The Con-Air Deal....denied?! Does it work that way? Con Air, an action movie released in 1997 starring Nicholas Cage, features his character cutting a deal after killing a man during a fight after being assaulted. The judge rejects this deal and sentences the character to prison for 5 years. Is that how it works? Can judges reject deals and sentence people if their guilty pleas were given on the expectation of getting more lenient treatment? This was in the federal system if that matters.
According to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Rule 11 (c)(1), there are two different ways that such a plea deal could be negotiated: Paragraph B: the prosecution agrees to recommend a particular sentence or range. Such a recommendation is not binding on the court, but would probably be followed in most cases. Paragraph C: the prosecution agrees that a particular sentence or range is the appropriate disposition of the case. If the court accepts this type of plea deal, they have to impose the agreed sentence. The court does have the power to reject the agreement altogether, but in that case the defendant can withdraw their guilty plea and proceed to trial (or go back to the bargaining table with the prosecution). So it depends on which type of deal was in place. For (B), the movie's course of events would be possible. For C, it would not.
There are a variety of reasons a judge might be disqualified. It could be that the judge was previous an attorney who represented someone (defendant, victim, key witness) involved in the case, it could be that the judge was a family member or former employer of the defense attorney, it could be that someone close to the judge or the judge personally was a victim of another crime committed by the person, it could be that the defendant or the defendant's family was a personal or family friend. The prior involvement in the protective order case could be a factor as well. The record isn't detailed enough to know. "Held" in this context means that the hearing scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on that date noted was actually conducted, rather than being continued or vacated for some reason. Your guess is as good as mine regarding "CFW" and "DB" in this context. My best guess for DB is "daily booking" and CFW might be either the removed or replacement judge's initials (e.g. Carol Francis Wilson) but those are just wild guesses. Neither appears on a list of Oregon Department of Corrections acryomns or this criminal background check abbreviation list, or this list of Oregon law enforcement abbreviations. The only matches on this list of law enforcement abbreviations and none of the matches to DB (dog bite, dead body, detective bureau) make a lot of sense in this context.
Your question slightly misrepresents what the article says: Yes, the judge denied the motion which led to the collapse of the case, he did not make a ruling on the substance of the case. The distinction is significant to my mind as the judge was using non-evidentiary knowledge (i.e. what he read in the paper) to make a decision on process; in this case a process that would have put a lot of people to a lot of inconvenience. It would not be proper for the judge to have used such knowledge to inform a judgement. It is also not clear from the article if the academic paper in question was actually introduced by the defendant as evidence. If that was the case then it is only right and proper for the judge to consider it. As to why a judge is allowed to read the news and a jury is not, I can offer several ideas: A judge must document their reasoning process in a judgement which is subject to review - if they were to make a decision based on matters not supported by the evidence then an appeals court could correct it. Alternatively, juries are specifically prohibited from revealing their reasoning process to anyone. Judges do their jobs for years, perhaps a whole career - to prohibit them from consuming media is a) unworkable and b) a serious impediment on their lifestyle. Juries are empaneled for weeks or months - such sacrifices are more reasonable. Judges are (supposedly) trained and impartial professionals who are more readily able to make the distinction between evidence and news. Newsworthy cases are relatively rare
Does the law or judge ever make exceptions for events such as this? From a legal standpoint, your friend is at high risk of being found in contempt and thus be sentenced to imprisonment. Your friend should have called 911 rather than violate the protection order under pretext of consoling her. Asking from the standpoint of whether judges ever do this or that is pointless. The answer would be &quot;yes, they make exceptions&quot; even in scenarios which are plain aberrant. However, a judge's departure of the law quite often is not a reliable standpoint for understanding the law, but the result of his/her ineptitude and unfitness for judicial office.
Well they are two distinct people, as you reveal by using plural verbs throughout your question. I don't think anyone would endeavour to argue that two conjoined twins, each possessing his own head, mind and personality, are in fact one person (is that your question?). The difficulty is criminal prosecution. Of course the guilty twin can be proceeded against and tried, but he cannot be incarcerated without unlawfully abridging the freedom of his (innocent) twin. In many jurisdictions this is simply unacceptable. The only example I was able to track down was this headline: Judge Releases Siamese Twin To Avoid Jailing His Brother http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9503EFDC1630E03ABC4A52DFB6678382639EDE Unfortunately, it is behind a paywall. If it is somehow unclear which twin is responsible for a crime committed by one of them, then in any common law jurisdiction—absence proof that they acted together—they must be both be acquitted.
