What is the shortest prison sentence ever given in the US? What is the shortest recorded prison or jail sentence in US history?
Likely an extremely hard or impossible question to answer, and may very well be one that may, barely anyone would go to appeals for a sub-1 day sentence, and it searching superior court decisions is far from well-digitized, and there are over 3,000 counties in the U.S.. Since they generally have no binding effect on future cases there is no incentive in digitizing older cases at all. I would not be surprised if during the history of the U.S., certain courts would have lost their past records for example in fires, earthquakes or other acts of God, including of such cases that no one remembered at the time, and no other record existed of any more. If you're lucky, some historian may have somehow answered this question, and is somewhere as a trivia. Also, I have never heard a sentence to be expressed in hours, minutes or seconds, so likely the answer will be a single day which plausibly could have happened where other remedies were not appropriate (defendant not having money and incapacitated from being able to do community service or engage in labor or service in servitude per a sentencing). UPDATED — There is record, in fact, of a 1906 case where a judge sentenced a man for 1 minute in jail for &quot;being drunk and disorderly&quot; &quot;what was probably the lightest sentence ever given a prisoner, that of one minute in the county jail[;]&quot; (The One Minute Jail Sentence) but of course, even less than a 150 years in the existence of the Union, they could not assert that with certainty.
If the DA decides to press charges (we don't know) and if he is convicted (looks like a solid case), the problems are not just the sentence itself. There might be a probation period with conditions like drug tests and counseling, with penalties if he misses them. It is legal to discriminate against people based on prior convictions. While California has some restrictions on when employers may ask, they can make it one part of their assessment.
The maximum determinate sentence for anything (outside of military law) was 21 years (in 2013 increased to 30 years for serious terrorism offenses). The law on penalties §43 says that In a sentence of detention, a time frame is set which should not normally exceed 15 years and cannot exceed 21 years. Breivik was tried once for the crime of intentional murder, and convicted -- 21 years is the sentence. I believe that Norwegian law does not have the "multiple counts" system that the US has whereby an act can be punished under multiple sections of the law or for each victim. He performed an act of killing with very many victims, so no penalty longer than 21 years is allowed.
There are two reasons for jail: Applying the sentence Denying the accused the opportunity of fleeing, destroying evidence or doing the same felonies again. The last part is always a difficult one, as the accused has still not received a veredict but has his rights severely curtailed. In general it is intended as a last ditch measure, and the circumstances of the case must be considered. In this case, after Assange spent several years holed in at Ecuador's embassy in the UK, and given that he did not surrender himself voluntarily, it is not that unreasonable to believe that he would try again to flee, as the matter is not still settled and he is still at risk of being extradited. I do not know about England, but in some countries (e.g. Spain) if you are kept in preventive custody but later found to be innocent you are automatically entitled to an indemnity. Also, for the larger question, that is not true either at least in some countries. After a guilty veredict a judge may postpone incarceration while appeals are reviewed (again considering things like flight risks). Of course, if you have condemned someone who has not been given bail due to being considered too risky, they remain in jail during the process. Also Presumably, his jail term began immediately upon sentencing. In many jurisdictions, the time served before the sentence is counted towards the sentence. If you spent 4 weeks in jail before the sentence, you have already passed 4 weeks of your sentence. If the time already spent is close to the time you would have been sentenced, the sentence specifies that you are condemned &quot;to time served&quot; and released immediately.
