CNS News tells of illegal immigrant Nicholas Martinez who was sentenced to a year in jail for drug possession and child endangerment. He was denied probation because the judge at the time found
"Mr. Martinez is illegally in the country and is in violation of the probation rules right from the start if I place him on probation," court documents quoted Judge Hannelore Kitts as saying. "He has to comply with all the conditions of the probation and he can't do that because he's in violation of the law not to violate any federal or state laws."
But in the appeals court, where ostensibly "the best of the best" judges serve, foreign invader, drug user and child endangerer Martinez is as pure as the wind-driven snow.
But on appeal, a three-judge panel threw out the sentence, based on an apparent contradiction in U.S. law. While it is illegal to enter the country without the proper documents and permissions, it is not necessarily illegal to be in the country.
In its opinion, the court explained that Congress had implicitly created the distinction: "While Congress has criminalized the illegal entry into this country, it has not made the continued presence of an illegal alien in the United States a crime unless the illegal alien has previously been deported," said the opinion.
The court also cited previous cases, including a 1958 Supreme Court case, which found that laws regarding illegal entry into the country "are not continuing ones, as 'entry' is limited to a particular locality and hardly suggests continuity."
So I guess under this twisted logic, if I break into the house or business, as long as I don't get caught in the act of breaking in, I'm no longer committing a crime once I'm in the building.
These judges supposedly are college educated?
Justice has typically been symbolized as blind, with the blind woman. Perhaps these days we should change the symbol to something representing stupidity. Our laws exist to protect the innocent, not to provide a game of legal "Twister" for judges.
4 comments:
Let me explain why your analogy (So I guess under this twisted logic, if I break into the house or business, as long as I don't get caught in the act of breaking in, I'm no longer committing a crime once I'm in the building.)and your logic is flawed.
The analogy you descibe involves two separate crimes: breaking and entering and criminal tresspass.
If you were ever arrested you would be (or could be) charged with BOTH in the analogy because they are both separate and distinct: you CAN break and enter without criminally tresspassing (example: you break open a door but don't step through the doorway, you have never the less "entered" without tresspassing) and you CAN criminally tresspass without breaking and entering (the door's unlocked and open, so you walk in, but you have not right or legal reason to be in that building).
Now, Congress also (stupidly some may argue) seperated the two and only made one a crime and the other a civil matter. In the terms of your analogy: Congress made only breaking and entering into the U.S. criminal. They did not make a crime of remaining in the U.S. (remember, deportation is a civil proceeding, not a criminal one).
Hope this helps.
I understand the distinction you made, Anonymous, and I knew that someone like you would come along and make it.
However, even if you accept that REMAINING in the US after having broken our laws and illegally entered is not a crime, the illegal alien is still a fugitive from justice on the ILLEGAL ENTRY charge, so the distinction, even if valid, is pretty much moot.
Scragged.com writers disagree. Good article on why: http://www.scragged.com/blogs/scragged/archive/2007/08/28/kansas-immigration-decision-is-good-for-conservatives.aspx They see the ruling as completely legal and proper, but also something that will anger the base.
Thanks, David. While I understand the logic behind the Scragged piece, and even agree that it might be useful to some extent, I still believe it's proper to denounce the ruling as lunacy. The illegal entry into the US--whether we turn off our brains and pretend that there's nothing wrong with being here AFTER the illegal entry--is still an infraction of the law and is still punishable. If the alleged illegal alien has no proof of citizenship, then that lack of proof is proof that he committed the crime of illegal entry. If he hasn't been prosecuted for that, then he's a fugitive from justice and charges should be pursued.
Idiot legal semantics shouldn't be permitted to thwart justice. Our justice system once understood things like "common sense" and "original intent." Now, however, it's all a game to these over-educated underminers: how can I twist the letter of the law to suit my ideological agenda?
That's not justice, but tyranny. And it leaves America wide-open to enemies...from without, and within.
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