First of all, the amount involved is probably a few hundred dollars, maybe a thousand: if you do not pay it is extremely unlikely that your roommate will attempt to recover. Even if they do, they will probably fail - 30 days notice is 30 days notice: unless last month was February, the 8th to the 8th is either 30 or 31 days, you have complied with the terms of the lease. If the lease had said "one named months notice" then your roommate may have a case; as it is, they don't. Is he right? No. Is there ever a case where I'm liable for pro-rated rent beyond the 30 day notice period? Only if it says so in the lease. Do I owe him rent for each day in November that the room is vacant beyond the 8th? No Would a judge make an exception in his favor since I didn't tell him I was looking for a new place to live? Judges don't make exceptions, particularly not in anybody's favour. The role of a judge is to enforce the law - not to make exceptions to it. A judge would give effect to the terms of the contract except where those terms are prohibited or against public policy.
Process And Cultural Considerations He is in prison because he pleaded guilty to the crimes he was charged with by the prosector. So, there was no trial at which evidence contesting the charges was analyzed and compared to the relevant legal standard. As the linked story reports: In court, the 33-year-old conman pleaded guilty to 12 charges of cheating that transpired from January to October 2014. The story also reports that he was suffering from severe depression at the time that he entered his plea. So, he may have been overcome with hopelessness and self-hate over ending up in his position and entered his guilty plea, in part, for that reason. Put another way, he may have pleaded guilty because he genuinely felt guilty. Also, in much of East Asia, it isn't uncommon for criminal defendants to plead guilty to charges when they feel that they indeed morally wronged the victims and were wrong in the eyes of society, even if they might have technical grounds to fight the charges legally. A decision to plead guilty in a case where there is some plausible ground upon which the defendant could dispute his guilty, isn't without justification and isn't necessarily irrational in these criminal justice systems. Determinations of guilt and innocence and sentencing decisions are both made by judges, and judges convict defendants at much higher rates than juries do, in places where there is a right to a jury trial. (Singapore, even if it has "lay judges" that are part of a panel with a regular judge, doesn't have the equivalent of a U.S. jury, and "lay judges" tend to be highly deferential to the views of the career judge leading the panel.) Pre-Western legal theory in China (and East Asia more generally, Singapore is dominated by Chinese elites even though it is ethnically diverse), there was a distinction between Confucian philosophy which placed an emphasis over decision making by enlightened "good" men, over the "rule of law" which had a connotation of being rule by devious lawyers who manipulated technicalities to pervert justice. So, societal attitudes of both every day people and elites, both in and out of the legal system, frown on and have an aversion to and skepticism of defenses to legal charges that appear to be mere technicalities that is much more vehement than it is in the West, where "rule of man" is considered undesirable and despotic, while "rule of law" is considered a key component of a just society even if it sometimes has undesirable consequences in individual cases. In addition, in much of East Asia (based upon my personal discussions with judges from many East Asian countries while I was in law school where many East Asian judges came to study during mid-career sabbaticals), judges, de facto, regardless of the applicable legal standard, often strongly presume that everything that the prosecution tells them is true and that the defendant and any witnesses supporting a defendant are probably lying. It is similar to the pro-law enforcement bias of many U.S. judges in credibility disputes, but on steroids. So, pleading guilty rather than going to trial in much of East Asia, is often simply a matter of avoiding an exercise in futility that could cause the judge to view the defendant more harshly causing the judge to impose a stiffer sentence than might otherwise be imposed for the crime. Furthermore, in Singapore in particular, and also in much of the rest of East Asia, the capacity of the general public to organize extra-legal efforts to punish someone who is widely believed to have violated social norms is considerable. In this particular case, the public had raised a substantial war chest through an internet based fund raising request, to persecute this man, and conducted an investigation whose results were used to reveal details about his personal life that he wished he could have kept private, even before charges were filed. Singapore is a city-state, so there is really no place to hide. If the public thinks that you