First, the proper immediate action is to - while not leaving the judicial branch - appeal up to the next higher court. In federal courts, the lowest levels are district courts, which issues decisions appealable to the circuit courts, whose decisions are sometimes able to make their way to the Supreme Court by submitting a Petition for Writ of Certiorari. Then the Supreme Court meets and decides which appeals it will hear for the year ahead. This works similarly on a state level, except the levels of the courts may have different names (for example, Washington, DC’s trial level court is not the District Court, but the Superior Court. In Virginia, one trial court is the General District Court, which hears claims up to $25,000 and another trial court is the Virginia Circuit Court which hears other claims, and some felonies while also serving as an appellate court for the General District Court). Assuming those options have been exhausted, the reality is yeah, sometimes there are judges who will act that way. Sometimes they will get away with it because they are maintaining enough discretion, they are powerful enough, or because someone else is corrupt, too. A number of options and variables may come into play at this point. What, if any, laws exist to prevent the behavior in question? What ethics standard does the jurisdiction have (this would likely be developed by the local bar association)? Are there any other organizations he or she is affiliated with professionally? Who else knows about it, how serious is it, will anyone else speak up, etc...? Each of those variables - and likely a number of others not mentioned here - may play into the outcome. They each can serve to make one’s actions more or less easy or desirable to perform, whether by exposing and embarrassing an actor, reminding him or her of the potential legal liability associated with such actions, etc. All that said, there are limits on what a judge may or may not do. For example, in federal criminal cases, the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, rules assembled by the US Sentencing Commission that are, of course, non-binding, set a floor and ceiling on the years in prison one should be sentenced to in various circumstances with a formula used to make the calculation. It is rare (and sometimes controversial and subject to scrutiny) if a judge grossly or unreasonable deviates from the Guidelines. The intent of the Guidelines is to remove judicial bias from the doling out of prison sentences. Results have arguably been mixed. Finally, I’d be remiss not to mention that in general judicial discretion in many aspects of litigation is a desirable and useful occurrence, whether it manifests itself in the dismissal of a frivolous case or appointing counsel to an indigent defendant.
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there When we think of crime and punishment, we automatically think of a powerful central and secular government with (relatively) clear laws handing down judicial sanctions - usually of imprisonment or financial penalties but increasingly including home detention, community service, or restitution to the victim. This is all the product of post-enlightenment thinking and would be largely unrecognisable (and stupid) to our ancestors. We don't think as they did, and we struggle to get into their mindset. This cuts both ways - we are equally horrified by the Roman collective punishment of decimation as we are by the fact that a Germanic murderer merely needed to pay a weregild, the price of which was determined by the social rank of the victim - with a discount for Welshmen in Anglo-Saxon law. Categories of Punishment All punishments fall into one or more broad categories listed here in decreasing order of severity according to the Western tradition. Damnnation Because we are a largely secular society, we don't think of this as being a punishment for crime; but there was no distinction between sin and crime in the past. The beauty of this system is that no crime goes undetected or unpunished. Whether you get your punishment in Purgatory, in front of the Assessors of Maat, in Gehinnom, or Mictlān, everybody gets what they deserve. This was not just a matter between a person and god - religion was culture, culture was religion, and both were the law. For your crimes, the priesthood could make things worse in the afterlife; or for your piety, they could make things better. In the Christian tradition, we have excommunication, which cuts you off from social life (a form of ostracisation) but also put your soul in peril - if you died in this state, you went straight to hell, no passing Purgatory, no collecting $200. This could be a collective punishment, called an interdict, where the clergy would be prohibited from performing those rituals required to make one right with God, such as christenings, marriages, and the last rites. We also have Hell as the punishment for an unrepented mortal sin, most often suicide, but also unrepentant capital felons, where the Church would not perform a burial. In the same vein, post-mortem dismemberment, such as being hung, drawn and quartered, which, in a Christian tradition that looked to the literal resurrection of the body, meant that you could never be resurrected. Apparently, a God that created the Universe couldn't stick people back together. This belief faded in the wake of the Great War when the widespread use of artillery meant there were hundreds of thousands of Christian dead in bits so small that not only couldn't God stick them together again, they couldn't be identified. Execution A time-honoured staple for anything from murder, treason, and drug trafficking to