doesn't particularly care if the suspect gets arrested or not?
It's the threat of consequences to the particular individual that decide their actions - not the threat of conflicts with the purpose of their organization. Put another way, I bet fewer police officers would commit misconduct if the consequences were "you personally go to jail" as opposed to "a criminal is freed and your organization is supposed to do the opposite of that, don't you feel bad?"
The police are politically powerful and will simply not tolerate that level of accountability. It's hard enough to fire them when they commit outright murder.
Also, the entire institution of police/prosecutors/courts/judges need a disincentive against misconduct not just individuals. Otherwise they can just use a revolving door of disposable/sacrificial cops to violate rights and get convictions.
Allowing convictions to stand in spite of illegal investigation methods makes rules against those methods completely meaningless for defendants.
Fully agree. After how obstruction of justice without underlying crime was used in political trials recently, I would fully support either removing or substantially increasing bar for it to be a crime.
Prove the original crime, don’t rely and peripheral procedure like “they lied to a federal agent” (uhh) cop-out. Do your job.
Likewise I’m not don’t of people getting off on “technicalities” (Some more than others)