are a crook who got away with it, the potential that the public will act on your bad reputation is great. Accepting a judicially determined punishment for your alleged crime may be the most practical way to end further extra-legal punishment for your alleged crimes. The Alleged Crime Fraud can be established if someone is actually mislead, even if the unknowingly authorize a document that somewhere contains the information. If the person promoting the scam discourages people from reading the contract language, this is particular likely, but simply having an excessively long contract that does not disclose a key term conspicuously when that key term is not otherwise brought to the consumer's attention in the transaction could also constitute fraud. Also, "scamming" or "cheating", which is what he pleaded guilty to doing, is not necessarily a charge for fraud. For example, it may be that in Singapore that charging an unconscionable price for a good or service (i.e. a price grossly disproportionate to its fair market value) is a crime in and of itself, even if there is full and knowing consent to the price. In most places, overcharging is only a crime during a natural disaster or other emergency, which is considered exploiting people in a vulnerable situation or profiteering from a disaster or crisis. But, it is also true that in most places, an unconscionable contract can be invalidated by the person victimized by it, even if the contract was validly entered into by the parties. In many places, it is a civil offense to cause a consumer to enter into an unconscionable agreement and this is punishable by restitution and a fine or penalty. Singapore is notorious for criminalizing conduct that would, in other places, only be a civil offense in other places or a basis for bringing a lawsuit or a defense to a lawsuit, so it would not be surprising to me if "cheating" was a crime separate from fraud that was easier to prove in that legal system.
You might be misreading the extradition criterion The UK–USA extradition treaty has an example of the clause you're asking about: An offense shall be an extraditable offense if the conduct on which the offense is based is punishable under the laws in both States by deprivation of liberty for a period of one year or more or by a more severe penalty. Similar wording is used in all other treaties that I have reviewed: UK–Algeria (&quot;offences which are punishable under the laws of both Parties by imprisonment or other deprivation of liberty for at least a period of one year&quot;) UK–Argentina (no extradition when &quot;the maximum punishment for the offence is imprisonment for less than one year&quot;) UK–Bolivia (same as Argentina) UK–Chile (same as Argentina) ... UK–U.A.E. (&quot;offence is based is punishable under the laws of both Parties by deprivation of liberty for a period of at least one year&quot;) If there is a treaty that requires there to be a mandatory minimum punishment of at least one year, I have not found it. While you say that &quot;[u]sually, the minimum sentence for a crime has to be 12 months for an extradition to be allowed&quot; and &quot;[e]xtraditions are based on minimum sentence in the UK,&quot; my review of the treaties makes me doubt that. The rest of this answer explains how to interpret the clauses quoted above. It is enough that the offence gives rise to the &quot;possibility of a term of imprisonment or other form of detention of more than one year.&quot; The inquiry is focused on the offence that the conduct is alleged to give rise to and the range of punishment available for that offence generally. E.g. an offence with a minimum punishment of a fine and a maximum punishment of 16 years in prison is an offence that is &quot;punishable... by deprivation of liberty for a period of one year or more.&quot; Said another way: it is not necessary that the offence have a mandatory minimum of one year imprisonment. It is enough that the offence gives rise to the &quot;possibility of a term of imprisonment or other form of detention of more than one year.&quot; See Canada v. Barrientos, 1995 ABCA 468 (CanLII) at para 103, Hetherington J., dissenting; but appeal allowed, for the reasons of Hetherington J. by the SCC in Canada v. Barrientos, [1997] 1 S.C.R. 531. In Barrientos, the courts were interpretating Article 2 of the Canada–U.S. extradition treaty, with wording substantially similar to the UK extradition treaties I reviewed above: &quot;provided these offenses are punishable by the laws of both Contracting Parties by a term of imprisonment exceeding one year.&quot; One remaining question is whether the decision-maker needs to consider the specific facts of defendant's conduct and make a preliminary estimation as to whether in fact a term of imprisonment more than one year is likely. This position has not been adopted in Canada. At the stage where a judge or Minister of Justice is determining the authority to proceed, this is not to become a &quot;sort of sentencing hearing.&quot; See USA v. English, 2002 BCSC 1902 at para 23.