worshipping in the wrong way or, in some parts of the world, being the wrong race in the presence of a police officer. Just about any way you can imagine of deliberately ending a person's life has, at some time and place, been a method of execution. Modern usage has tended towards the elimination of suffering, which gave us lethal injection, firing squad, the electric chair, long-drop hanging, the guillotine, and, in the more advanced parts of the world, the elimination of the death penalty altogether. Historical methods tended to include torture, prolongation, and humiliation as a deliberate part of the execution &quot;such as the breaking wheel, keelhauling, sawing, hanging, drawing, and quartering, burning at the stake, flaying, slow slicing, boiling alive, impalement, mazzatello, blowing from a gun, schwedentrunk, and scaphism. Other methods which appear only in legend include the blood eagle and brazen bull.&quot; And, of course, crucifixion. This can be direct punishment of the perpetrator or, for collective crimes, execution through drawing lots or decimation. Human sacrifice is generally not execution as it was usually not a punishment for a crime but a great honour for the sacrifice - even if the methods came from the same playbook. Mutilation This includes one-for-one maiming, the most famous being Exodus 21:23–27 &quot;If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.&quot; However, this was also a feature of Babylonian, Greek, Roman, and Islamic law. It also includes removing the hands of thieves, the genitals of adulterers, and the tongues of blasphemers. Blinding was also a common punishment, often politically driven, because, throughout many parts of the world, a blind person could not inherit. It also includes branding, scarification, tattooing, or mutilation of the ears or nose, but this is primarily intended as ostracisation to mark the criminal permanently (see ostracisation and humiliation below). Depending on the technique, mutilation may effectively be capital punishment. Also, some forms of corporal punishment, like flagellation and caning, may permanently scar their victim, although that is not their primary purpose. Ostricisation and Humiliation Humans are social creatures, and exclusion from or falling in standing in society is particularly devastating - particularly in a pre-modern society when ostracisation often meant death. Excommunication has already been mentioned. We also have being declared an outlaw - this wasn't, as it largely is now, a synonym for criminal - it was placing someone beyond the protection of the law, effectively making them fair game for anything anyone felt like doing to them. Exile or banishment was another punishment usually reserved for those of high standing, like nobles or royalty. Forcing people to be publicly exposed and subject to verbal and physical abuse, such as through the stocks or pillory, was common. Having convicted people bear a mark of shame or a visible mark of their crime (see mutilation above) was also common. Arguably, maintaining criminal records and sex offender registers is a form of humiliation, particularly if it is made public. Servitude From slavery, to penal servitude, to indentured service, to transportation, to modern prison workshops, if you can make someone pay for their own punishment, people will find a way to do it. However, imprisonment per see has only been considered a punishment since early modern times and came in with such strange notions as reform (hence reformatory school) and penitence (hence penitentiary). Before then, a prison was a place where you kept people while awaiting trial or punishment - or people who were just too damn dangerous to be let loose. Corporal Punishment Caning, whipping, hitting with sticks, hitting with nettles, breaking bones, holding people in painful positions, hitting with the hand, etc. These have all been (and some still are) judicial punishments as well as methods of maintaining discipline in children and military forces. Financial These are basically two types: fines paid to the government, or restitution paid to the victim or victim's family.
The phrase "of chaste life" appears in a bill passed on June 25, 1886: Whoever induces any person under the age of eighteen years of chaste life and conversation to have unlawful sexual intercourse shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison, common jail, or house of correction not exceeding three years or by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars or by both fine and imprisonment in the jail or house of correction. Note that this language is substantially similar to the language that is currently in effect; the main changes are that the penalty was changed a little, and that the phrase "chaste life and conversation"1 was replaced with "chaste life". Combined with the 1836 law found by user6726, this narrows it down to a range of about 50 years. 1 "Conversation" in the above context appears to be an archaic sense of the word meaning one's "manner of conducting oneself in the world or in society; behaviour, mode or course of life."
In the US, police do not put a person under house arrest, instead, the courts do, as an alternative to standard imprisonment (either awaiting trial, or serving their sentence). The police are not involved at all; the courts cannot be sued for lenient sentencing. If a person leaves their house (even to buy a bottle of milk), they will have violated the terms of their more lenient sentence, and will be arrested and sent to regular jail. Generally, police are not liable for damages, especially when they fail to be omnipotent in their efforts to prevent others from doing wrong.